Your East Anglian Wedding - August/September 2020 (Issue 44)

THE PERSONAL STAMP We got engaged during lockdown and are excited to great cracking with planning our wedding. We’ve got so many ideas, how do we pull it all together to create a coordinated look? Mel says: Once you’ve picked your venue and set a date, this will lead the way in deciding on a theme. The time of year and the setting are hugely important for starting the process and the next stage can be done with the help of your stationery. You may decide to send save-the-date cards or go straight for the main invitations, whichever route you take, having a concept in mind will help to set the scene and give your guests their first glimpse of what’s to come. There are no rules in picking a theme – you may have something that’s important to you both, a favourite film or place. Your stationery designer can then take these ideas and use them as subtly or boldly as you like. If you’d rather focus on colours and choose a style like rustic, luxe or boho for example, these are good starting points too. The save-the-dates can coordinate with your invitations or you may want to just give a hint as a teaser and save the best bits for the main invitations! This can be done with colours or just taking a different slant with the main design.  To run the theme right through from the invitations to the on-the-day stationery will help to tie everything together and can coordinate with other aspects of your day too. We love floral designs and if you know the type of flowers you’re having we can liaise with your florist to create stationery to match. Entwined initials or using your names are another popular way of connecting the wedding stationery, creating a motif with fonts, colours and design to use throughout with stickers to seal the envelopes or you could go for a custom-made stamp and use wax seals. Melissa Morley | Stationery designer | www.melmade.co.uk CAKE FOR ALL TASTES We’re big cake lovers and want a real showstopper for our big day, but as we don’t really have a theme yet, we’re not sure what design to go for. Emma says: There’s no right answer for whether or not to have a wedding theme, some folk like the laid-back, natural style, where everyone contributes something for a real homespun garden-party feel. This kind of celebration is free of conformity and you may have no or little control over colours and flavours, especially if your cake is being gifted. If this kind of wedding is for you, then that’s the ‘theme’ you’ve gone for, whether you made a conscious decision to do so or not. If you like to know what arrangements are being made, you’ll want to be involved in choosing your cake, possibly something to go with your personality or an event you want to include in the day. Personally, I love a good strong theme as the cake can be adapted to provide a piece of creative theatre. All of our cakes come with a hand-drawn canvas and easel too, including the flavours and dietary hints – a fab keepsake long after the cake is gone. Emma Thorburn | Cake maker | www.bunsoffun.co.uk EXPERT ADVICE 89