Last week saw the Ultimate Wedding Planning Party brought to life at the stunning Opera Point Marque. You couldn't ask for a better backdrop than Sydney Harbour as 280 guests where entertained with bridal catwalk shows and expert wedding tips. 'i do' it yourself was there sipping sparkling wine and chatting to some of the best in the industry.

The show opened with a performance by Carmelo Pizzino of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ fame and his dance partner. Watch out grooms - Carmelo offers bridal waltz lessons!
The crowd favourite is of course the fashion - guests giving a collective gasp of delight when this  gorgeous Nicky Velani creation stepped out.



With designs from Lisa Gowing, VELANI by Nicky Velani, Sarah Janks and Collette Dinnigan there was no shortage of ruffles and lace. Beaded belts were popular, 'The Knot' Editor Alicia Richardson predicting a return to more classic silhouettes with brides personalising their look with belts, headpieces and colourful shoes. Shoulder details such as lace boleros and sleeves are making a return, and a more relaxed tussled look to hair. All influenced in no small part by Kate Middleton and the royal wedding this year.

Models in Sarah Janks, Lisa Gowing, Collette Dinigan and VELANI by Nicky Velani

Less formal wedding bouquets are tipped and we could even see more brides and bridesmaids carrying a single stunning stem down the aisle. "Greens are always popular" said Susan Avery of Susan Avery Flowers in Woollahra. "We're seeing lots of texture in floral arrangements at the moment." A mix of nude tones currently very popular with brides will move to more purple shades.



One of our favourite trends seen on the night was the floral chandelier. From a small group of single buds tied to ribbons, to grand collections of cascading blooms mixed with pretty tea light candles. Beautiful when mixed with the real thing from Chandeliers to Die For who hire their creations for the ultimate bit of wedding day bling.

1. Plan ahead. Leaving everything to the last minute will undoubtably mean spending money on extras. 
2. Limit the number of guests. Only invite your child's closest friends. 
3. DIY invites. Printable and personalised invites are easy with websites like idoityourself.com.au
4. Keep the food simple. Kids don't care about fancy food! Keep it simple with fairy bread, cupcakes and other finger foods.
5. Bake the cake. Make your own cake or cupcakes you can even get the kids involved in the baking!

We didn't have much luck in our first visit to Centennial Park in Sydney a few months back. But last week we went back and the weather was perfect - so we went again this weekend!

What is the perfect accompaniment to a vineyard wedding? A cheese cake of course. Not a cheesecake - a cake of cheese. Serve guests a delicious selection of cheeses along with berries, grapes and figs. Delish! Try Farm Gate Cheese who deliver Australia Wide or Ocello in Surry Hills.

If you're looking for the prefect Hunter Valley accommodation then you must be looking for Seventh Heaven. A stunning new two level Guest house for four couples overlooking the 7th and 8th holes at The Vintage Golf Resort, Pokolbin.

The spacious house provides plenty of internal and external entertainment areas with 180 degrees of spectacular uninterrupted views. Imagine wakening on your wedding morning, kangaroos come to visit the pond along with ducks and local birds, colourful hot air balloons float above you while you enjoy a glass of local champagne.

Local attractions right on your doorstep include the Chateau Elan for spa treatments, facials and hair care. The Bimbagen Estate Winery - a popular wedding location. And of course the famous Vintage Golf Resort for the boys!

To make a booking or for more information contact The Vintage 
or book through Stayz.com.au

Pic from Green is Universal

Now if you still have corks left over after all these DIY projects - heres another great idea, a corker of an idea in fact! Sorry. Recycle your wine corks into table numbers or a wedding monogram. All you need are some pre cut letters or numbers which you can find at most craft shops such as Spotlight and Lincraft, and a hot glue gun. Just stick your corks to the wooden base like we did with the wreath project.

If you loved the look of David and Doris vintage travel vineyard wedding, heres how to get it...

1. Antique Chic Travel Menu Cards - celebrate in style with these beautiful menus customised with your details and wedding fare and supplied via email. $20 from 'i do' it yourself
2. Mint Green Bow Tie - tradition cricket style bow tie in japanese chambray. $68 from Forage
3. "...and they lived happily ever after" Rustic Wedding Sign - complete with stake and screws $55 from Sweet Wedding Details
4. Three Compartment Wine Box - Flourish design in beautiful unfinished birch. $69 from Wine For A Wedding
5. Ring Box - handmade in combination of oak, walnut and maple using reclaimed wood. $35 from JM Craft Works
6. Small Luggage Tag - this retro design is great for escort cards, place cards or gift tags for wedding favours. $15 from 'i do' it yourself

David and Dori combined vintage travel and vineyard style in their beautiful wedding at Warwick Valley Winery. It was a beautiful outdoor ceremony amongst the vines and orchards with a pretty pastel colour palette of green and cream. The groom looked dapper in bow tie and braces while the cutest little flower girl and pageboy stole the show.



David and Dori chose to include a beautiful wine box ceremony to the proceedings. If you haven't seen this before the idea is to create a little time capsule with wine from your wedding placed inside a box and sealed. You can make a little wooden box and nail it shut as David and Dori did, or purchase a custom made box with keys. On an anniversary open up the box and share the wine. You can even add letters to one another, copies of your vows, or anything special to look back on in years to come.



To keep the travel theme going, David and Dori had a beautiful postcard guestbook. Guests leave their messages for the couple on old postcards that were then placed inside a vintage suitcase. Table numbers were framed photos of David and Dori on their many travels around the world. Antique Chic Travel menu cards and orders of service from 'i do' it yourself completed the look.
Photos by Jose Reyes Photography.

Pics: The Knot, Martha Stewart, Elizabeth Ann Designs, Martha Stewart.

Last week we told you to keep that stencil handy, and here's why. How about stenciling your table numbers onto old bottles of wine? Or you could make beautiful burlap bottle sacks, which also make great wedding favours. You can also print your table numbers straight onto sticker paper - you can pick packs up at office supply stores, waterproof labels are best.

To learn how to make your own stenciled burlap bags, Home Sweet Blog has an excellent step by step.

For a fun wedding decoration you can keep, why not make a wine cork wreath? Here creative couple Candice and Alvaro kept their vineyard themed wedding going with a beautiful display table for the guestbook, and even transformed an old window into their seating chart! Photo by Katie Stoops Wedding Photography.

To make your own cork wreath all you need is a hot glue gun, some florists wire, a straw wreath and some corks! Now we know it will be such a chore drinking all those bottle of wine to collect the corks, but go on, you can do it!

• You can pick up blank wreaths for craft shops in various sizes
• Wrap a bit of florists wire around the wreath, this will be used to hang it up with later
• Add a dollop of hot glue to the corks and stick them straight onto the wreath, pretty simple hu? You can glue them horizontally, as above, or try vertical to display the mix of colours stained to the bottoms of the corks. There is also a great video tutorial on Vimeo which shows this technique
• Work your way round the wreath glueing on the corks and repeat so you have a few layers on there
• Drink all the wine that you took the corks from

So it's time to decide on the alcohol for your big day, but where do you start? That is an extremely good question and it may lead even the steadfast teetotallers to drink. JR investigates the options.

The venue will play a big part in your decision making. If you are holding your wedding reception at a function centre do you have use of their bar facilities, or is there an option for you to provide your own alcohol? Your next choice will be to decide if you are going to have open bar, a limited bar (for example serving beer and wine only), a cash bar, a host bar or maybe even NO bar at all! Oh boy!

If you have selected an outside reception venue in a park remember to check if it's  licensed for the consumption of alcohol. Do you need to obtain a licence? As an alternative you could always serve none alcoholic drinks such as pink lemonade, ice teas, fun fruit punches and non alcoholic cocktails.

A traditional Champagne toast can cost anywhere between $5 - $15 per person! And its not just the cost of the drinks, champagne flutes are often a forgotten item on the budget. Why not try punch, sparkling rose or even create your own signature cocktail.

The cost of the alcohol will depend upon where you purchase it from - the local bottle/wine shop, direct from the cellar door or a liquor wholesaler. Keep an eye out for bargains and advertising specials. If you want to order online and have door-to-door delivery the Wine-Searcher web site is a good place to start. 

The big questing is how much alcohol you will need to provide. This will depended on the time of day and of course the number of guests attending. How many of them drink? Will there be any children? There are some very handy alcohol calculators online that come to the rescue.
• The Real Simple wine the liquor calculator
• Alcohol Guest Consumption Calculator

No matter what you choose always remember to serve water and soft drinks.

Pic via Miller Campbell Designs

Directing guests around an outdoor venue is pretty important, so why not DIY with cute handmade signs? Last month we took a look at a few ways to decorate wood with a reverse stencil, paint and even a wood burner. Any of these techniques will work fine but here is an simple stencil project:

You will need
• scrap wood
• nails and hammer
• paint and paintbrush
• a stencil kit



• Alphabet and number stencil can be found in art shops and craft stores. You may want to cut the letters off the sheet to speed things up a little.
• You can give your piece of wood a rough coat of white paint first for a more shabby chic effect, here we've just left our plank of wood as is
• Ummm.... stencil the words on! Pretty simple hu? It is best to write out what you will be stencilling on a sheet of paper first and work out which words are in the middle. Start stencilling from the centre and work your way out.
• Finish off by nailing your plank onto the poll

Keep your stencil hand for our more DIY wedding projects this month.

By Kate Harrison Photography

Liatris, a tall purple flowering plant is popular in wine themed floral arrangements because of its resemblance to a cluster of grapes. Below this stunning centerpiece was created using a mixture of garden roses, sunflower cores, grape ivy, and muscat grapes all displayed in a simple wooden box.

Photo by Victor Schrager via New York Magazine

It seems a while since we posted about a new product in the i do it yourself shop but we think this ones worth the wait. We have a beautiful new fingerprint guest book design - the grape vine.

For those of you who haven't seen this idea before, guests leave a fingerprint on the poster and sign there name, this time to act as a grape on the vine! Perfect for a vineyard wedding.

Supplied as a print ready PDF, just take the file to your local print shop for a quick and easy poster.
Available in our etsy shop.

A vineyards can be the perfect location for a wedding so if you're thinking about tying the knot in a winery, raise a glass in celebration of this months theme. With so many beautiful venues to choose from in the Hunter Vallery, the Barossa and more, no wonder a wine themed wedding is so popular in Australia.

Credits: Jill and Mikes gorgeous real vineyard wedding shot by Jennifer Tai Photo Artistry, the vines make a perfect photo backdrop. A quircky recycled wine cork wreath, $65 from Lizzie Joe Designs. Not cheese cake but a cake of cheese, photographed by Luke Simon Weddings. Champagne flutes in the perfect outdoor wedding scene, via Brides.com.

Cork place card holders via Occasions Magazine. Old wine barrels are perfect for cake displays, guest book signing areas and more. The beautiful setting of a vineyard wedding venue.

Colour palette: Eucalyptus and fresh green, rose bud pink

Spring is almost here, so it's time to treat yourself to a fresh new fragrance ready for the big day. Here are a some floral and fruity recent releases to splash out on.

1. Vera Wang Bouquet is a fresh, green, floral fragrance with top notes of bergamot, dew drops and blackcurrant leaves. De-lish! $170 for 100mL. 2. A favourite in the 'i do' it yourself office, Issey Miyake L’Eau d’Issey Florale, a soft floral scent with notes of yellow ginger lily and a budding rose, enhanced by sparkling notes of mandarin orange. $170 for 90mL 3. Gucci EDP II is feminine fragrance with a distinctive musk base. Notes of blackcurrant and blackberry give it a little extra kick. $159 for 75mL. 4. Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet is an explosion of fresh and fruity, just like the prefect bridal bouquet! $130 for 50mL. 5. Marc Jacobs Daisy has quickly become a classic and the latest incarnation Eau So Fresh is a bright, floral, fruity new version. With grapefruit, raspberry, green leaves and pear. And of course who could pass up that gorgeous bottle design - which is even bigger than the original! $145 for 125mL.