Ranier Cherry Seating Cards

Check out our Ranier cherry seating cards today over on 100 Layer Cake!

We were inspired by a trip that Christina, our finance manager, took to the farmer's market here in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, when cherry season was at its apex. She brought back these pretty cherries and that was it! We placed them in a vintage teacup saucer to give the display a polished look and help them stay upright.

Check out 100 Layer Cake for a template for the tags, which are made with the Compendium font. This same concept works well for all kinds of found/organic objects: feathers, leaves, dried flowers...the list goes on!

Photos by us.

Lovely Design Giveaway!

Thanks to Shana for spotting and sharing this fantastic giveaway! You may recall these adorable address files were featured in an issue of Martha Stewart Weddings a while back - they make great guest books!

Well, Sharilyn is giving away sets of refills on her blog. So if you have one of these files, sign up! And for those who don't, there's a wait list, so get on it early!

Photos: Lovely Design

Cardboard Design Wish Wall

The other weekend we spotted this cardboard honeycomb Wish Wall by Cardboard Design in the window of Paper Presentation (which shares the same owner). We immediately thought of what a cool thing this would be in lieu of a wedding guest book! Guests write their messages on slips of colorful paper...

The effect of the colors is pretty cool, and you can also write letters (like "Guest Book"), lite-brite style!

It comes in this small ready-made size, as well as in custom sizes.

Photos above from here, bottom photo by us.

Timeless Vixen Vintage

We absolutely LOVE vintage clothing and vintage dresses in particular.  Timeless Vixen Vintage (found via Snippet & Ink - Merry Go Round inspiration board) has not only an amazing selection of gorgeous dresses, but remarkably, many of them are in reasonable sizes as well!  How fabulous would these dresses be for bridemaids?

The dresses are a wee bit pricey, but so fantastic and in such great condition, it might very well be worth it for a special occasion!

Love this 40's number...

We can't get over their really stunning selection of stylish pieces...

Love the cherry red! And a fifties party dress is flattering on almost anyone...

And they have gorgeous things from somewhat harder to find eras, like this navy blue 1930's flutter dress...(and it's not a size 0!  No offense to all you size 0's out there, but for those of us who have so often gazed longingly at a gorgeous bit of vintage with a 25" waist and then, regretfully, put it back on the rack - hurrah!!)

This Edwardian tea dress would make a stunning wedding dress...it reminds of us the dress worn in this woodland inspired wedding....

Love, love, LOVE it!

Sugar Coated Events

We're in love with this gorgeous baby shower by Sugar Coated Events, via Concrete and Honey. The muted palette and pretty details would be perfect for a wedding, too...

Gorgeous candy bar, cupcakes and favors...

Love subtle tone-on-tone teacup flower arrangements. More beautiful pics (by Nicola Greenaway and Karen Greenaway) here.

Marie Antoinette wedding cake

Thanks to photographer Sabine Scherer or sharing these gorgeous photos she recently took of an incredible Marie Antoinette-inspired cake by Cake Coquette!

The cake topper was flown in from La Durée in Paris!

Seriously, this cake (or a reproduction of it!) belongs in a museum. And Sabine's photography truly "takes the cake" (ugh, sorry - we couldn't resist!). Check out more of her work here,  here and here.

Palm Springs Rehearsal Dinner by Alison Events

Thanks to Style Me Pretty and Jose Villa Wedding Photography for posting these gorgeous pics of a rehearsal dinner designed by Alison Events, for which we created the menus. The wedding was relocating from Mexico to the Parker Palm Springs at the last minute, but Alison maintained the Mexican spirit with this simple, beautiful design.  We designed and printed the menus in just 2 days (it can be done - and it's up there with the time we flew to Nice, France to deliver a seating chart to a client - yes, we take customer service seriously!)

Every detail was gorgeous.

The happy couple!  See more details here and here. And by the way, we have the scoop on a fantastic deal from Alison. Now through the end of August, she and her talented production manager Kelsey are offering hourly rates for all you budget-savvy brides who don't need full service planning. She can walk you through a timeline, floor-plan, design, table scape, vendor referrals, or even a walk through the elements fo your wedding to give you ideas! Her hourly rate is $125 (cash only, please) with a 2 hour minimum. Trust us, this is a great value and gaining the insight, expertise, resources, and creative vision of one of the best in the business. DO it!

DIY paper chandelier garlands

Check out the DIY paper chandelier garlands we created for The Knot's fabulous new DIY wedding blog! They were inspired by our Chandelier modern wedding invitation design by EIEIO, as well as by paper artist Jeffery Rudell. Click here for full instructions.

Soho Mode Tea Dresses

We love these pretty tea dresses from Louise Hedley of Soho Mode -- they would make such perfect mix-and-match bridesmaid dresses for a vintage-inspired garden wedding.

Lovely! Via The Constant Gatherer.

Marquee Alphabet Lights

These Marquee Alphabet Lights from Urban Outfitters would be great for wedding decor for a modern or carnival-inspired wedding, and they even have a convenient "&" symbol for initials or "Mr. & Mrs." etc. At $178 a letter it's a bit of an investment, but these would make great home decor after the big day!

via Swiss Miss

Book love

Lately we've been loving creative uses of vintage books and book pages for wedding decor and craft. Love this paper wreath from Simple Joy.

Gorgeous book vases from Sweet Paul.

Pretty paper ornament via The Shop House.

Dictionary butterflies via Royal Buffet.

Pretty pages lining a wall from Frolic.

Kay Nielsen and a lovely faery wedding

Growing up, we LOVED the sumptuous fairytale illustrations of early 20th century Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen.

Aren't these gorgeous? They've big source of design inspiration to us of late!  So we totally thought of him when we saw these amazing faery wedding photographs by Elizabeth Messina via her blog, Kiss the Groom:

So amazing! See more of Elizabeth's unbelievable photos here.  See more of Kay Nielsens gorgeous illustrations here.

Woodland wedding inspiration

We just love all the gorgeous fern and woodland-inspired details in Tess and Adam's wedding via photographer Rachel Thurston.

This terrarium centerpiece is so lovely!

Gorgeous rustic guest book table...

Lovely button mushroom cake...

Love the bride's vintage wedding dress and ferny bouquet! See more details here.

SweetAmb's beautiful cookies

How stunning are these cameo cookies by SweetAmb?

They're practically too beautiful to eat!

Such pretty, perfect wedding favors!  Available here.

Via Beautifully Ever After

Tin Can Wedding Invitations

We spotted this lovely and ingenious wedding invitation by Greek designer Chris Trivaz today via Lovely Package.  We just love it!

Being invitation designers and crafters, however, our imaginations started churning re: how you might make these and incorporate them into the rest of the wedding design!

Plain tin cans are so beautiful and graphic that we can totally see using them as vessels for pretty flowers (photo via D.S. Brennan)

We can also envision spray painting the cans in vibrant colors, and even and stenciling them with simple initials or a graphic pattern. (via Peapods photo stream)

Colorful baker's twine would work in lieu of the kraft twine (via School Locker)

Or how about designing a pretty vintage-inspired label to wrap around the can, like so? Could be so cute! Photo from here.

Regardless, we love the concept - and it would be so fun and interactive to have guests tie them on during cocktail hour!  Photo from here.

Donna Hay General Store

Donna Hay opened a gorgeous new home wares store recently in Woolahra, Sydney, Australia.  For those of you not in the know, Donna is an internationally renowned cookbook author, magazine editor and homewares designer.

Emilie Goldstein, the retail manager, shared these lovely pictures of the beautifully styled shop interior.

We're thrilled that our letterpress greeting cards are carried there as part of a hand-picked letterpress stationery selection.

Just two of the many designs Donna selected for the shop.

The bottom one reminds us of Donna's gorgeous desserts!

Her magazines and website are full of simple, pretty inspired recipes and crafts like this doily table runner and hand drawn place mats.

Here's Donna outside the store. Sounds like it's been going swimmingly - can't wait for her to open one here in the States!

Delicate doilies

Doilies and their close cousins, vintage lace, are so pretty...and we can't help but notice all the lovely DIY wedding (and every day) applications for these materials of late.  Doily vase by Paul Lowe for Country Living (check out this link for 7 stylish doily projects)

Lacy paper notes (perfect for save the dates or thank you cards) from our book, Handmade Hellos

Vintage lace needlebook (this idea would work beautifully for a pretty DIY wedding guest book) via Ravenhill

Pretty doily favor bags via Snippet & Ink

Lovely lace votive from Paul Lowe via Snippet & Ink

Doily dusted lemon cake via Zakka Life

Pretty dimensional doily ornaments via Martha Stewart

Pretty in Pink

Welcome back, everyone! It's a new week and a fresh start - today, we're inspired by pretty pink details. So fresh, timeless, and romantic!

Two beautiful inspirational photos from A Creative Mint

Marie Antoinette-inspired pink wedding details by About Details Details via Pink Blossom List.

Woodland Damask pink wedding invitation by Joel Dewberry for Hello!Lucky.

Lacy floor and pink slippers via Concrete & Honey

Ruffled J. Crew cardigan - perfect for bridesmaids...

Pretty pink cake via Ruby Press

DIY bouquet favor box from Once Wed

Beautiful shoes and birdcage photo shoot from the Cherry Blossom Girl

Peony photograph from Futuro Woman

Enjoy!

DIY paper flowers and pom poms

Lately we've been loving paper flowers and pom poms (both of which we used in Eunice's wedding to fabulous effect!) -- especially making them out of unexpected and ingenious household and vintage paper finds, like these sewing pattern flowers via Country Living's recent "Trash to Treasure" blog post.

These hanging paper flowers are made of out paper bags - yes, paper bags! Click here for simple how-to instructions.  These would be great strung together in a garland, too!

And how about these lovely dyed coffee filters garlands by  Pamela Garrison which we first spotted via Creature Comforts?  (For smaller ones, use colorful cupcake cups!)

These hanging paper flowers are made from old catalogues (may we suggest Anthropologie catalogues?) from Zakkia Life via Creature Comforts -- click here for super simple DIY instructions.

Eunice & Daniel's wedding

Eunice & Daniel's Tim Walker-inspired wedding was last weekend in a valley near Wilbur Hot Springs in Northern California! We're so excited we can barely contain ourselves - it was so amazing and wonderful!

We can't share more at the moment as will be featured in an upcoming issue of Martha Stewart Weddings, but stay tuned for behind-the-scenes blog posts on the Martha blog and look out for the article!

In the meantime, the happy couple is heading out to Europe on their honeymoon. Huzzah!