Handmade Wedding

Planning a wedding is stressful and expensive. The simple act of getting married is easy enough but all the tradition and expectations on the big day can make a bride and groom a little overwhelmed. I have gained some experience in this area recently so here's a bit of advice.

- Remember that it is your day!
There are so many little tricks to cutting costs but the most important thing is that you still get to have it the way you want, it's a celebration, keep it fun for you. At the beginning I was a wreck trying to organise everyone and make sure all my guests would enjoy it - but I nearly turned myself inside out and my lovely fiance had to keep reminding me that it was our day!

- Invest in a notebook for all your wedding doodles.
When we first started to plan, we sat down and wrote down everything we wanted down and categorised them into wedding senarios and did a bit of research to put a cost to the senario. We chose one that was pausable and then stuck to the general guideline, attempting to stay under budget and trying to cut costs where we can. The finish product was quite different to the original senario we picked, but we actually managed to stay under budget by keeping organised.

For my fiance and I, it was really important to have a NZ made wedding, and support people like myself trying to break into the business. I looked at hundred of shops on Felt, booked a local cafe, read countless wedding blogs, carried my wedding notebook everywhere and had a 'wedding' folder on a flashdrive just incase! I had a few keywords and themes that I looked for - vintage, classic romance - which turned into red and white for our colour scheme, roses for our flower which all seems fairly traditional. I made our bouquets out of red tissue paper and florist wire about a week in advance, so there would no running around for fresh flowers that cost an arm and a leg.

I created the dresses for my bridesmaids who were three of my sisters. After my disappointing first try at these dresses I took a few weeks off to re-group. I knew I loved the fabic and drew up my own pattern so I could get the specific look. Fun fact, the pattern I drew for my bridesmaids dresses have become the Driessa Signature dress, a permanent part of my range!

 

The decorations were hand made by me and a few of my happy helpers. We made our own napkins out of recycled white embroidered rose table cloths, had white pompoms hanging from the ceiling and behind our table.  We collected about 50 different sized glass jars for our table decorations. We frosted some and put candles in them, tied bakers twine around a few, and I made some paper flowers to sit inside the rest. They looked amazing on the day!

But after all the planning, stress, dieting, make-up trials, saving and last minute dramas, it all fell into place and the thing that made it really special was the people. We had a wonderful celebrant, most of our families and friends were there and it was the most amazing day of my life!

- Quick links to help you on your big day:
Our celebrant, Miranda http://m.dzander.com/
Our venue, The Jetty Cafe http://jettycafe.co.nz/
Decoration ideas, Felt http://felt.co.nz and Etsy http://www.esty.com/weddings