Botanical Style, Easter Inspiration

I have many blogs and websites I adore and this time of year I relish in actually having the time to study, read and pore over these delightful inspirations.

The Brand Stylist is one of them, I love her simple style and attention to details and would love to attend one of her courses as they seem so well thought through and put together.

As the Botanical style is hugely popular I thought I would share some of the images from this gorgeous website as there is a whole host of lovely Easter floral inspiration which conveys the botanical style that is creeping into wedding and event styling for 2016.

Combinations of the new style copper wire lights, simple glass geometric shapes and the eclectic mix of urban meets nature is a brilliant way of decorating and styling your wedding.

Think brickwork, wooden tables, ferns, in season plants, living twigs and leaves, less florals and more focus placed on glass, structures and simple textures.  

As wedding stylists we love these ideas, one of my favourite looks for our Spanish weddings is a simple white napkin adorned with an olive sprig, it encompasses everything Spanish, such a clean statement when your guests arrive at their tables and so simple it is utterly charming.  

As detailed focused stylists, our role in your wedding is to design the visual aspects of your wedding, by putting together your personal tastes and our distinct eye for beauty.

Our approach is to inspire, excite and guide you along the way so you enjoy planning your wedding. From arranging the composition of your table settings to dreaming up beautiful displays for your favours, our aim is to create lasting memories you and your guests remember for years to come.

We specialise in handmade, sourced and collected unique detailing and dedicate ourselves to your wedding as if it were our own.

I hope you enjoy this Easter inspiration as much as we do.  

For more information about styling your wedding here in Spain do contact us on info@reviva-weddings.com.

Wedding day photography, it's all in the details!

We are often asked if our couples should be thinking about anything else as they lead up to their wedding day and after months and months of planning our advice is really quite simple.... get it photographed!

Many hours have been spent choosing the gorgeous details ready for your special day, there has been a lot of thought, time and effort put into this, you are paying for a photographer for your day so make the most of it, they are there and love photographing your details.

When you look back at your photos 20 years later these details will be the ones that will tell your story over and over again of those personal touches you chose to make your day so special.

Think about how you will present things, perhaps bring some extra accessories with you to help style your photos.  

Here at Reviva we have a pre getting ready photo props box, it includes a pretty vintage mirror, a Spanish fan, sometimes we can make sure there are a few extra flowers ready for the photographs and all it needs is a bit of thought and attention.

We are sharing our pre wedding photo checklist to make sure you get everything photographed at your getting ready location that you can look back on with wonderful memories of all the details you had for your wedding day.

Shoes

Wedding dress

Suit

Rings

Love notes or messages to each other

Save the Dates and your Invitations

Veil or Headpiece

Pocket square, buttonhole or watch

Getting ready outfits

Perfume

Hangers

Other jewellery

Bridal party gifts

The Men's accessories, cufflinks, belts, ties

Flowers and bouquets

All these images are taken from Reviva Weddings own weddings.  

We have shared many beautiful and hugely memorable days with our couples and we love looking back at the details.

Our big thank you to our talented photographers whom without capturing these intimate moments, we would not have such gorgeous photos to share with you.

Jeremy Standley, Joseba Sandoval from Romance Weddings, Anna from Limelight Photography, Nani de Perez, David Toms, Andreas Holms

Confetti for Weddings

For personal reasons I have had a blog hiatus but now we are slowly coming back from a difficult time and welcoming 2015 with more fabulous ideas, inspirations and real weddings from Spain.  

We are going to share many of our insider tips for a more Martha style blog this year and show you how we create our details for our gorgeous weddings.  

So we start this year with confetti as I am always amazed how many of our clients overlook this element for their wedding day.  

It is often a last minute addition to their wedding day decor lists but, for me personally, it is one of the prettiest and celebratory items you can include for a bit of sparkle and fun.

There are so many wonderful ideas out there so we thought we would share some with you that we also create here in our studio.  You can step away from the rather overdone confetti cones and introduce something much more creative and fun!

We are in love with these confetti wands including of course a touch of glitter.  

Glitter could of course be a bit messy for a wedding day, I spend my life covered in glitter!, so why not add in some sequins or as we did earlier this year for one of our weddings in Toledo some glitter baby pom poms.

Confetti bags are always a lovely alternative to cones and easy to pretty up with personalised wedding stamps or printed labels.  Fill with biodegradable coloured paper, we often use heart or butterfly punches to create our clients confetti but do make sure the paper does not run and create nasty stains before adding it to you confetti mix.

Lightweight paper, such as tissue paper, works well as it stays in the air longer. 

Confetti bars are set for 2015, a fun idea as your guests gather for your ceremony.   

These are along the same lines as a candy bar but using containers filled with different items to make up confetti, you could use rice, sequins, pom poms, coloured paper, glitter if you wish to get messy, lavender, rose petals, the list is endless!  Confetti bars can be styled and colour themed to match your wedding so you could create the vintage look or have a fabulous retro riot of colour.

A good idea for guests to use to create their confetti mix are sturdy cupcake wrappers, we created some this year using gold card cupcake wrappers and it worked a treat!

This idea maybe difficult to create though if you are having a church wedding but confetti does not always have to be thrown at the ceremony, you can plan it back at your venue for when the bride and groom enter or later as you leave.

Do always check with your venue though before planning the throwing of the confetti, many venues and churches sadly have banned it, due to the mess, but if you can throw some sparkly things around go for it or just save it for another occasion!

All images were found on Pinterest.

A Wedding Stylist and what we do!

I saw this wonderful post on Burnett´s Boards tonight on Facebook and fell in love with the sequin dress and glorious tropical coloured bouquet so thought it would be great to share this with you on our Facebook page.

Dare I say having clicked through to the actual link I was left slightly disappointed as there were many elements of this photo shoot that were wrong.

I maybe disliked for sticking my neck out here but from a stylist´s and perhaps a bride´s point of view I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts.  

Before I detail a few things I would be the first to say that anyone that creates photo shoots to inspire us are fabulous and we are completely in love with the images we have shared above, they are beautiful and up to date with the wedding trends.  

It is also very easy to critique other peoples work but I am looking at this from a professional stylist´s point of view to share advice as to where you can overdo it or go wrong and merely to point out a few helpful hints to brides.

To see the whole shoot do visit Burnett´s Boards Indie Wedding Inspiration to see what I will explain.

We are in love with this bouquet, it is a beautiful, colourful masterpiece but from a practical point of view if you look at the last photo on this post you will see how big the gathered stems are and the model here is using both hands to hold it up and they are still not wrapped around it.  

Whilst it is lovely to have a bouquet like this for you wedding, imagine having to hold something like this all day, it is huge and heavy, you would be surprised, so when thinking about your bouquets do be practical as to what can be achieved on the day.

The cake is also divine but here in the Spanish heat anything that is made from butter cream or chocolate will melt and any naked cake, i,e without icing, will dry out so do bear all these things in mind when swooning over Pinterest!

I was also slightly flummoxed when reading this post as I scrolled down from the beautiful images of the gold sequins and fabulous, albeit, large bouquet and then came to the spray painted gold pineapple, black studs, random earrings and head dress, none of this matched the actual theme and seems to just be thrown in.

Perhaps I am wrong and would welcome feedback.

If you are planning your wedding and are not sure how many elements, style, etc to incorporate we would recommend the services of a wedding stylist who can offer you not only beautiful styling but practical advice when planning your day.

We can be bossy but we will quickly eliminate the details that just don´t do and bring an elegance and charm to your wedding day!   We can do black studs but won´t combine it with a broderie anglaise head dress!

Hitting Back!

I have read an interesting article today posted by a photographer from the Huffington Post about wedding details and do they matter.  It appears NOT and according to this article we are all to ditch Pinterest, close the pages of bridal magazines and god forbid under any circumstance google anything wedding detail related.  

Forget looking for that dream dress as a sack will do and you can of course get married in your favorite sneakers as pretty shoes are a no go and a frozen cheesecake from the local store will be perfect for your wedding cake.  Your guests will be more than happy with sausage rolls and coleslaw served on plastic plates and will have fun regardless of the fact you have made no effort at all to pay any attention to any details as it is your love on the day that counts :)    Erh I think not but correct me of course if I am wrong.

Just the fact you are in love and have your family and close friends with you apparently is enough to have some gorgeous photos and memories of your special day.  This is fine if you are not hosting a celebratory occasion and of course the love on that day is wonderful but this article has underestimated the very basic principles of hosting a wedding or indeed any special occasion. 

It is looking at a wedding from one suppliers point of view, yes you have guessed it the photographer, so thought it was time for a bit of retaliation from the detail freak stylist who loves nothing more than a bit of glitter, sparkle and fun :)

Putting together this post got me thinking quite seriously about this subject particularly as this is one of our business strengths and what we sell to our clients.  

Photography is there to tell a story, an account of a fabulous day shared with family and friends and let me be the first to say that the details have no significance in comparison to the commitment being made on the day, but details DO matter which is why we go out of our way to have them.

Details are not narcissistic, they are telling a story of the couple, their origins, their style and the fun things they enjoy together.  

Details are also about ensuring the guests are comfortable from providing shade or heating to good food and entertainment.  Details are bringing in the surroundings and cultures from either the country you are hosting your wedding or where you have come from.  Whilst it is a love story, it is also a couple sharing their truly special day with their family and friends and hosting one of the biggest events of their lives.

Let´s take Christmas as a good example, we have all spent the past month and probably a considerable amount of money, thought, time and effort into decorating our homes and making sure we have plenty of food and drinks in order to have a good time.  

Perhaps we have also been entertaining family and friends so why would a wedding not be any different?   It is a celebratory occasion, it is to celebrate love between a couple who are declaring their commitment to each other but it is also a social affair and a party.  It is no different from any other celebration.

We do all like the cute flower girl photo sitting under the table covered in wedding cake but without that glorious cake and cute dress this photo would not happen.  

Yes it is nice to have a photo of granny that may indeed depart us within the year, enjoying herself but we do also love the to die for dress, shoes, jewellery and gorgeous florals.   We love the pretty flowers tied with ribbons decorating pew ends and the personalised candle dedicated to loved ones for the ceremony.  

We heart confetti and cry over personal, meaningful words and poems written on pretty cards for our gorgeous couples by close family and friends.

Who does not enjoy sitting at a beautifully presented table with sparkling glassware, polished cutlery, and twinkling candles.  There is nothing nicer than well presented food and sharing good wines with friends, this is why we go out to restaurants and hotels or host dinner parties at home, this is what an occasion is about.

When I see the photographers overlook these lovely details, it is a shame as it is the details and personalisation of their day that has made that occasion special to the bride and groom and their families.   

Much money, time and effort goes into planning a wedding that is truly unique to that couple, from the original invitations sent out in the post to the cutting of a gorgeous cake, chinking of glassware with fine champagnes followed by serious dance moves hours later. 

Whilst is it lovely to see the photos of granny and the cute flower girl that is now grown up and married but it is also lovely to look back at the gorgeous bouquet you carried, your cute cake topper you ordered that looked exactly like you and that fabulous photo with you being rained on by confetti clutching those lovely balloons.

Details are what matter, grab the magazines, pour over Google and head over to Pinterest. It is planning the day you have dreamed of to share with your family and friends and if you want some sparkle go for it!  I am sure Granny and the cute flower girl will enjoy it to.

Guess where we are featured! In Style Me Pretty Little Black Book

Many moons ago when I started Reviva Weddings I spent hours scouring the websites for inspiration and fabulous ideas, I fell upon many beautifully created websites sharing love for all things weddings and styling.

One of the first websites, I recall, was the Knot followed closely by Martha Stewart Weddings.   

Snippet and Ink had some beautiful inspiration boards and as I worked on my own business I often browsed the internet looking for the latest wedding trends and fashion.  

I soon recognised some of the Wedding World Web leaders as being Junebug Weddings and Style Me Pretty and never in a million years did I think I would ever achieve being accepted and featured on both these amazing websites as one of their recommended Destination Wedding Planners and Designers.

My love of all things Spain, combined with my professional design and styling skills, I am fortunate to have created an amazing business whilst bringing up my smallest daughter and juggling two teenage daughters, which I am hugely proud of, delivering beautiful weddings to our wonderful clients time and time again.

So after many years of hard work, I am known for burning the midnight oil, I am thrilled to have achieved so much and absolutely love what I do.

Plus I am also known for scoffing wedding cake samples, trying to steal cupcakes, standing on my soapbox about commissions in wedding world, earned the honorary title of the Fairy Godmother of the Costa Del Sol who waves her magic wand hence my magic sparkles on our Blog that follow the cursor, surviving on less sleep than Maggie Thatcher and drinking coffee until it comes out my ears :)

I am now delighted to have Reviva recognised as one of the most creative and innovative Wedding Designers and Planners in Spain.

We are squeaking with excitement to be featured in Style Me Pretty´s family on their Little Black Book as recommended Wedding Planners and Stylists here in Spain.

I would also like to thank our team who have supported me and helped me to get where we are today, including Carla, Isabel, Loraine and Anoulka, an amazing array of hugely talented girls who are all passionate as I am about weddings, along with the fabulous suppliers, venues and photographers we have the pleasure of working with, without whom we could not create our weddings and showcase our hard work.

 And last but of course the most important, all the beautiful brides and their handsome grooms and lovely families who have trusted us to create their magical days.

I sound like I am standing on the stage for an Oscar, but we are proud of our achievements however will not cry or waffle on about our families!

The images on this post are a sneak peek from a beautiful wedding we planned and styled at the iconic Marbella Club two weeks ago, more to come on this wedding and our thanks to Agata Jensen Photography for a sneak peek of this beautiful wedding :)