Photography Credit: via Lisa Harris Jewellery (new site launching early June – more of these on the blog soon!)

This week I was interviewed by Photo Night Live about my blogging workshops (via Skype – scary!) and it will be available for you to have a gander at, via their website, from 7pm (gmt) tomorrow. I have a horrible feeling I was talking at about 100 mph, but we’ll see when it’s published I guess! l’ll share the video on my blog (in the Green Room) on Monday as well because I’ll be launching my next workshop date at midday! Oooh I wonder where our sparkly pink tour bus will be taking us next?

So what have I been up to for the rest of the week? Well mainly researching Thursday Treats it would seem. Oh it’s a hard life!

♥ Can using different types of models benefit brands – a really interesting piece investigating the fashion industry’s obsession with only using young, skinny and (more often than not) white models and why this could be hindering sales.
♥ White on white beach wedding. Just stunning.
♥ Rainbow Parasol Wedding
♥ A pink house!
♥ Beautiful bridals
♥ Join Gala for her mega love fest!! Her radical self love webcasts are AWESOME and just what you need if you’ve been feeling down on yourself. I dare you not to feel empowered and positive after spending some time with Gala!
♥ Bohemian Romance In The Woods
♥ A Whimsical Vaudeville Wedding
♥ Zoe’s 10 things I love about Tokyo article makes me wanna go back so BAD!
♥ A blissful Stockholm cherry blossom wedding – love that pink dress!

Photography Credit: 2 Brides

♥ Tokyo Disneyland Says “I Do” to Gay Marriage
♥ DIY Tennessee Wedding
♥ Lime Crime have launched glossy! opaque! multi-coloured! liquid eyeliners. I feel this will be a wallet-bashing development
♥ How To Start Your Blog With A Bang – great tips for newbie bloggers from Elsie
♥ Homemade ranch wedding
♥ Gorgeous new year’s eve wedding
♥ HUGE congratulations to the amazing Kirsty Mitchell (and Elbie!) who went viral this week! Her incredible wonderland series was featured on the Daily Mail, Huffington Post, MSN & Petapixel websites. HUGELY deserved (and FYI don’t forget that Rock n Roll Bride got there first haha!)
♥ Graphic corpse bride cake – would any of you be brave enough to have this at your wedding?
♥ Empowering reading for those in jobs they don’t love…
♥ Using sweets as embellishments for your wedding day outfit? What do we think of this trend?
♥ I love this fab idea… Using chalk to colour your hair!

Check out Tom & Amy’s flashmob at their wedding – an awesome surprise from their guests!

HAHA Love this first dance!

Vintage themes aren’t always my bag, but throw a 1920s carnival idea at me and I go weak at the knees! A strong theme like this, done really really well, gets me very excited indeed.

Emily & Jesse were married at The Voorhies Mansion at Edenvale Winery. It provided the perfect canvas for their creative ideas! “I would encourage anyone planning a wedding to use wedding tradition as a springboard and focus on the experience you want your guests taking away from your event,” newlywed Emily told me. “My husband and I went through the traditional wedding/reception order and activities and then changed what didn’t work for us. Everything was a conscious choice from writing the hilarious ceremony with our officiant to deciding to have four bouquets which I presented to my mom, MIL and grandmothers. Once we knew what we wanted we could be very clear with all of our vendors about our ideas and every single one of them bent over backwards to help make it happen. Our guests still tell us it was the most fun, memorable wedding they’ve ever been to and that is exactly what we were going for.”

The speakeasy carnival theme was everywhere – from the homemade stationery, to the food, to the performers. “We have many talented friends and family who contributed performances that totally made the party,” Emily continued. “My sister sang old jazz standards before and during the ceremony, and friends performed our wedding ceremony, performed aerial silks during dinner, taught the Charleston to our guests, fire danced or played the part of a fortune teller, flapper or mime. True Love Sound not only took care of music but were great MCs and with their help we made a silent movie reenacting how me met… it was totally hilarious! You can see it here along with our guests’ reactions in the video below.”

“We also included a note on our invitations and on our wedding site to let guests know that we encouraged them to dress up to fit the theme in any way they wanted… And they DID! It was fantastic! I also want to thank Heather Goodwin, owner of An Inspired Affair, for being my advocate the day of our wedding. She helped me with all of the logistics while we planned and made sure I could have fun by knowing everything was taken care of on the day of.”

Amazing! Don’t forget the hilarious video…

Thank you to Emily & Jesse and photographer Nicole for sharing today.

Supporting Cast:

Photography Credit: NE Photography
Venue: The Voorhies Mansion at Edenvale Winery
Bride’s Dress: Vintage
Bride’s Shoes: Vintage
Bride’s Headpiece: DIY
Bride’s Jewellery: La Vie Parisienne
Groom’s Outfit: Duchess Clothier
Cake: DIY
Flowers: DIY
DJ: True Love Sound
Stationery: DIY
Caterers: AZ Catering
Planner: An Inspired Affair

Organised in just two months, Juliana & Tomas’ wedding was held in Brazil on the very date that they first met. The bride explains, “Tomas & I met two years ago through a mutual friend. At that time, Tomas lived in New York and I lived in Sao Paulo. In December 2009, Tomas went to Brazil to work and our friend invited him to spend New Year’s Eve in a house I’d rented at the beach. We spent 6 days together and, two months later, we met again, but this time in New York. We started a long-distance relationship, which lasted just 4 months, because I decided to come to New York. My plan was to spend a season in New York, study and invest in our relationship. Back then, we were very uncertain about our relationship’s future, but now we have no doubt we made the best decision.”

“At the end of October 2011, he proposed me and the only thing that we were sure at that time was that we would get married in Brazil in the same date that we met. The tough part – we had less than two months to organize our wedding. We wanted a small wedding, just the closest friends and our family, but Tomas also wanted a ‘wedding that didn’t look like a wedding’. We wanted a party with our touch, our style.”

“So in order to do that we made as much as possible ourselves. We did our own wedding invitations, we painted jars, and we took care of every small detail of the party. We flew from New York to Rio de Janeiro with two bags full of decor items. We really wanted something different and unique, a non-standard wedding. We spent the morning before our wedding together at the hotel’s swimming pool, we helped each other get dressed, and we got dressed in the same room, where some friends stopped by for a pre-party.”

Juliana wore a Cymbeline wedding dress with a striking red headpiece and carried a homemade bouquet created out of felt hearts. ”My dress added a dash of fun style and my bouquet and the wedding cake were also unusual. The ceremony was performed by our mutual friend, our parents and siblings. Chef Damien was in charge of a vegetarian menu. We left a Polaroid camera available to our friends and some of the most memorable pics were taken with the photo booth props. If you asked me what I would change in the wedding, I would say ‘nothing, it was a perfect party!’”

Stunning! Thank you to  Juliana & Tomas for sharing their wonderful celebration with us today.

Supporting Cast:

Photography Credit: Junia Lane & The Kreulichs
Venue: Santa Teresa Hotel
Bride’s Dress: Cymbeline
Bride’s Shoes: Nina ’Evelixa’
Bride’s Headpiece: The Hat Shop
Bride’s Jewellery: Anthropologie & Antonio Bernardo
Groom’s Outfit: Astor and Black
Cake: Dolce ZoÃ
Flowers: Shirley Yanez
Hair & Make Up: Eduardo Jonata
DJ: Marcelo Paes
Caterers: Chef Damien

Weddings like Elissa & Chris’ make me all giddy inside. A relatively simple affair done well is probably my current favourite kind of wedding style. No fuss, no stress, just effortlessly cool. One day I’ll be as awesome as these guys!

The reception was held in the backyard of a private residence, owned by Chris’ family, in Carolina Beach, NC. The family owns two beach cottages on a lake that share a large lawn, and that was the perfect place for them to pitch their tent which played host to their epic party!

“We toured a number of venues in the New England area when we first got engaged, mostly summer camps and farms, but just when we thought we had it figured out we realized we were way off course,” the couple explained. “We wanted to celebrate at a place that was not completely plucked from the blue. We spent a lot of time wishing we had a farmer owner in the family, and then realized NC would be perfect. The most important thing all along has been to find a place where we could have complete control over set-up, food, decoration, etc. We wanted to DIY as much as possible, as cookie cutter weddings don’t appeal to us in the slightest. At first we wanted to elope, but realized we would regret not bringing our families and friends together to celebrate in a way that was totally ‘us’.”

Don’t you just love the homespun vibe? Gorgeous! Thank you to Elissa & Chris and photographer Heather of One Love Photo for sharing with us today.

Supporting Cast:

Photography Credit: One Love Photo
Venue: Private Residence, Carolina Beach, NC

Photography Credit: Carissa Gallo

I discovered Naomi’s blog, The Rockstar Diaries, in early 2009, when she published her wedding photographs. I immediately fell in love with her and her husband Josh’s effortless style and achingly cool attitude. I loved the way they shared cute little stories about their life as newlyweds – getting married, setting up home, moving from New York to DC, getting their dog Kingsley, having their first child, Eleanor… It was all very unpretentious and honest and I felt connected with them instantly.

So I thought Naomi would be the perfect person to interview today. If you have a blog and you worry about what to share about yourself, then Naomi and her family are the perfect role models to inspire you.

Hi Naomi, I’ve followed your blog for years and I’m so excited to have you in the Green Room today. For those readers that might not know who you are, could you briefly introduce yourself?

I’m Naomi (also known as Taza in the blogging world) and I live in Washington DC with my husband, Josh, and 16 month old baby girl, Eleanor. In 2 or 3 weeks, we’ll be adding a new member to the family as I’m due with our second child, a boy, in early June! We also have an English bulldog named Kingsley who is sort of our world.  We love him dearly.

My husband and I met while attending school in New York City (him, Columbia, me, Juilliard). We were married in NYC and lived there for a few years before making our way to DC about 3 years ago.  I started our little blog shortly after we were married as a way to share our wedding photos with family and friends. After I posted our wedding photos, I continued to update here and there about our newly wed lives in NYC and it sort of just took on a life of its own from there.  I never started my blog with the intention or desire to gain a large following or make money from it. We never advertised our blog or pushed it out there… I remember when we first started receiving comments from people we didn’t know… It made me terribly nervous and I almost made it private. But it’s been a wonderful experience (for the most part, ha!) and I’m thankful for it.  I’ve met some of my best friends through blogging, find constant inspiration and support from fellow bloggers and feel fortunate for the opportunities and experiences that have come our way because of it.

Is your blog your full time job and what role does your husband Josh play in the business?

I got my BFA in dance at Juilliard and was teaching up until Eleanor’s birth.  At the moment, I find motherhood to be my full time job. Although I’ll admit that our blog could definitely be considered a full time gig if we allowed it.

I blog, answer emails (although I’m awful at keeping up with them), sort through and edit photos and posts for about an hour each evening after my husband comes home from work.  On the weekends I try to dedicate a bit more time to the blog.  My husband has really stepped in to help as it’s grown and runs most of our advertising and sponsorships.  He loves that sort of thing and I’m terrible at it, so it’s worked out really well.

You appear to be very comfortable sharing details and photos from you and of your family online. Is it in any way weird to feel like your living your lives so publicly? Have you ever had any scary moments or do you ever worry about putting such personal things out there?

I think some often forget that what you see on a blog is never the full picture.  We blog bits and pieces of our lives together, but there is still a great deal we leave off the internet for both safety and privacy. I often think some readers forget that a blogger also has a right to privacy.  There are some things I won’t talk about online and as Eleanor (and any future children) continue to grow older, I think their presence on our blog will shift a great deal.

Your blog is exceptionally popular. Can you think of any defining moments that caused this to happen? Have you ever stopped and thought “wow, I get paid to write about my life”? And do you have any tips for anyone struggling to know what to write about or get their blog noticed?

The growth of our blog has really been an organic process. We never started blogging with the intention to gain a large following or make money from it. It still surprises me often that anyone would want to follow along with our little family life.  But I really do love our readers and sharing bits of our life with them. The support in the blogging world is unreal. From marriage to pregnancy to raising a toddler, it’s comforting to find that support and love from an online community and it has meant the world to me. As for tips for someone struggling with blogging, I find that if you blog about what you love, not what you *think* will make your blog popular or help you gain higher traffic or followers, you’ll be successful. For me, it’s never been about the number of comments or monthly stats or anything… in fact, my husband tracks all that for our advertisers, and I stay away from it because all that just makes me nervous. Whenever he starts to say something like, “Wow, we had *blank* number of unique visitors this month”, I tell him to be quiet because I don’t want to look at it that way. I don’t want to get caught up in the numbers and all that.  I try hard to blog for me first, documenting my life for me and my family…. and I think the reason I still enjoy it and have found success is because of that.

What do you think makes a good blogger and what do you think separates the successful ones from the mediocre?

I think what makes a good blogger is someone that blogs about what they love, what inspires them… over what they *think* they should be blogging about.  I’ve been so turned off my many bloggers who I once loved that suddenly changed their blog to a “fashion” blog or “recipe” blog or whatever was suddenly hot at the moment because they think that will help their numbers grow since it’s everywhere. Suddenly you have to follow their blog and tweet about their blog it in order to enter a giveaway. It’s like, really? I feel like readers see through bloggers who are only in it for money or popularity. If not yet, they will eventually.  And that blogger will also eventually burn out. Be true to who you are on your blog. Blog often. And blog only content that you want to blog about.  The readers will see you for who you are and appreciate that. And, those readers will keep coming back.

What are your favourite blogs and why?

I cleaned our my google reader over 9 months ago and it was beyond liberating. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with a million blogs and after having Eleanor, my time suddenly became much more precious. I read only a handful of blogs each week now– the ones that resonate with me either because of the photography, the parenting style or approach, their outlook on life, etc. A couple of my favorites are Bleubird,  Sandra Juto, and The Littlest Blog.

What inspires you as a business woman and a person?

I really gather inspiration from everything– my close relationships with those around me, beautiful bold colors, people watching, street style fashion… I feel like it’s everywhere.

What does a regular day look like for you?

I spend my days with Eleanor. We often have breakfast with papa before he heads to work. We read a ton of books and play before her morning nap. While she’s asleep I clean up and if I’m lucky, get to answering a few emails (although at 37 weeks pregnant right now, I’ve started trying to nap when she naps since I’m absolutely exhausted these days!). Once she wakes, we have lunch together and take Kingsley out or head to the park or a museum or someplace around the district. Our afternoons vary from day to day….  We like to have dinner together as a family and spend some down time just hanging out together either here at home or someplace in DC before Josh takes E for a bit and I try to get some work done.

What are you most proud of to date, in both your business and personal life?

I’m most proud to be a mother. Staying home full time with your children these days can often get such a bad rap. Some have said, “Oh, you’re so lucky to just get to sit at home all day and shop online.” Um. Really? That’s what you think I do?  Being a mother has been the hardest thing I’ve done so far in my life, over getting into and graduating from Juilliard, any professional dance projects, all of it. But to date, it’s also been my greatest accomplishment. I absolutely love it and I’m thankful for this opportunity.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I always wanted to dance. Be a mother. And have my own sort of business.

Do you have any goals for this year that you’d be willing to share?

Hmmm. One goal I’m willing to share is– after this baby is born in a few weeks, I cannot wait to get my pre-pregnancy body back and into a dance class! I have a hard time just climbing the stairs in our home right now I feel so out of breath at the top! So getting back into shape is a big one for me.

And finally, what’s next for you? Any future plans or projects you are able to tell us about?

Oh gosh, we do have some exciting things in the works via the blog right now but I can’t share them just yet. I hate being that person who has to keep mum, but stay tuned!

After their wedding Emma & Owen decided they wanted to do a shoot that really showed off their personalities and personal style. They hadn’t had any portraits taken at their wedding eight years ago, and so they contacted photographer Jess Petrie to ask if she’d like to shoot them.

Owen told us all about their relationship and why they wanted to do this shoot. “I met Emma when I was fifteen and we’ve been together ever since. It really was love at first sight – that’s probably the only way it could have worked as I was too shy to speak to her at the time! As a teenager with a paper round, I had to save up for an engagement ring; I picked a ring at a jewellers and went there every week to add to the down-payment on a tiny gold ring with two small diamonds holding a larger third in the middle. I’d literally go there some weeks with 82 pence in copper coins to add to the pot, but I paid it off eventually and took it home! We went to sixth form and then University together, Emma to study Fine Art Painting and me to study Film & Video Production. Nowadays, Emma is a successful portrait painter and I run a film production company and am about to direct my first feature film.”

“We got married just under eight years ago at Hedingham Castle in Essex, a Norman castle from the 11th Century. The wedding was brilliant, with an all-black dress code and we wrote our own vows. Being a film maker with a professional photographer for a father, most of my friends are pretty good at wielding a camera, so we didn’t hire a photographer for the day (we obviously didn’t know Jess then). I’d been to a few weddings where the photographer had made the whole day revolve around themselves which seemed to kill any romance or spontaneity in the couple; too much ‘Stand here! Move there! Now we need the Bride’s Mother and the Groom’s Father…’ for my liking when we just wanted a day to celebrate being in love. After the wedding we were sent discs from everyone and had just under 5,000 images to sift through which was great fun, if a little slow! One thing we realised afterwards was that although we’d documented the day thoroughly, it would have been nice to get a few shots which were just about ‘us’ rather than the event.  Hence booking in with Jess for this shoot.”

“Nowadays, wedding photographers seem to have evolved, thank goodness! I went to a wedding recently where the photographer got in a fight with the bride’s uncle over ordering people about too much, so it still happens and it’s not just me it bothers – but there is a new and wonderful trend for photographers like Jess. Essentially, it’s their job to be very subtle and just capture unguarded, natural moments where people are celebrating, laughing, crying and playing. If wedding photographers like Jess had been around in 2004 when we married, we’d have booked her!”

You may not have got the wedding photographs you wanted, but you sure made up for it with this shoot. WHOA! Thank you Emma, Owen & Jess for sharing them with us today.

Supporting Cast:

Photography Credit: Jess Petrie Photography
Location: Roche Abbey

Looking for some quirky and contemporary jewellery to rock on your wedding day (and beyond!) then be sure to stop by Blend Creations. After their own Rock n Roll wedding, husband & wife team Vivian & Eric decided to launch their own design company and to produce some really unique pieces. A bottle opener that’s also a necklace? How very handy!

They say, “We try and design pieces that aren’t typical, and as beer aficionados and jewelry designers it seemed natural to design a functional pendant that doubles as a bottle opener. Our bottle opener pendant is the kind of thing that we would have given our wedding party had it been around when we were married! The custom ones are great because they can feature the location of your wedding venue and then personalize the back with the important details of your wedding (date, names and the like).”

Reader Discount

The bottle opening pendants cost $64 ($99 for custom designs). A 35% quantity discount is automatically applied when you purchase 3 or more custom bottle openers.

For all other items, Blend Creations would like to offer readers of Rock n Roll Bride a 15% discount off all orders of $50 or more. To qualify simply use the promo code ‘RockNRoll’ at checkout.

Contact

website: www.blendcreations.com/contact
email: blendcreations@blendcreations.com
phone: 613.266.8433 or toll-free in the US/Canada 1.888.563.9220