Manolo for the Brides

Yes, you read that right. I’m talking about cake hats. For those who want to top their wedding cakes with something other than the usual bride(s) and/or groom(s) statuettes, sparkle monograms, and anthropomorphic animalia, Alison Dawson of Toronto, Canada founded Chapeau de Gateau.

Dawson creates custom cake hats using the finest quality Mokuba ribbon, and each wedding cake topper is made with the couple’s wedding colors or theme in mind. Or, if you already have a cake design in mind, I’m thinking you could have a ribbon model of your wedding cake created in miniature. (Put a hook in it and you have a keepsake decoration — I’m thinking a wedding cake on your Christmas tree.)

I definitely don’t hate cake hats, since they’re rather pretty and you’re not going to see them on every other wedding cake. I do think they’re a bit silly, but these are wedding cakes we’re talking about here. How dignified can a cake possibly be? Conversely, how much will a wedding cake’s innate dignity suffer if you put a little fancy hat on it? My guess: Not much.

What say you?

When I was small, grape hyacinths were my absolute favorite flower. They grew in abundance in our neighborhood, and I routinely found myself in trouble for picking them in neighbors’ yards. As tiny as grape hyacinth blossoms are, I never really considered how they might be used in wedding flowers like bridal bouquets and reception centerpiece arrangements. Until, that is, I came across a beautiful photo of a grape hyacinth and paperwhite bouquet created by Flowers by Paula Cosgrove in the hands of a bride.

Pretty sweet, yeah? I love the delicacy of the flowers in the bouquet, and especially how they contrast with the thickness of the base of the bouquet. I was inspired to look for more grape hyacinths being used in weddings and, while there’s not much out there in terms of photographs from real weddings (since it’s not the most popular choice), I did find some imagines that you may find inspirational.

What do we have here? Have a look (in a clockwise direction):

1. Grape hyacinths in a recycled clementine container from Real Simple – this would be such an easy DIY centerpiece at a semi-rustic wedding!
2. Grape hyacinth invites from The Botanical Concept
3. A bouquet of naught but grape hyacinth In Style Weddings
4. A bright and colorful grape hyacinth centerpiece in tin from BHG
5. Grape hyacinth boutonnieres by Belle Fleur of New York
6. And grape hyacinth wedding favors laid out on table settings

Flowers are lovely. Flowers are traditional. Flowers are expected at weddings…but they aren’t for everyone. You – or someone else in the wedding party may have bad allergies. You may be concerned about the environmental impact of large numbers of cut flowers. You may just want your wedding to look unlike others you’ve seen. It doesn’t really matter what your reasons are. You don’t need to explain them to anyone else or apologize for them. You just need some ideas from outside the box.

If you don’t want flowers but still want to go organic, consider other plants, such as fruit:

or vegetables:

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Romantic? Check. Elegant? Check. A little bit out of the ordinary? Check. A pink and gold wedding palette is perfect for the feminine bride who wants to plan a wedding that could be described as magical and lovely. Though this palette skyrocketed in popularity after the modern movie version of Marie Antoinette, a pink and gold wedding palette doesn’t have to be inspired by the French Court by default. As pretty as it is, the pink and gold wedding can also be modern.

So what do we have here? Traveling in a vaguely clockwise pattern, there are natural branches studded with tufts of fluffy garden stock blossoms from a party hosted by Tracy Metz, a striking pearl and bird necklace designed by kgarnerdesigns, a lovely soft pink wedding dress by Alisa Benay for 100 Brides for $100K, a pink wedding cake with delicate gold embellishments from The Wedding Cake Shoppe, a gorgeous handpainted wedding invitation from Momental Designs, freaking amazing shoes from Haberdashery Boutique, a delicate rose gold filigree bracelet, and a snapshot from a real wedding that included antique gold bridesmaid dresses from Vera Wang.

The pink and gold wedding palette is truly as sweet as can be!

Everywhere I look lately I’m seeing carnations being used in weddings… more and more often, carnations are appearing in ceremony decor, reception table centerpieces, bridal bouquets, and elsewhere. Truth be told, once upon a time I might have been surprised. Carnations, to me, were the flowers one finds in the cheap corsage the senior prom date purchases minutes before picking up his date or the bouquet hastily bought at the gas station to apologize for some misdeed. But done right, carnations in weddings are beautiful and shockingly elegant.

Far from being just a filler flower, carnations have the most impact when used as the sole bloom in a wedding arrangement. Because of the way their petals are formed, carnations are best used in a big bunch, like in these carnation wedding topiaries from PD Bloom. But that’s not all!

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Over the past few seasons, the color combination of chocolate brown and Tiffany, robin’s egg, or baby blue has reigned supreme. Now, though, it seems folks are ready for a change. The hot new color combo according to the gurus is purple and red.

This colorway can wind up looking like you’re getting married in the middle of a meeting of the Red Hat Society:
but it doesn’t have to. Don’t believe me? Take a look after the cut and see the possibilities.
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Hosting a wedding reception means serving refreshments… no exceptions. And it doesn’t matter if you’re planning on digging into cake and champagne or looking forward to a seven course gourmet reception dinner, you have to provide somewhere for guests to sit and enjoy their repast. While it’s entirely possible to wine, dine, and entertain your wedding guests without assigned seating, I’d venture to say that most brides and grooms create seating charts to avoid the possibility of wedding guests bum rushing the good seats as soon as the reception venue doors open.

One can, of course, order a custom seating chart and place cards that wouldn’t look out of place in a calligrapher’s portfolio or create a seating chart and place cards using one’s home computer. These can be spiced up by creatively naming tables with monikers such as elements from the periodic table or cities known for being romantic. Then again, don’t discount the idea of really working your theme into your reception seating chart, like so:

Created by Bellinter House in Ireland, this clever multi-part seating chart features muddy wellies flocked by farm scenes in miniature, complete with grass fields and livestock. Topping it all off were table cards named after various breeds of cow.

I love it! Piggies and wellies wouldn’t have fit into my wedding theme — which was simply “wedding,” if you can call that a theme — but for an upscale farmhouse affair, it would be divine. It’s cute, a little quirky, and potentially inexpensive if you happen to have a large family living in a rainy clime. However, I do believe I would have left the mud out of doors where it belongs, which I’m sure most reception venues would appreciate.

What say you?

(Photo by Jeni Glasgow)

I know, I know. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking ‘balloons’ is Junior’s third birthday party, not a chic wedding reception. But while it’s common to think of balloons as juvenile, don’t discount them just yet.
Done wrong, they’re admittedly ghetto unfabulous. Done right, balloons at wedding receptions can be quite pretty… but there are a few tricks to using them in your wedding decor. First, think of balloons as auxiliary reception decor, not the focal point. Balloons work best as wedding reception decor when they fade into the background. Second, wedding balloon bouquets and other novelty balloon creations? Pass. And third, stick to plain latex balloons. Mylar balloons really are for the kiddies.

For those brides and grooms even considering using balloons in their reception decor, here are the dos and the don’ts:

DO treat balloons as a means of camouflaging boring or ugly reception venue ceilings. A mass of subtly colored helium balloons with dangling strings bobbing just below a very high ceiling can look rather ethereal. A somber space can even become rather radiant with the judicious application of lighting and balloons. Rather not use helium? Balloons can be hung upside down from ribbons strung from wall to wall.

DON’T look to your senior prom for inspiration. I’m sure plenty of us remember the sand-filled, cellophane-wrapped centerpieces that serve no purpose other than using up space on a table and keeping a bunch of balloons from floating into space. These are not, I repeat not, elegant. They’re shiny, and there’s a difference.

DO stick to a simple color palette. Pastels work surprisingly well, possibly because the subdued hues let the balloons become an innocuous splash of color that blends into a larger decor scheme. In other words, think of balloons like filler flowers rather than the main blossom. They shouldn’t be standing out.

DON’T go overboard. If you have balloons floating above, don’t also have balloon columns flanking the doorways and a balloon arch over the cake and balloons tied to tables and a balloon tunnel leading into the ballroom. In fact, don’t have large archways or tunnels at all. Use balloons sparingly at in your reception space for the best results, lest your wedding end up looking like a Sweet 16 in the 80s.

DO go for larger balloons when your balloons will be tethered to a table, as seen in the first pic in this white wedding color scheme post. Bigger balloons, oddly enough, look less like balloons and more decorative, like rice paper lanterns or globe lights (especially when backed by some kind of light source).

And finally DON’T do this:

I’m not even sure what *this* is and why it was done, but just don’t.

So before I tell you what I think of this week’s LOVE/HATE, I have a confession to make. I must confess that I’ve never been a huge fan of sweetheart tables at wedding receptions. Especially when they’re raised on a platform, surrounded by an archway of balloons or flowers, or flocked by absolutely huge wicker chairs that are not in keeping with the rest of the reception decor. I would never in a million years suggest that a bride and groom who wanted to sit apart not do it, but I think that sweetheart tables are a little silly. You don’t need a sweetheart table, however, to set the bride and groom apart.

Hmmmm… I’m torn. On one hand, these signs from The Back Porche Shoppe are cute. I like the distressed look, good for a rustic-y country wedding. And even though everyone at that wedding presumably can pick the bride and groom out of the crowd, it’s nice to set the happy couple’s chairs apart from those of the hoi polloi. On the other hand, just what does one *do* with a bride sign and a groom sign months or years after the wedding? Much more useful, I should think, would be Mr. and Mrs. signs (also sold by The Back Porch Shoppe), which could hang in one’s living room before hanging in one’s foyer before hanging over one’s workbench in the garage before being put on a table at a yard sale without selling before eventually being tossed out with the trash or given away on Freecycle.

What say you?