Friday, September 14, 2012

A modern Wedding with a Vintage touch

Most of you will remember this bridalshower we threw a couple of weeks ago for one of my best friends, Clarissa.
I was privileged to also be the wedding planner for her and last Saturday was the big day. The day Chris and Clarissa got married! And as promised I want to show you a few pictures and explain a couple of things when it came to planning this wedding.
When it comes to weddings or any kind of event it is very important to me that the whole concept works, that every little detail we plan in there makes sense and overall fits the concept, the colours and everything we wanted it to be. The other thing which is important to me is that the wedding/event represents the couple and their style, their personality and what they want.
So after a first meeting with the two of them I sat down and created a pinterest board for them where I continuously put in ideas for their wedding. The second thing I did was creating a inspiration board with colors so that we always had something to give to people contributing to this wedding.
The first two things to look for (after choosing a date of course!) are the venue for the reception and starting the design process for the invitations.
The concept we went with for the wedding was something very modern combined with vintage touches. This represents them both the most as Chris like things to be modern while Clarissa likes vintage playful designs.
As a reception venue they chose a building by Zaha Hadid which is here nearby. It is in a beautiful place surrounded by green, trees and an old gravel plant. The perfect mix for a modern wedding with vintage touches.
For me personally the invitations are one of the most important things in a wedding mostly because it is the first thing your guests will hold in their hands. It is the first impression of a wedding and it shows what they can expect.
The invitation design was done by the groom together with a friend who loves doing designs and he was also the one who drew the map for directions. We included little details like the letter Chris wrote to Clarissa for the engagement into the design to make it really personal.
When planning a wedding or any kind of big event the most important thing is to not get tangled up in all the little details which seem to come your way. It is important to keep an overall picture and to stick with the concept. Once you have that you exclude mostly everything else which doesn't fit with the concept. That helps you being really focused. For weddings I try to put the tasks and things to do in a time frame like 6-8 months before the wedding, 3-6 months, 1-3 months, 30 days before the wedding. That way I only complete tasks which fit into the time frame. For example flowers and decorations are something that is just fun to do and look at and be inspired from but I will not even start planning that until 3 months before the wedding because other things like finding a venue, a church and designing invitations are more important before that.  Of course while researching you find things you like and you pin them but it is just very important to stay focused and complete one thing after another.
When talking to vendors I find it very important to brief them the best you can. Show them pictures, communicate as much as possible so that you get the result you desire and your wishes fulfilled.
We are privileged to go to a church with a lot of very talented people. That is why a lot of the things were done by friends like all of the decorations, the cake, the make-up and the photography.
On top of that Clarissa's maid of honor is a very creative and talented person herself who came up with some great ideas for the night.
But now let's get into their big day and I will try to explain more details with the pictures.
Chris and Clarissa got married in a beautiful church on a hill in Haltingen. The church was probably built in 1139 and is very beautiful and warm from the inside. We kept the decorations very simple and used olive and pistachio leaves and lanterns on the benches. Instead of sitting on chairs the couple sat on a old grey bench surrounded by green plants and a big lantern at their side.
As it is tradition in our region they had a small standing reception right after the ceremony and then drove off to the reception place to take photos.

While the two of them were off taking pictures I used the time to take a few pictures of the decoration and set up before the guests arrived.
 As you can see there is a lot of concrete in the building and so we used wooden elements and very simple fresh flowers for decorations. The round gift tags were tied around the napkins and the favors were wrapped up in beautiful green and pink paper. Guests could put their gifts into a big suitcase. There were two stations for the guests: A desk to write them a card or a letter and a photo station (inspiration from here) where we took Polaroids and hung them up (similar to here).
After a while guests arrived and before they entered the venue we had another standing reception with snacks and drinks and two friends played the guitar and the cajon.
Everybody was just having a good time, taking pictures together or with the couple and hanging out outside on one of the probably last real summer days.
Then once everybody entered the venue it is always so important to me that everything is set, music playing, candles lit, atmosphere right.
And that is how it was - it was beautiful. The food was buffet style and the cake was made by a family friend who is amazing! It had three layers, one with chocolate, one with cream and one carrot cake which clearly was my favorite.
Then guest were asked to take Polaroid pictures and write to the couple, there were a few speeches and a lot of dancing later.
It was really just a great time with tons of fun and good food and friends and made the day really special for Chris and Clarissa.
I hope that this day was exactly what they had in mind for their wedding. I hope that when they think back and remember their wedding it will put a smile on their face. The cool thing is that they have all the Polaroids now to look at and marvel about that time together on a late Summer evening.

Now, if you have any questions about the wedding or how to's or anything, just leave me a comment and I will try my best to answer those questions.
Feel free to pin the pictures if you want to.

xoxo

Ramona


1 comment:

  1. Wunderschön! Du hättest auch Hochzeitsplanerin werden können!!

    ReplyDelete

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