Finesse Planning Wedding Specialists

A red and white theme wedding

2009-10-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

In August I had the pleasure of working with a lovely couple Jo and Nev on their wedding at Great Tythe Barn in Tetbury.

I had met Jo the year before as she was a bridesmaid at another of my weddings and it was because of this, she saw how valuable it was to have a wedding planner and for someone to oversee their day.

The ceremony and reception were all in one place and everything went to plan, even the rain disappeared at the right points and everyone had a fantastic day. The highlight was the sky lantern release at night.

nb. Only plan a lantern release which is overseen by a professional who knows what they're doing.

Here are a few shots from their reception that I took.

I wish Nev, Jo and their gorgeous little girl Ruby the best of luck in the future life together.

http://www.finesseplanning.co.uk/

A Cotswold Dream wedding

2009-10-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy over the summer I've not had a chance to show highlights of some of the weddings I've worked on,so now it's time to put that right.

Back in August I was lucky enough to go back to Kingscote Barn in Tetbury for Emma and Luke's wedding

Kingscote Barn is a perfect wedding location as it's natural stonework and wooden floors allow any colour or theme to take hold.

Emma had chosen a heart theme with a country twist in pinks and creams and I am sure you will agree, that Emma and the venue looked gorgeous.

The photography was done by the very talented Sarah Cameron and their photos are just gorgeous, have a look at her blog to she her shots from the day. Below are the photos that I took of the reception

http://www.sarahcameronphotography.co.uk/blog/

I wish Emma and Luke a life full of as many laughs as there were on their special day!

http://www.finesseplanning.co.uk/

A little last minute change...

2009-08-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

Back in September last year I met a lovely bride called Kelly at a wedding show. After a little chat it was obvious that she needed an On the Day Co-ordinator as her wedding was going to be at a city location in Gloucester which wasn't a usual wedding venue and her family were worried that there would be no one to run the day properly. Also they were planning to decorate the venue themselves and didn't know how it was going to be done as well as everyone getting ready. Her parents thought it was a fantastic idea and after a meeting with everybody, they confirmed the booking for the wedding in May.

As I do with all weddings, we had our final details meeting about 4 weeks before the wedding and I started my work in taking over the final organisation of the wedding. However, all was not to be that simple. Five days before the wedding, Kelly phoned to tell me that the venue's owners had decided that it was impossible to hold the wedding there and that they were cancelling their venue. As you can imagine, Kelly and her finance Pete were beside themselves.

Emergency meetings were called with the owners and the family and luckily the venue's owners had a second venue in the city which was due to reopen after a refurbishment on the same day as the wedding. This venue was much better suited for a wedding and they agreed to delay their opening and for the couple to use it for their reception.

Now the work really began. I had to reassign the decortations using the items we'd already purchased and work out the logisitics of the day including the speeches and disco as well as contact all of the suppliers to ensure they knew the change of venue.

I asked the couple to print a card which could be inserted into the Order of Services explaining the change of venue with a map so the guests didn't go to the wrong place.

On the day itself, the sun was shining and everyone at the house was calm and relaxed, maybe a bit too calm, but it did give me time to go round and take some photos .

I was waiting for the cupcakes that Kelly's aunt had made to be delivered before I left and when they arrived, I was off to set up the venue!

When I arrived, the venue was let's say 'chaotic'. The problem with using a venue not used to doing weddings is there is little sense of what needs to be done and when. The staff were focusing on the kitchen as there was a large amount of food to be made and nothing had been done which I had expected. The tablecloths were unusable as they were and needed ironing so I managed to get a member of staff to iron them all for me so I could start with laying the tables. Whilst they were doing this I turned my attention to the bar areas.

Kelly was using banqueting roll for the tables in the bar so the red rose petals and candles would stand out, but the venue said it would be too much hassle. Not the attitude I have, if this is what the client wants, it's what they get! So myself and one of their staff painstakingly covered all of the 22 round tables and decorated with candles, confetti and candles, just as Kelly wanted them.

Once the tablecloths were ready I could start in the main room and managed to lay up the tables and set up the cupcakes with enough time for me to get changed before the guests started to arrive.

Kelly and Pete were thrilled with the way the venue looked and realised that there was absolutely no way it would have happened had they not had me to oversee everything. The rest of the day went exactly to plan including the sky lantern release off the roof of the building!

I wish Kelly and Pete a wonderful marriage together and hope it's not as stressful as the final week of the run up to their wedding!

www.finesseplanning.co.uk

A very striking,unique Asian wedding

2009-07-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

I always embrace a challenge and when I received a call from Sabrina about her Asian wedding this was no exception.

Until now I've not had the opportunity to work on an Asian wedding although I've researched weddings from other cultures and their traditions. Now the opportunity arose for me to learn more.

Sabrina needed someone to oversee the day itself and to have a consultation as she was struggling pulling her ideas together. She had quite strong ideas about how she wanted her wedding to look but not sure on how to do it. She wanted to break from tradition and have something very striking. We did have a consultation where we went through the budgets and also ideas for the designs. Originally, she wanted to try and get away from the traditional red and wear a green or blue dress and have a turquoise colour theme which is what we worked on, using turquoise lighting to light the room, but this soon changed and she did have red as one of the main colours.

Sabrina chose to have red and turquoise as her colours. Now this isn't a combination I would usually recommend, especially as the main hall in Cardiff City Hall in Cardiff is gold, but the carpet was red and she really wanted it to be striking and chose turquoise as this featured in her beading on her dress.

She chose to have red chair covers with turquoise sashes, turquoise tablecloths and red napkins. Her centrepieces had turquoise water and red flowers. She also added in gold flowers to pull some of the colour from the room into the design. As you can see it was a very bold effect...

Sabrina had hired seperate companies to provide the food and to provide the waitering staff so there were lots of different elements to pull together for this wedding. Andy Mousoulou was the organiser of the waitering staff and covers most of the functions at City Hall. His staff were fast and efficient at setting up the tables, so my assistant Deanne and I were able to finish the tables with the table names and favours relatively quickly. Which was just as well as the florist accidentally broke one of the goldfish bowls on the table and I had to strip the tablecloth, napkins, crockery, cutlery and chaircovers and get them dry. Wasn't an easy task with only a weak handdryer in the toilets to use! However, of course we got it done and it wasn't noticed on the day.

The stage (Mandap) was already in place by the time we got there and looked stunning set high on the stage for the ceremonial proceedings later on in the day.

Something I could not prepare myself for were the delays. I was warned that Asian weddings very rarely run to time, which for me is just something I'm not used to. Maybe overrunning by 1/2 an hour but the groom and his family were travelling from Birmingham by limosine and coach (all 130 of them). They were due to arrive at 1pm and due to them leaving very late and traffic into Cardiff they finally were in the room at 2.15pm. As you can imagine, there was a lot of changing to the schedules.

Once the groom and his family arrived, the wedding could take place. It was fantastic to watch a wedding from a different culture and understand the emotion of the day too. It's customary for the bride to be slightly shy/forlorn. The wedding itself was a Muslim wedding and as opposed to say a Hindu wedding where there is lots of music and celerbrations, a Muslim wedding is a sombre occasion as it signals the daughter leaving her family.

The bride herself isn't in the room for the Nikkah, which is the ceremony and she enters the room once the ceremony has been conducted and sits at a seperate table to the groom.

Sabrina looked just amazing in her gorgeous dress and amazing makeup and Mohammed looked very handsome too.

Her henna on her hands were something else too.

It was great to see the different style food served which although being very behind schedule went down very well. The groom was presented with special ceremonial food which was amazingly presented.

At one point I was helping the catering staff to hand out the dates which the groom's family bought to all 370 guests, that took some time!

Once the food was consumed, it was time for the bride and groom to come onto the stage for the ceremonial part of the wedding were they exchange milk, sweets and water. It was lovely to see Mohammed and Sabrina together for the first time.

Everyone came up to take photos of the couple at this point.

Shortly after the ceremonial activity it was time for the couple to leave. This is a very poignant part of the day and is very emotional for the bride's family. Sabrina and Mohammend left in a wonderful procession which was a lovely send off for them into their new married life

I would like to thank Sabrina and Mohammend for letting me be part of their big day and for giving me the opportunity to learn more about Asian weddings and their customs.

I wish them the best for their future together as husband and wife.

If you woud like to find out more about how I can help ensure your wedding day runs without any stress to you and your family then have a look at my 'There on Your Day' service on my website.

http://www.finesseplanning.co.uk/

An Intimate wedding

2009-06-09T00:43:00.000-07:00

My husband and I have been lucky enough to work with top UK photographers Damien and Julie Lovegrove over the last four years on various projects and over that time Paul and I have found a mutual love for photography.

We were delighted to be asked by some friends of a friend, if we would take some group shots for their wedding. Well obviously we said yes and said if they would be happy to, we would like to cover their whole wedding from getting ready to the first dance......lucky for us, they said yes.

We went to meet the bride, Nina and her bridesmaid, Claire at the Hotel Du Vin in Bristol where they were getting ready to do some pre wedding shots. The room was quite dark, but the bathroom which was on a mezzanine floor had a massive skylight, perfect to get these shots.

The wedding was at The Kings Arms outside Bath which is a fabulous country pub in a beautiful setting.

The couple decided to have a spiritual blessing which was led by the bride's Godmother. The couple were married the day before in a registry office to legalise the marriage.

The guests all stood in the front courtyard as the bride came through the pub into the guests.

The service was lovely and we were able to get a number of lovely shots which capture the mood.

We took so many lovely photos throughout the day. It was so relaxed and informal with the guests being treated to a fabulous Lamb Spit Roast (given to Nina and Tom by Jamie Oliver as a wedding present!). Here are a selection of our favourite shots.

We had a lovely time and would like to thank Tom and Nina for letting us photograph their wedding. To see all of the photos go to

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/finesseplanning/FinalCut1?authkey=Gv1sRgCPnj66ie2uKduQE #

If you would like to find out more about Ruth and Paul photographing your wedding, prices start from as little as £500.

http://www.finesseplanning.co.uk/

A Modern Gold and Cream Affair

2009-06-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

I've recently presented a mood board (above is a much smaller version with just a selection of images) to a client who wanted to have a gold and cream theme. Usually this would lend itself really well for a more traditional style wedding, especially seeing that it will be a winter wedding (November), but the couple wanted a modern element to the wedding.

The bride has chosen Orchids for her bouquet, which are perfect with their cream petal and gold centre, but we are also going to introduce calla lillies to the design too. The bridesmaids will have a small bouquet of calla lillies and the groomsmen will have calla lily buttonholes, but to pull the two flowers together, for the centrepieces we have chosen to combine a few different ideas from the mood board. We will be using tall centrepieces as the venue (Pittville Pump Rooms, Cheltenham) has extremely tall ceilings.

We will be using the orchids in the centre of the vases as in the left hand picture and then at the top of the vase a ring of calla lillies. Out of the top we will be using large leaves (as in the middle picture) sprayed gold coming out of the top and gold sprayed beargrass hanging over the edge with gold pearls treaded onto the ends. These are to be the main feature of the room. Very striking. We will also be using the centrepieces to put on tall white columns going up the aisle for the civil ceremony.

To add further elements of gold to the scheme, we will be using gold chargers, gold gilt chairs and we will also be using gold mood lighting to light up the coloumns and ceilings.

I'm very excited about how striking this wedding is going to look and can't wait to see the finished result!

www.finesseplanning.co.uk

Ideas for a winter wonderland wedding

2009-05-22T03:08:00.000-07:00

This week I had the pleasure of having a two hour consultation with a bride who had met me at a wedding show back in September last year. She is getting married in December and was struggling to get any ideas of themes together.

She knew that she wanted a 'Winter Wonderland' effect and their venue is The Great Tythe Barn in Tetbury and this is as far as she had got. After spending the first hour working through the budgets, we could then work through some design ideas.

The first thing was to find out what colours she would like to incorporate. Silver and white are perfect choices for a winter wonderland theme, but to stop it becoming too clinical, adding an accent colour brings a depth to the scheme. Blue is an obvious choice, but my bride liked the idea of using a dark purple. So the first area you can automatically incorporate purple is in the attendants dresses.

At first I proposed using silver willow for the centrepieces. The venue is able to accommodate taller centrepieces so using willow is a fairly cheap but effective way of doing this whilst also adding a wintery feel.

But it wasn't quite what she was looking for so I mentioned about using more traditional silver candelabras. I talked about incorporating purple flowers with silver twigs around the top of the candelabras and using tealights in frosted glass votives around the bottom which she really liked. However, this still wasn't screaming winter wonderland to me. So instead of using purple flowers,

I came up with the idea of using an icey twig or cystral wreath instead. This would give a better wintery effect. You could then add sprays of purple crystals or other decorations.

It was mentioned that they would like to cover the chairs with white covers. Personally I'm not keen on covers unless they are fitted to perfection and much prefer hiring chairs which are usually the same cost. I showed them two images so they could see the difference. They too decided that silver chairs were a lot more effective.

Although they have a good budget there are some areas that I think you should try and spend as little as possible allowing for the money to be used on things which are more important like a better menu or a live band.

One of these areas is favours. Invariably they are left behind which results in a big waste of money. When budget planning I try to spend no more than £2 per person. The bride mentioned she'd seen the idea of giving a bauble as a favour. This works really well as a placecard too, so teaming the two together will save yet more money. You could do this idea for less than £1 per person. Not only that, but we now have something to use as a theme to pull everything together. So for the placecards/favour, there are two options. 1) you choose a purpose made placecard holder 2) decorating the bauble and writing the name on it which people can take and put on their tree every year.

As in the picture of the twig wreath, smaller baubles could be placed into here.

Invitations can be easily designed using http://www.istock.com/, a website where you can purchase copyright free images to use to design stationery. Once you've chosen a design, you can then use the same image on everything from place name tags, menu cards, table numbers and invitations. I've mocked up a couple of examples which took literally minutes. You then simply get these printed and you have themed, well designed invites for less than £50.

Another way of incorporating the baubles into the rest of the wedding is to fill vases with purple and silver baubles and having them placed around the venue surrounded by tealights to make the baubles glow. You could go one step further and have vases on the edge of the aisle lining your walkway. If you are to do this, you need to tie a ribbon across the back of the top two chairs on the edge of the aisle so that guests can't access their seats via the aisle, they have to walk to the far end of the rows of chairs as to avoid them knocking them over .

To add more of a wintery effect and not blowing the budget, having large planters filled with silvery/white willow covered in fairylights adds a magical and beautiful effect to the room.

I think it is safe to say that my client was very happy. She now not only has a firm budget but also a theme for her wedding and a list of my recommended suppliers for her to contact which will save her both time and money. Not only that she's booked me as her On The Day Co-ordinator, so she really does know now that she'll have an amazing wedding as I will be there to help create the Winter Wonderland she wants.

www.finesseplanning.co.uk

What food to provide for an evening reception?

2008-04-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

When budget is a constraint it's very difficult to decide on how to provide food for your evening reception.

A usual hotel facility will usually charge anywhere between £13-£17 per head for a finger buffet. They will also usually want you to cater for a minimum number, eg 75%. If you were having 120 guests, you would be looking at spending £1170! This for a couple with a budget of £10,000 is over 10% of the total budget.

When considering what to do for the evening reception there are a few things you need to consider,

How many more people will there be to the evening reception?

How far are my evening guests travelling?

When would my daytime guests have last eaten?

There are plenty of options available even within the restrictions of a hotel.

One of the cheapest options available is to provide bacon and sausage (vegetarian options) rolls. Usually you will still be looking at approx £5-£6 per head. However, if you were to not serve your wedding cake with coffee and serve it with the evening buffet, this would fill out your evening fayre.

Another cheaper option, if the venue allows is to have a hog roast. I have paid as little as £400 for a full hog roast, with baps, apple sauce and crackling for 200 rolls. Ask the venue to supply 3 large bowls of different salads at about £10 per bowl and for less than £500 you have an impressive evening buffet which will feed everyone.

For those of you who are restricted by the budget and simply don't have the money to spare, ensuring there are plenty of bowls of nibbles around for people to eat as well as the wedding cake will help at least soak up some of the alcohol. Look at serving giant pretsels, tortilla chips and dips, grisini breadsticks to add something a bit different to the usual bowls of crisps.

www.finesseplanning.co.uk

How to Personalise Your Wedding

2008-04-22T11:16:00.001-07:00

When planning a wedding it is easy to get lost in all of the different aspects involved and even easier to lose sight of what you actually want.

Following a few simple rules and guidelines will ensure that your wedding will reflect your personalities and styles and will add aspects that will ensure your guests know that it is your wedding.

The most important thing to remember is that the day is about you and your partner and this should be reflected throughout the wedding.

Choose a theme that reflects you whether it is a favourite colour, a sport, a hobby and use it to personalise things. However, do not combine different themes, choose one and stick to it.

Once you have chosen your theme, it is a great idea to produce a ‘mood board’. It is all too easy to save pictures that you have seen and swatches of fabrics you like in a file, but until you put them all together it is hard to see what does and doesn’t work. Make as many mood boards as you want, to see what works well. You can then use this to show to your suppliers who will instantly understand what look you are trying to achieve.

Make sure though that you don’t go over the top. It is easy to get carried away. Choose a number of elements that you can personalise such as invitations, centre pieces, attendants outfits, flowers, even music but make them impressionable. To add too many things will over power the wedding and any impact could get lost. Have just a few bold items, this could be large flower displays, an amazing cake design or the use of coloured lighting and then finish off the theme with smaller details.

Finally, don’t forget your budget. Theming a wedding usually involves the finer details of things and last minute ideas and changes can seriously alter your budget. If you choose a theme from the beginning, brain storm the different aspects that you want to incorporate into it, then you can budget for them accordingly.

By following these simple guidelines you will be ensuring your guests will walk away not only impressed but knowing that it was definitely your wedding and no one else’s.

www.finesseplanning.co.uk

It's time I shared some of my wedding knowledge!

2008-04-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

So, here it is, the first of my blogs to help those of you getting married or involved in the planning process. As a wedding & events planner I have lots of tips and advice on how to plan your wedding or event with less stress and more money in your pocket. I will be providing tips and solutions to all parts of the wedding planning process and will be updating you on my day to day antics as I plan other people's events.

Everytime I come across something new that I think should be shared, I will let you know.

When I try something new and want to share, I will let you know.

When I have got something wrong, I might not be so quick to let you know.

I hope you enjoy my blogs and that I can help you plan a successful and unique event.

Ruth

www.finesseplanning.co.uk