Colourful Coral Home Made Multicultural Wedding

Colourful Coral Home Made Multicultural Wedding

via

It was so hard to choose the images for this wonderful wedding celebration today. As there were two wonderful days of celebration for this couple's union to squeeze into one feature.

Wendy and Sunny were married over a weekend back in August and combined their two cultures by holding a Sikh wedding before their civil wedding. They hoped to create a wedding which was fun, colourful and home made while showing off their personalities.

There is so much loveliness. I adore the colour, the portraits and the crafted touches. A huge amount inspiration right here to get your creative juices flowing this morning.

Thanks so much today goes to the ever brilliant Babb Photo for providing the images.

THE PROPOSAL | Sunny proposed on my birthday last year. He creatively used a birthday cake by resting the engagement ring on an iced treasure chest.

THE VISION | Because we are from different backgrounds, we wanted our wedding celebrations to reflect both of our cultures. We had a Sikh wedding, the religious element to our union, the day before the civil ceremony, which celebrated our personalities and love. We wanted the wedding events to be fun, colourful, home made, original, romantic and a bit vintage.

THE PLANNING PROCESS | After the engagement, we had just over a year until our wedding. Many possible key dates unfortunately clashed with the 2014 world cup, so we looked at all the free dates. The small matter of The World Cup and Sunny's obsession with football meant that many of our initial dates were ruled out straight off.

A huge list was written, venues were shortlisted and areas were delegated to each other to research. Once we had booked our venue, we prioritised the task list, and created a timeline. We began with the simple task of making the Save the Date notifications for guests. Pinterest provided us with so many ideas and was my saving grace for wedding decoration ideas. Crafty websites like Martha Stewart were great for ideas and inspiration.

BUDGET | The whole event was much more of an expense than we imagined, and we had certainly not taken into account the impact throwing two events would have on our budget. However, on reflection, it was definitely money well spent. Someone once told me that you can't put a price on this once-in-a-lifetime party that you throw for all your favourite friends and family. If we were to do it all again, we wouldn't change cut anything out!

THE VENUE | 8th August, Ealing Gurdwara. 9th August Ealing Town Hall.

THE DRESS & ACCESSORIES | 8th August - For our Indian wedding, I wore an anarkali style Indian floor length dress with all the traditional accessories. My Indian veil was very decorative with flowers and I had henna on both my feet and hands.

9th August - I wore 1950's bride style. The dress had capped sleeves, with a lace Illusion Neckline and beaded lace appliqué over lay. I wanted to have very different looks for the different events, and I knew I wanted a petticoat underlay. I incorporated the coral theme in my bouquet, shoes and belt and accessorized with a birdcage veil.

FINDING THE DRESS | Orange and coral were our main wedding colour. The Anarkali dress was a gift from Sunny's mother and was created in Chandigarh, a town in Punjab, India. For the civil ceremony I was hooked on a vintage theme, and was seeking a true vintage 1950's dress. This proved to be more involved than I was willing to dedicate time to. I ended up buying a replica 1950's petticoat dress from a leading bridal store. The dress was light, beautiful and fitted perfectly. I accessorised with a petticoat underlay with coral ribbon trim and I made a coral velvet ribbon belt with a vintage buckle that I had sourced.

GROOM'S ATTIRE | 8th August - Sunny wore a traditional Sherwani for our Indian wedding. In true Indian style, this was blinged up with diamantes, sequins and a lot of hand-worked embroidery. This was finished with an orange stoll, or scarf, which matched my dress anarkali dress.

9th August - For the civil wedding, Sunny wore a made-to-measure mid blue three piece suit, tailored by October House, teamed with a bespoke diamond tip coral bow tie. Dark brown brogues and a white silk pocket square finished the look. A mandatory bow tie dress code for male guests was a success, and added a fun element to the day.

THE READINGS & MUSIC | My dear friend Brian very kindly offered to play the piano before and after our ceremony. He wonderfully created arrangements for 'Part of your World', taken from The Little Mermaid, to beautifully accompany me walking up the aisle, and then followed this with 'Wouldn't it be nice', by The Beach Boys for our walk out after the ceremony.

We had three readings in between the ceremony sections; My sister read 'A vow', by Wendy Cope, Sunny's brother read 'Apache Blessing', anonymous, and Sunny's aunty read 'The Invitation', by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

BEAUTIFUL BRIDESMAIDS | I wanted my bridal party to represent the different stages of my life, so I chose my closest friend from childhood, university and work as my bridesmaids. They took on much responsibility throughout, from organising the hen weekend's fun and frolics, to keeping me calm on the morning of the wedding, and handing out glow sticks bracelets during the dancing at the evening reception.

I wanted the girls dresses to be coral in colour, but this proved hard to buy off the rack. Online company For Her and For Him helped me find the solution as they offer such a wide range of looks and colours. We decided on a 1950's feel vintage number with cap sleeved - this complemented me perfectly.

THE FLOWERS | The flowers were by Meshane, at Everything Rosy Ltd. Her brief for the flowers was simple - they had to be colourful and fun, with a vintage feel. The results were amazing. She listened throughout and was so helpful in our planning process which helped create the exact look we were after.

For the Indian wedding we had basket arrangements of roses, stocks, fillers and foliages with peach and apricot of gerberas.

In the Town Hall, our flowers were of a polychromatic colour mix and featured; peonies, gerberas, and gypsophila. The bridal bouquet had the featured peach and coral peonies, gloriosa and roses. The bridesmaids had a smaller version of this, with added vintage carnations and small headed roses. With Meshane's help we designed a half moon floral arch with roses, peonies and hydrangeas. Everyone commented on how lovely the flowers were and I am glad we decided to make them a real feature of the day.

THE CAKE | The cake is always my favourite part of any wedding I attend. I wanted a wow factor statement so I decided to upcycle a vintage dressing table to use as the cake table. The wedding cake was a team effort; my mother made the three tier fruit cake, my bridesmaid Helen's mother iced white brushed embroidery to imitate a doily with brightly coloured iced flowers and ribbon. And Sunny's mother knitted the cake topper birds which I subsequently decorated them with their details.

YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER | The wonderful Laura Babb. Laura had been great support with words of wisdom from the start. Her ability to creatively capture the very special moments was the reason we hired her. Laura had recently been the photographer at another wedding at the same venue, a few months prior to ours. She gave us some invaluable advice on lighting and surrounding locations. We decided to meet for a pre wedding shoot, which really helped us relax on the big day. During the morning of the wedding, Laura felt like one of the wedding party, and it was like having a friend taking our pictures. She was exceptional at managing the family when we had group shots. We were so happy when we received our photos from our special day - Laura really had captured all of our favourite moments.

THE DETAILS & DÉCOR | The decoration was a very important part of the civil ceremony and reception for me. The venue has gorgeous stained glass windows and we wanted to work with the natural light. We draped the hall walls with ivory voiles, and threw some light on these with natural toned uplighters. From the ceiling we added sail canopy panels.

For the ceremony we had a personalised aisle runner with our initials and the floral half moon arch. We hired limestone chiavari chairs, and threw some colour on these with an assorted collection of paper poms. We decorated the drinks reception with flower displays in teapots and milk jugs, floral bunting and paper mache words of love. There was a play area with toys for the kids, and a modern string quartet helped create a fun and relaxed atmosphere. Around the room we displayed a collection of photos of us with our guests over the years.

For the wedding breakfast, table centres were decorated with vintage doilies, hand dyed by me to match the polychromatic colour theme. The table plan was presented in a vintage suitcase with guests' names listed on hanging luggage tags. The flower centerpieces were placed in jam jars, decorated with paper doilies and decorative cut glass, and finished with ribbon and lace. On the table were vintage paper hand fans for guests to cool themselves. The name places were made on card with a doily twist, and our favours were personalised sticks of rock. To entertain guest during the evening reception we had a vintage themed photo booth.

THE HONEYMOON | A tour of Rajasthan, India. A great way to unwind and debrief after all the months of chaos and madness!

MEMORABLE MOMENTS | Everyone commented on all the details and on reflection we are pleased we spent the time making props. The wedding had a lovely handmade vintage feel and everything worked to plan. It was the most enjoyable time of our lives and we loved every minute. There was lots of fun going on, and it continued right up to the last song the DJ played. Each moment passed so quickly and we would have done anything to press pause and absorb it all. Our friends and family had a great time, which created a lovely atmosphere of smiles and laughter, and when the evening reception began, folk were in the mood to dance their socks off. It really was a cracking party!

ADVICE FOR OTHER COUPLES | Share the workload, it is no fun as a solo bride. Really enjoy your food tasting as you may not have the chance to enjoy the wedding breakfast due to lack of time or nerves! A videographer is worth the cost as it has been so lovely to watch our wedding day back.

Remember things will go wrong on the day, but these tend to all be minor and guests wont notice - certainly don't let it affect you on the day. Most of all, relax and enjoy your day. It takes months of hard work and preparation so try and take it all in and enjoy it.

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE |

Photo Booth | The Photo Emporium

Videographers | The Wonderful Wedding Films

Photography | Babb Photo

Pom Poms | Paper Poms

Flowers | Everything Rosy

Wedding styling | By me: [email protected] - Planning our wedding has inspired me to begin work as a wedding stylist, as I know first hand what is like to generate a wedding from just a theme, which then leads to table settings, props, lighting, glassware and even like in my case, furniture. My own wedding proved that detail is an important part of your wedding day, however you present it.

Cake | Team effort from family and friends

Venue | Ealing Town Hall

Dress | Davids Bridal Oleg Cassini range

Suit | October House

Simply stunning.

Thank you so much Wendy and Sunny for sharing your amazing story with us today XOXO Lou

تسجيل الدخول للتعليق

Follow us on