Philip Treacy hats

I am not a high fashion person. I’m not even a vaguely fashionable person. But damn, these hats by Philip Treacy are more like art. I don’t think I have the bone structure to pull one off even if I could afford it, but they are lovely to look at and thought I’d share! These are probably the most tame of his creations that I’ve found photos of – some are definitely not ready-to-wear and really quite bizarre, but stunning all the same. If I was thinking of wearing a hat at my wedding it would probably be inspired by the one on the right, although I’m not sure I can give up the birdcage veil idea!

And now back to some lighter stuff!

I did a bit of messing around with The Boy’s little Zumi camera that we’re thinking of using to take some wedding footage last weekend, and cut it together with some music in iMovie. I should probably warn you that I took this footage at an anime convention (oh yes, I’m one of those) and apparently some people are taken aback by the sheer geekery, but lets focus on the video making process.

Honestly, if we switched all the geeks in cosplay for our wedding guests and chucked in a little bit of the ceremony, I’d be perfectly happy with having a video like this for our wedding video. It definitely isn’t for everyone though… here’s my pros and cons based on making this video:

Pros

• way way cheaper than hiring a decent professional videographer, especially if you already have a camera to work with
• more creative control to make it exactly as cheesy as you like
• a cheap and easy to use camera can be passed around amongst guests to get a good variety of footage
• a fancy camera isn’t really necessary for this uh, ‘rustic’ style
• the software that comes free for editing videos on Macs and PCs isn’t too bad to work with if you don’t want to do anything too fancy
• editing isn’t difficult – although I’d probably spend more time on our wedding video, this one just took me a couple of hours
• a short, fun YouTube video is more likely to get watched by your friends and family than a really long high quality DVD

Cons

• the video quality of the Zumi and your average point-and-shoot camera is not going to be particularly high
• the sound quality of non-professional video cameras is pretty bad unless you’re very close to the speaking person – definitely not ideal for recording vows or speeches
• if the camera is getting passed around you run the risk of it getting lost or forgotten somewhere…
• there’s also the risk of missing or screwing up the video of important moments
• some people might find editing challenging or too time consuming
• iMovie (the software that comes on the Mac that I used for this video) is really quite limited, which is frustrating at times if you’re more of a power user
• the Zumi (ironically?) does not zoom, and ‘zooming with your feet’ isn’t always possible
• you or whichever friend you’ve roped into being ‘videographer’ needs to remember to be prepared with extra memory cards and batteries

Of these issues I think the sound quality is of the most concern for me, as two of my talented bridesmaids are going to be performing a song for us and I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those watch-again-and-cry-happy-tears moments that I don’t want to be marred by really fuzzy sound. Maybe I can hack together something to record the sound independently and set it to the video later? Something to consider…

I’m really getting on my high horse a bit lately huh? We’ll be back to engagement party planning soon, promise.

But I saw this post on A Los Angeles Love today, and had to bring attention to it. It’s pretty much what I was trying to say here and here about the lack of diversity in wedding blogs, but probably better articulated. Go read it. I’ll leave you with a quote:

Fuck the pianos and sofas in fields with pretty people – it’s EASY to take pretty photos of pretty people in pretty settings in posed situations (whether they’re actual clients or models, it’s still staged) . But you know what takes real art? Seeing beauty where it really resides – in scrunchy-faced tears and heads-thrown-back laughter and overwhelming love, caught in an instant as someone brushes away a tear in real-time. If you don’t want to capture that, why would you bother with becoming a wedding photographer?

I don’t really write about politics because I honestly don’t know much about it, but this was just… um, wow.

via SMH

These tweets and the press release they were quoted from were taken down shortly after, but not before outraged people took screenshots and Google cached her site.

Love is love people. I’m sure Jesus would agree with me.

photo by Feather Love Photography, via Ruffled

I love the idea of using images instead of table numbers. Doesn’t this look so fab? So instead of saying “I’m on table 4,” you can say “I’m on the T-REX table”, or LLAMA TABLE, or TEAPOT TABLE, which is significantly more awesome.

The rest of the wedding photos are absolutely worth a look too, even if it just makes you jealous that you can’t have a rooftop wedding.

So here’s my concept for the invites (I’m the kind of person who has to do a Photoshop mockup for pretty much everything):

Fake details are fake!

My plan is to print the text onto some textured cream card, use one of the oversized shaped paper punches to punch the hearts out of some red paper, then sew them on in cream thread with the widest stitch on my machine. Simple, textural, somewhat time consuming but hopefully not so much as say, gocco-ing 50 odd invitations. I’m totally into typewriter fonts at the moment – this one is a free font called Bohemian Typewriter if anyone is interested.

With some travel and obviously saving for the wedding coming up we don’t really have a lot of cash to throw at this party, so things are being kept fairly simple – a casual afternoon affair with some basic (self catered) nibbles and punch in my parents’ backyard. I’m really hoping that people take us at our word regarding not wanting any presents, because it would be heartbreaking to have to leave anything large or delicate behind in Perth because we can’t take it home! Hopefully my wording about presents and BYO alcohol aren’t upsetting to people… some people seem to get offended about the most ridiculous things to do with weddings, although I’m pretty sure our peeps coming the party aren’t so judgy.

How early are you supposed to send out invitations for a casual event like this? We’re not expecting anyone to travel for it – a few weeks maybe?

Um. So yes, I’ve changed my mind on colours again. And it probably won’t be the last time. But anyway, I call this one “Pink Lemonade Happy Funfun Awesome Times”, and it is fairly similar to the last mood board that I posted with the addition of a delicious watermelon pink. Despite being one of my favourite colours, yellow is a bit limiting in a lot of ways and I thought it needed one more contrasting colour to round things out. I think the pink adds a bit of warmth and fun, hopefully without being too girly. I think the girls would also all look stunning in pink, although it might be a more difficult colour to find than the dove grey that I have pictured…

The Boy and I have booked a trip back over to Perth while they were on sale, so you’ll probably see some more posts from me as we try to make the most of the time there to get things organised! Here’s what’s on my list of (wedding related) things to do:

• Meet with our photographer for the first time! Although with following her on Twitter and Facebook I sort of feel like I know her already…
• See our reception venue in real life for the first time – hope it lives up to expectations, because I have deposit down =/
• Find out from reception venue what kind of decorations they’re happy for me to put up.
• Figure out if we want to stick with the venue’s catering or get external Chinese catering.
• Cake tasting – not sure I even want a cake yet, but if there’s a chance to taste cake I will take it.
• Check out some ceremony venues and get one booked in.
• Take a look at the flower markets and have a go at making a practice bouquet.
• Attempt to check out some musicians?
• Throw an engagement party!

Am I missing anything important that I should be working on this far out?

Okay, I know these have been a long time coming – I’ve simply been too busy/lazy to put them online! But here they are finally – you can see the set of photos here. I’ve decided to just put a small set of my favourites online because honestly I feel a little strange putting up somewhat intimate photos for all to see, and I’m quite camera shy as it is! I’m really happy with how they turned out and feel a lot more confident that I won’t be cowering away from the photo or standing about awkwardly at our wedding having now done this.

All photography done by the wonderful Allyeska Photography.

In retrospect I wish I’d chosen my outfit a little more wisely, and given myself more time to make myself beautiful – we went shopping in the morning and I had about thirty minutes to do my hair and makeup, which isn’t enough when you don’t really have any idea what you’re doing. Anyone who is yet to do their engagement/pre-wedding shoot – be prepared and give yourself time beforehand! In the end I really love some of these and it’s nice to actually have a decent shot of The Boy and I together that aren’t us just making faces!

Dresses by English Department

I stumbled across the first of these dresses on Etsy, and the spent a while going through designer Elizabeth Dye’s blog and the English Department website for other dresses she’s made. She has a store in Oregon and only sells a few dresses via Etsy it seems, but I really love what I’ve seen there and in her blog. The prices are pretty good for handmade silk dresses with lots of pretty detailing. I’m still hoping to find a local dressmaker to get something that fits perfectly, but if that falls through these are definitely an option… Oh to live in Oregon!

I think this is my favourite of their current line – which doesn’t seem to be sold on Etsy!