mini-break :: birmingham

We met up with E + M last weekend and took the train to Birmingham for the Designer Vintage Bridal Show which was amazing! Not only did I meet Rock 'n' Roll Bride and Love My Dress, but I discovered some amazing wedding suppliers such as Vintage Glamour Days specializing in afternoon tea and vintage china hire and Debbie Carlisle Bouquets that makes bespoke vintage wedding bouquets and accessories - beautiful! It was an amazing show, so if you are in the area, keep an eye on their website for the next event.

 

 

Check out the post by Rock 'n' Roll Bride here for more pictures (<- much more amazing than mine!).

This church was across from the Bullring (one of the largest shopping malls in the UK). Love the teeny balcony on the bottom right hand corner. You can click on the picture to enlarge it. 

Across the street is the Bullring Open Market which pretty much has everything - food, curtains, fabric, haberdashery, electronics, underwear, clothing, shoes... you name it! All for pretty reasonable prices too. That entire bowl of lemons, tomatoes or oranges for £1 or approx. $1.58 CDN. I could never find that in Vancouver!

real weddings :: jeanette and cassian

Came across this the other day and realized that I had never posted it. Better late than never! Here is a same day edit of Jeanette and Cassian's wedding by Cloud Nine Creative. Thanks to Nicole from Down the Aisle for helping out with this one!

events :: bridal swap

After many trips to the floral wholesaler looking at vases and visits to Ikea, I am so happy to tell you about Vancouver's first Bridal Swap! Connecting past brides and brides to be, Bridal Swap is the place to buy and sell gently used wedding items. Perfect opportunity to clean out your closets, re-live some of the wedding excitement, make some money and give your treasured items a new home!

Here are the event details:

Where: Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street Vancouver

Date: Sunday, February 20th, 2011

Time: 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Cost: $10 in advance, $12 at the door

Interested in selling your goods? Tables are $75 to $125. Early bird rates available. Contact Dreamgroup for details.

Cleaned out your place already? Only have your wedding dress left? No problem! Click here for more information about consigning your dress.

wedding feature :: poppytalk

images by Ophelia Photography

The new Poppytalk market launched their Wedding and Valentine's event "Love Transforms" yesterday. To kick off their featured wedding series during this month, they posted Aaron and Jay's wedding from last July. Hooray!

Check out the full details and more images here or see our past blog post here.

a prepping we will go

We have been busy prepping our booth space at Indie I Do this year. Want a little something of your own? Come visit us and pick up your own mini notebook. Perfect for jotting down those wedding plans and as an added bonus, there's a little coupon code for those looking for some extra hands to bring together their special day!

Whew. Booth designing is exhausting. Especially when you realize that half the items you could be using is traveling across the world right now to our new home. So, a thrifting we will go! Hoping to find some hidden treasures for a few final touches.

See you there I hope!

vendor feature :: Lions Gate Designs

For all you lovely brides looking for a way to incorporate family jewelry into your wedding or want an alternative to fresh flowers, check out these lovely vintage brooch bouquets by Lions Gate Designs. You can check out more of her work on etsy.

style me pretty

I have been a big fan of the Style Me Pretty blog. It's chock block full of wedding design, inspiration and pretty pictures! The wedding industry went into a bit of a buzz earlier last week when SMP launched the Style Me Pretty Magazine! If you already follow the blog, you may recognize some of the images as the first issue features the best of 2010.

Don't let that stop you though. Just keep turning those pages back and forth and ooh and aahh along with the rest of us.

events :: indie i do

An alternative to the cookie cutter wedding ....

Where one size does not fit all ...

Encouraging you to think outside the box ...

Join us for Vancouver's third annual alternative wedding show, Indie I Do, which pairs the traditional with the non-traditional. 

Here are the event details:

Date: Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

Time: 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Location: Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street Vancouver

Tickets are $15.00 in advance which can be purchased here or $20.00 at the door. You can find more information about the show including a list of exhibitors at www.indieido.com.

******************

Want to attend as our guests? Email lotus events here and enter to win a pass for two! Limited free passes available. Contest ends Friday, January 14th at 5:00 p.m. (PST). 

Etsy Finds Friday

Etsy Finds Friday is a speckle of random things that have caught my eye on etsy.com. Great ideas and lots of inspiration for your upcoming wedding or to add a little handmade love to your life.

photo credit go to the respective shops listed below

(From left to right)
Top: Something's Hiding in Here, Jumi Felt by JurgitaMi, LBC paper

Middle: Fink Shop, Topsy Turvy Design, Stemellina

Bottom: Tuliya, Sarah Anntiques, Swank Under Pinnings

vendor feature :: Hello! Lucky

(image via Hello! Lucky)

Have you heard of Hello! Lucky Stationery? If not, you should really step out of your cave and get ready to check out some of their amazing stationery designs. Hello! Lucky is a specialty letterpress print and design studio that creates wedding invitations, greeting cards and personalized stationery.

With offices in San Francisco and in London, UK, they have an amazing client list including Anthropologie, Kate's Paperie and Liberty of London. If that wasn't enough, they are also the authors of Handmade Hellos, a card crafting book featuring fresh greeting card projects from first rate crafters and have a second book called Handmade Weddings coming out in January 2011.


You can check out Hello! Lucky's portfolio here or be inspired by their blog found here. Interested in adding a DIY touch to your special day? Check out their easy to follow guides and templates as part of Martha Stewart Weddings to make your own projects such as the crepe paper flowers pictured above, donut hole bags, glass glitter crowns to name a few. Enjoy! Happy making!

Etsy Finds Friday

Etsy Finds Friday is a speckle of random things that have caught my eye on etsy.com. Great ideas and lots of inspiration for your upcoming wedding or to add a little handmade love to your life.

photo credit go to the respective shops listed below

(From left to right)
Top: Timeless Vixen Vintage, The shop at no 144, MagnolijaDRESS

Middle: Bayan Hippo Handmade, Lions Gate Designs, zwzzy

Bottom: Sparky Jones, hey chica, silvia66

wedding :: aaron + jay

(image by Ophelia Photography)

Sometimes it takes me absolutely forever and back to post about weddings that we have coordinated. Partly due to the fact that a) I always forget to bring the camera b) My pictures are not the greatest c) I'm bad at following up on wedding pictures.

So here you go, my friends .... and if you missed it, you can see more images and Aaron and Jay's feature on Rock n' Roll bride!

Believe it or not, Jay and I met a few years ago when we both worked in the parade at the PNE. That's right. 17 days straight of parade goodness times two times a day for a total of 34 parades together. Fast forward a few years and I run into him at Got Craft where he and his wife Aaron (Locomotive Clothing), would later become vendors at.

Think gingham table cloths, Petunia on stage, Pop Shoppe soda, tons of bunting, fresh flowers in mason jars and tons of handmade charm! Check out these hand written name tags to encourage guests to keep their glasses and reuse them throughout the festivities.

Aaron and Jay wanted a ' Vancouver Special' themed buffet, so food included viet subs from a local mom and pop shop that they often visited, honey doughnuts from Deep Cove, sushi from Nikkyu Sushi - the place they first met and of course 160 cupcakes by the lovely Coco Cake Cupcakes!

You can check out Lynday's pictures and post here! Happy! Happy! Congratulations!

wedding ideas :: buttons

photo credit: Tracey L. Heppner

Loving these button boutonnières spotted on @traceyheppner 's twitter feed a while back. Interested in finding some of your own for your upcoming wedding or just to add a little "wow" to your outfit? Check out Laurie Cinotto's website here and if you are a kitten fanatic like myself, you can also check out her kitten website here.

pastries ... life ... things to come

I know it's been a week since I last posted. It's been a bit crazy with contract work, weddings and the upcoming Got Craft holiday show. Not to mention that I have 12 days of craft fair shows to prepare for this year. Yeah, what was I thinking? Gah!

Yesterday was the first day off that we had for a long time. I'm proud to say that the only thing we had listed in the calendar was dinner at Vij's with friends moving to Vernon next week, but my goodness, we fail at doing nothing! With lotus events, there seems to always be something that can be worked on and I'm so used to doing multiple things at a time, that I just don't know what to do with myself when asked to relax. Well, besides napping. I'm a champion napper.

Hoping to post some past weddings, tons of wedding inspiration, our plans to move to London and life soon. There is plenty to share, but if you do encounter a long period of silence from this blog, check over at Got Craft and if you still don't see any new posts, then I'm most likely buried under a pile of fabric and paperwork.

Psst... New Town Bakery in Chinatown has the best butterfly pastries in Vancouver. I've been eating these since I was a little girl when my family would go shopping in Chinatown each Saturday. So flaky, buttery and the edges are dipped in sugar giving it an extra crisp! For 85 cents plus tax, you can't go wrong.

wedding ideas :: photo centerpiece

found via indie fixx from Martha Stewart.com

Great idea for incorporating your family photos into your wedding decor. Black and white photos are printed onto ecru coloured vellum paper set around voltive candles to highlight the images. You can check out a full tutorial over on the Martha Stewart website found here.

Etsy Finds Friday

Etsy Finds Friday is a speckle of random things that have caught my eye on etsy.com. Great ideas and lots of inspiration for your upcoming wedding or to add a little handmade love to your life.

photo credit go to the respective shops listed below

(From left to right)
Top: Lisa's Retro Style, Minx Shop, Sprout Studio

Middle: MXM Jewelry, Cosas Minimas, Lisa's Retro Style

Bottom: Golden Ponies, The Clasp of Isis

wedding ideas :: chilling out

image and tutorial via martha stewart weddings

Looking for a new way to keep your drinks icy cold? Encase them in icy, fruit-filled molds!

Place a full bottle into a fully opened cardboard half-gallon milk carton. Insert flowers or thinly sliced fruit (we've used nasturtiums, lemons, and limes) around the bottle, filling one third of the carton. Pour water into the container, just covering the fruit and flowers. Place the carton upright in the freezer. When the liquid is completely frozen, add another layer of fruit and very cold water, and freeze. Repeat, filling and freezing a third of the carton at a time, which prevents all the fruit and flowers from floating to the top until the water reaches the bottle's neck. Remove from the freezer when it's time to serve the vodka: Cut away the milk carton with a utility knife; wrap a dinner napkin around the bottle's base, and serve the vodka with slices of lemon zest tied in knots.

Etsy Finds Friday

Etsy Finds Friday is a speckle of random things that have caught my eye on etsy.com. Great ideas and lots of inspiration for your upcoming wedding or to add a little handmade love to your life.

photo credit go to the respective shops listed below

(From left to right)
Top: blueberry shoes, MXM Jewelry, Darlingtonia Moccasin Co.

Middle: Whimsy & Spice, Perty.ful.Tings, Heidi Creations

Bottom: Carol Hannah, little pretties, white owl

thanks union photography!

Robert and I had the pleasure of working with Holly and Roger from Union Photography last year on this wedding (not their photos!). Holly and Roger are super fun, super professional, super fab photographers and Holly's laugh, I swear, is contagious! I bump into Holly every now and then at various handmade markets around Vancouver as well as a few times over Twitter, but was super surprised to receive a package in the mail from them.


A package for us!? What could this possibly be? Well, let me tell you what was inside!

A wedding hero survival kit complete with:

1. A squeeze doll - Squeeze any stress away!
2. Epsom Salts - to soak your weary toes in!
3. Chocolate - For those times when you don't get the chance to eat!
4. Champagne - Celebrate a job well done!
5. Ear plugs - In case the band plays too loudly!
6. Tylenol - Enjoy responsibly!

Thanks Roger and Holly! Such an original idea! Love it!

Etsy Finds Friday

Etsy Finds Friday is a speckle of random things that have caught my eye on etsy.com. Great ideas and lots of inspiration for your upcoming wedding or to add a little handmade love to your life.

photo credit go to the respective shops listed below

(From left to right)
Top: Peppermint Cloud, Chouettes, Vigilante Laboratories

Middle: Sapti, Pasaii Paperie, Mia Beads

Bottom: Chloe and Maddie, Faith and Franny, A.J. Machete and Sons Clothier