Bunting Bonanza

We've gone a bit crazy at Creature Clothes this week and are giving away lots of hand made vintage silk bunting.

So... in keeping with the Bunting Bonanza, I thought I'd share where the idea originally came from... my wedding.

Nick and I got married in Menorca in 2007.  As usual we didn't really like all of the classic wedding stuff already available, so we decided to make it up as we went along... and made pretty much everything ourselves.  We also wanted our 3 dogs to be involved, so I had canine bridesmaids and dog handlers instead of the more traditional set up!

I designed the wedding invitations based on a little winged heart we had bought in Mexico the previous year, and that became the theme for our wedding: I painted it onto glasses to make tea light holders, hung decorations from trees, made place mats from reused cardboard covered in silk - which is where the idea for the bunting came from - the silk triangles left from making the place mats were the perfect size for bunting flags, so we decided to make 500m of silk bunting to decorate the reception, using up all the odds and ends of fabric that my mother Caroline and I had collected over the years.

It was a fantastic experience, full of creativity and crazyness.  There was one low point, when my mums dog Goose ate the base of the wedding cake we had just made... but that was countered by learning how to properly ice a wedding cake under the expert tutorage of my friend Tara.

My sister Becky too charge of the flowers at the reception, bringing over a wheely bag full of beautiful english roses.  We bought little bouganvilla plants for the centre of each table and she planted little water glasses in with the soil at the base of the plant so we could counter the heat of a Menorcan summer and add roses, olive and rosemary to the bouganvilla.  We did a similar thing in the church, collecting coca cola bottles, tying ribbon around the necks and hanging them from the pew ends with roses and olive branches in them.

It was a total creativity fest, a selection of the things we made are shown in the photos below.

It was a great experience to prepare for and I have been asked to help with lots of weddings as a result, but spending such a special day surrounded by the friends and family that we love so much.

Our Order of Service, based on an old greeting card design of mine

Our Winged Heart theme was everywhere...

...Literally!  We lined the route to the wedding with these little winged hearts.

Roses and Olive Twigs in coca cola bottles filled with water, tied on to the pew ends

Vodka, my darling dog, and chief bridesmaid

We made white silk collars and leads for the dogs (this is Stolli, Vodkas daughter), and my mum Caroline made the beautiful dog handlers dresses, then I made matching bandanas for the dogs out of the same fabric.
You can also see the tissue paper confetti we made on the ground - hearts of all sizes were everywhere!

We tied twines of silk roses to the roof rack of our car to transform it into our wedding car!

These are the silk covered re-used cardboard heart place mats we made for the dinner guests.  The winged hearts make another appearance here as place settings - they had ribbon on the back, tying multicoloured silk napkins behind them, and had a little winged heart pin on them as a gift for all our guests.
You can also see the bourganvilla pots as the floral centrepieces to each table, and the hand painted glass tea-light holders in the middle of the table.

We put bamboo stakes in the ground to tie bunting around the garden, and hung these awesome glittery kitschy red hearts at the top.  One of the few things we actually bought!

You  just can't beat these straws... a whole galvenised bucket full!

And at last the bunting... friends and neighbours were sewing for weeks, it looked so beautiful!
I had so many requests to "borrow the bunting" after our wedding, that I started making it to sell.  This bunting has now decorated many friends weddings and birthday parties, our childrens parties, and their friends parties.  It's a beautiful thing, sharing the love.

One of my favourite photos from the day - Stolli asleep under my feet at the table.

The cake my mum, sister and I made, which I iced with one of my oldest and best friends Tara - battling the heat and trying to get the icing to dry out with every fan we could beg, borrow or steal!  We were having so much fun on the day  that we almost forgot to cut the cake!

Naturally the dogs all had specially made bespoke beds with the winged heart on, made by Creature Clothes - and use them they did!

For wedding bandanas for dogs, and silk bunting for people, go to:

www.creatureclothes.com

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to enter this week's competition to win a 20m length of beautiful bunting.