Your Cheshire and Merseyside Wedding - Page number 51 - May/June 2021 (Issue 57)

ON PAPER How can we tailor our stationery to suit our barn venue rustic theme? I love to take inspiration from the venue, it’s always a great way of tying everything together. While it’s lovely to have a colour to bind your theme, I love it when the stationery is used to bring an extra element into the decor on the day, and I often do this using illustration. I also love to use materials which reflect the venue, and the rustic barn styling is perfect for this. For example, the venue’s alpacas were the inspiration for the stationery pictured and I emphasised the rustic theme using natural twine, hessian wraps, wood-grain papers and kraft envelopes. All items were printed on a nice quality 100 per cent recycled board and the autumnal colours referenced the time of year. Like the contrast between the wedding decor and a barn venue’s walls, I like the unusual twist of adding crystals to kraft board. It’s reminiscent of fairylights twinkling against a rough wall. My overall advice though would be to keep it simple and keep it green. Ling Warlow | Dragonfly Couture Stationery www.paperbydragonfly.com BE OUR GUEST We’d like to have a guestbook as a memento of our day, but they’re such a chore for guests to do. How can we make it fun for them? I’ve lost count of how many guest books I’ve seen containing only a handful of comments. The happy couple are so busy enjoying their day they don’t usually notice it’s empty until they see it afterwards and the disappointment is real. You can’t really blame your nearest and dearest as it’s so difficult to know what to say. At the end of the day, there’s only so many times you want to read, “You look absolutely fabulous” or, “Health, wealth and happiness to you both.” That’s why we supply a beautiful complimentary guest book with our photo booths. For every snap taken, our booth prints an extra copy, which is then stuck into the book by our attendant and its subjects are asked to write a comment alongside while they wait for their own prints. In our experience, guests are much more willing to contribute as they’re having fun and actually have something to comment on. In fact, we find that these are so popular they’re usually filled by the end of the night providing a fun-filled and happy memento for the newlyweds. Kim Shaw | Premier Photo Booths www.premierphotobooths.co.uk ESPECIALLY FOR YOU We’ve waited so long to get married due to the pandemic and are now rethinking our registrar-led ceremony in favour of something more meaningful. What would you recommend? This sounds like a great idea! A celebrant in England and Wales writes and performs a non-legal wedding ceremony. It’s written entirely for you, so there’ll be no other like it. You can ask friends and family to take part as well, making it that much more meaningful. The legal admin side of your marriage can be sorted out with a couple of short visits to the registry office, so no worries there. Your celebrant should meet with you to find out more about you both and what you envisage for your wedding. They’ll use this information to structure and write a script, which you should be able to check along the way. Most celebrants will also help you create your own vows. Sarah Nelson | Moments To www.momentsto.co.uk http://and rewab.photography www.sjm -photo.com ASK THE EXPERTS 51