Styling an 'Old Hollywood' Wedding

Getting married, and need a little inspiration? Bustle Event Design is here to help. At least once a month, we're going to discuss an inspiration or theme for a wedding or event, and offer some ideas to help you with the details. First up: an "old hollywood" themed wedding.

The dress: Here's an incredibly glamorous dress from designer Elizabeth Fillmore.

The draped neckline is beautiful, the silhouette is sexy without being overbearingly so, and the ruffles down the back of the dress give it just the right amount of romance. Add some chandelier earrings, red lipstick, and you're set.

The hair: Charlize Theron's Hollywood waves would be an excellent complement to a dress like the one shown above. InStyle.com even gives you the how-to! If you've got longer hair, gentle waves and a faux bob might be a perfect 'do.

Color scheme: First find something to use as an inspiration piece. For an "old Hollywood" theme, keep it simple and classic. If you're stuck, browse around a fabric store and ask for swatches of fabrics you like. Black and white with hints of red, silver, or gold can create plenty of drama if executed correctly.

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Other details: Deep red roses, white gardenias, or calla lilies would be an excellent bouquet choice for both you and your bridesmaids. For centerpieces, something structural would not only save you money, but they'd also give your reception some extra glam. Check out this amazing tableware from Juliska:

You could copy this look on the cheap, using old tableware found at yard sales and spray-painting them black. Adding white candles would look lovely, or filling the different-sized bowls with decorative mirrored balls would be fun too. Then, with your wedding guests dressed to the nines and sipping champagne, your wedding and reception will get rave reviews!

Wish Jars

I came across an article on BridalBuds.com about guestbook alternatives, and I took a second to think about why the guestbook exists.

A guestbook is a paper or electronic means for a visitor to acknowledge their visitation to a site, physical or web-based, and leave their name, postal or electronic address (if desired), and a comment or note, if desired.
--Wikipedia.org

You already know the names of the people you invited to your wedding, and if you sent out invitations, you already have their address… Hmm. The guestbook seems a bit superfluous!

More and more couples are opting out of the guestbook tradition, and I completely understand why! Here’s what ends up happening: You order a journal-like book that has 100+ pages and only a few of the pages end up being used. You are left with something that is definitely sentimental, but hardly used! After my wedding, I used some of the extra pages in my guestbook to record gifts that people gave me, but I still have about 75% of my guestbook unused. So why not explore other ideas??

One option I really like is the “wish jar”.

{Source: this image is from MarthaStewart.com, but I grabbed it from BridalBuds.com & can't find the original Martha link!}

As I stated above, I saw this idea on BridalBuds.com and thought it was so cute! Your guests can write sweet notes on cardstock (or whatever) and you can later take the notes and put them in a scrapbook (after your honeymoon, of course!). The author of the article takes it up a notch and is going to have Polaroid cameras by the wish jar so guests can take photos of themselves when they submit their wishes! How awesome!

What’s great about this idea is that you can DEFINITELY make this happen yourself. Go buy a pretty apothecary jar, birdcage, basket or other type of container; cut up some squares of paper (the BridalBuds author used left-over paper from her invitations – yay for re-using!); make some sort of sign that tells your guests what the wish jar is and what it’s for; set out some pens and you’re set!

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Bright Pops of Color

I have admired this New York State wedding for over a month and have yet to post about it... since I've got some spare time today, I just had to pick out a few of my favorite photos. The details and cheery colors are so amazing!

{Credit: I discovered this wedding on Design*Sponge's blog and all images were found on frecklegirl76's Flickr page}

Ceremony location... Pomanders are the cutest floral arrangements ever. I love them as aisle-liners, too.

You all know by now how much I love paper lanterns... and I'm starting to prefer long tables over round tables for receptions...

A beautiful rendition of the branch-seating-card display... Check out that calligraphy! I wish I could have splurged on having all of my paper items done by a calligrapher. It just adds a very distinct touch of personalization to everything!

Favors for guests: Homemade syrups with funky cloth squares covering the lids...

Table setting... Totally love the "groom" tag pinned to the glass. I did this for my Thanksgiving table setting!

Table numbers & menu... the turquoise ink really pops against the soft orange of the dahlia. Speaking of the dahlia: who says a centerpiece has to be elaborate and consist of tons of flowers?? The tiny tree trunks and clear glass vase for the bunch of flowers get the job done simply and (probably) cost-effectively!

This wedding is just beautiful!! I absolutely ADORE all of the personal touches.

My DIY Fall Decorations

I had the house all to myself today, so I was finally able to make some Fall decorations for my house! A little late, I know, but I'm hosting Thanksgiving for my in-laws next Thursday and I want my house to look festive!

I found some awesome inspiration all over the web for these projects, so I'll try to post the original links in case you want the directions for each project.

Here's an overall view of my new buffet with most of the decorations on top...



My first project was the plaid "artwork" with brown yarn string... I got my inspiration from Better Homes & Gardens' article: Easy Holiday Decorating with Ribbon. Although this piece doesn't involve ribbon, it does involve using up a leftover piece of padded poster board and some $1.50 fabric from Walmart. :) I added the brown yarn after viewing how Miss Blush packaged her bridesmaid gifts over on Weddingbee.



My second project was making yarn pom poms. These turned out so cute!!! I was inspired by Koala Brains' Billy Buttons tutorial. Once I had three poms in each color, I put them in a clear narrow vase from Walmart and wrapped each vase in some orange ribbon I had left over. I also stuck some straw in there for good measure.





My third project was making the leaf candle holders. Michael's has all of their fall decor on sale for like 70-90% off (don't quote me on that... but they were super cheap), so I picked up some semi-translucent artificial fall leaves for 75 cents. I can't remember where I saw this idea, but it's so simple... I just used double-stick tape to stick each leaf on the candle holder, then secured with a straw bow. I found my candle holder at Walmart. In fact, all of the glass items I used today were from Walmart.





The last DIY project for this post (I did a few more things, but forgot to take pictures!) was the clothespin place card. I actually thought this up myself! I bought the clothespins for another project (Christmas gift: fun paper-covered clothespin magnets), but thought it would be so much fun to attach name cards to the clothespins and clip onto the side of each guest's wine glass. For an added touch, I stuck some small fake leaves to the bottom. I love how these look, and I just know my guests will love them, too!

Summer Floral Inspiration

On such a chilly day, it really brighted my mood and warmed up my thoughts when I saw this array of beautiful orange, yellow and pink flowers over on Mindy Rice's website (found via Style Me Pretty):




{Image Source}


The splash of aqua (the cake! the tie! the bike!) adds such a refreshing coolness to the warm color palette. I just love it! I also adore the long rectangular tables, the vine-ripened oranges hanging overhead, and the rustic urns that the cake & flowers sit upon. There isn't anything I dislike about this decor!

Awesome Autumn Wedding

By now, you should know that I love Fall-time. It's pretty obvious that I have a thing for the colors, the leaves, the crispy weather...

I saw some pictures of a wonderfully creative & chic Autumn/country wedding over on Brides.com (found via Hostess with the Mostess blog) and had to share!

First off: Here is the setting for the wedding. Note the haystacks!

And could their escort cards be any simpler (but still adorable)?!

Using table letters instead of table numbers is a great way to mix things up ~ I love the typeface and colors she chose (the bride went to school for graphic design ~ a degree that becomes extremely useful when planning a wedding)!

They even dressed up their reception tent by adding (my favorite) paper lanterns in their wedding colors.

{Image Source for all pics in this post}

Real Wedding: Ashley & Chris

As promised, here are some professional pics from Ashley & Chris' October 11th wedding... openField Photography took some amazing photos and were nice enough to create this handy collage! :) Thanks so much! To view all of the Ashley & Chris' wedding pics, here's a link to openField's blog post.

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Again, I should put a disclaimer here: I didn't come up with these wedding designs. These were all Ashley & Chris' creations - I just made sure everything was set up appropriately, kinda like a day-of wedding coordinator would do. It was so much fun to be a guest at their wedding!


Another disclaimer: I still need to post pics of their candy bar ~ it was so perfect! In fact, Ashley's candy bar was so cool, I told her she would have to be my "candy bar consultant" if my brides choose to have one! :)

Halloween Candy Topiary

Oh how I love Martha Stewart... How does she (i.e. her team of idea people) think of such interesting & fun ideas?!

Martha just posted a craft tutorial for how to make Halloween Candy Topiaries and I am totally inspired. I really want to make one or two for my door step so as to make my neighbors jealous of my creativity. ;)

{Picture Source + tutorial!}

I decided to search Martha's website for more topiary ideas and found this:

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Peppermint candy topiaries! Not to be limited to peppermint candies, I think ANY candy topiary in your wedding colors would make an excellent addition to a candy bar (a la Ashley & Chris), or as a super-sweet centerpiece.

Real Wedding: Ashley & Chris

As promised, here are some detail pictures of Ashley & Chris' reception decor... You'll have to forgive me because I only took pictures of the seating card display and the results of the candy bar buffet (not the candy bar itself), and my camera takes pretty awful pictures with the flash on (I think someone should buy me a new camera for Christmas!). But I think you'll get the idea and see how great everything looked!

Here is the seating card display:

There were 3 glass vases filled with clear glass stones at the bottom. Branches were arranged in each vase, and the seating cards were hung from the branches (in alphabetical order, as best as I could!).

Since each vase arrangement held a certain group of placecards according to the guest's last name, Ashley created signs to tell guests where to look for their placecard.

Ashley & Chris' guestbook was a custom-made album with their engagement pictures inside. This was such a great idea and the guests loved seeing their professional pics!

Here is a picture of my husband holding our candy bar favor... Pink and green were the couple's wedding colors, and the candy bar was filled with around 10 different pink & green candies! [Doesn't TR's tie match their candy perfectly?!]

And here's a picture of the newlyweds!!