Erin Layla Garton finalises her Wedding Details!

Every bride and groom wants their wedding to stand out, whether it going crazy with the flowers, choosing a spectacular or different venue, or picking a theme that you can really go to town with, but remember it’s your wedding, YOUR being the operative word. As long as the day reflects you and your partner and everything that you are together that’s all that matters. James and I have always had a different style to our friends, sometimes I think that we were both born in the wrong era, we are both heavily into classic décor, vintage finishes and anything oldy worldy! So I was sure, with me being a DIY fanatic and both of us loving spending our time trawling antique shops and Ebay that our wedding was going to have lots of ­­­­intricate details personal to us. Below you will see a few DIY details personal to my wedding that I am working on. I have included simple instructions in case you want to achieve something similar.

Napkins

We are keeping our floral decorations really simple, they are going to be white but a variety of different flowers, because of this I was really worried that by having white flowers and white table linen it might not fit with our theme of vintage rustic chic. So I decided that to inject some colour onto our tables that I would make napkins out of different vintage floral looking fabrics. This has turned out to be quite time consuming but I really cannot wait to see them all finished and folded nicely on our tables.

5 easy steps to make your own napkins:

Step 1 – decide how big you want your napkins, mine with seam allowance are
Step 2 – draw lines on the wrong side of all four sides of your napkins, 2 thirds of your seam allowance in. I have allowed 3cm seam allowance so I am drawing lines 2 cm in.
Step 3 – Iron the outer edge of the fabric inwards so it runs level with your line, press down firmly with the iron
Step 4 - Now fold along the drawn line and press down.
Note – Do step 3 and 4 on opposite sides of the napkins first and then do the other 2 sides.
Step 5 – Sew a straight stitch along all four sides, making sure to keep as straight as possible and to sew on the fabric you have folded. After sewing all four sides snip of any lose threads, press the whole napkin flat, and voila you have yourself a napkin!

Decorated bottles

As James and I are doing our own flowers we also need something to put them in, we will be using some vases that we have collected, but we also wanted to bring something different to our centrepieces. So we have also been collecting vintage bottles, nice liquer bottles and then also just some plain glass bottles that we are decorating, because I love the vintage feel and look of lace and pearls, so that is exactly what I am going to use to cover my bottles.

Step by step guide to decorating bottles:

Step 1 - First find the type of bottles you want to cover, I used sparkling wine bottles and sparkling elderflower bottles, they both have that champagne look to them.
Step 2 – Remove all labels, and wash to get rid of all the residue. This may take some work depending on the labels, but soaking them in hot water with washing up liquid and scrubbing them with a scour pad I find always works. Then make sure you dry the bottle throughly.
Step 3 - Heat up your glue gun and get your pearls ready, I got my half pearls aftering seacrhing the net, make sure they are half pearls (domed on one side and flat on the other, there is no need to get hotfix ones). With my pearls I bought the majority in white or ivory but I also got some golds, silvers, lilacs, pinks and greens to give it some extra lift, I also bought them in a number of different sizes. And think of your design, I personally go with what I am feeling at the time.
Step 4 – Start glueing, just place a spot of glue on the bottle and then place your pearl on top and press down firmly so that it is securely in place. You will have glue strings across the top of your pearls but don’t worry.
Step 5 – Once all your pearls have been stuck on, take out a oft toothbrush and brush away all excess glue and glue strings, and then sit back and admire your work.
Note – you can use lots of amazing haberdashy items to decorate bottles, like pearls, ribbons or for an edgy look how about buttons, I used gather lace, see picture below. Happy decorating.