Vintage

Traditions, customs, etiquette & a few little tips!

If you’ve decided to have a traditional wedding it can be confusing who does what & when, particularly if you’ve never arranged a wedding before! While chatting through stationery orders we’re often asked for our thoughts & ideas. Weddings can be tricky & stressful but thankfully there’s some good old wedding traditions that can help solve your problems. Some of them should most definitely stay in the past but others are kind of cute, so if for one day why not embrace a few old traditions and have fun?!

We’ve put together a few little tips, ideas & a whole heap of traditions to help you through.

The Dress..

is the most widely known superstition! The dress shouldn’t be seen by the groom prior to the wedding! Today most Brides wear white or ivory following an old tradition to signify virginity, happiness and joy. Historically though brides would have worn their favourite colour or dress so why not now? Ultimately go for what YOU want to wear & find your perfect dress!  Check out the new trend for floral printed wedding dresses they’re gorgeous!

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Lalique Lace over Fine Crepe (The Vintage Wedding Dress Company)

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Leila Rose brown polka dot tulle dress

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Floral print wedding dress by Atelier Aimee Bridal Couture

The Rings…

are traditionally worn to show a person’s marital status. The tradition dates back to Roman times. It’s the most symbolic piece of jewellery anyone will wear. The unbroken circular band symbolises the eternal commitment from one person to another. A lovely idea is to have rings cut from the same piece of gold or platinum! In the past a ring bearer would have carried the ring on a cushion. Today the rings are usually paid for by the groom & are often carried by the best man. So you have the engagement ring, now all you have to do is find a stunning wedding ring to go with it!

WANT THAT WEDDING

Vintage wedding rings

Something old….

 something new, something borrowed, something blue, & a silver sixpence in your shoe!

The last part of the rhyme, isn’t used much any more (probably because it was pretty uncomfortable!) but a silver sixpence symbolised happiness, spiritual & financial wealth. Why not add ‘I DO’ to the soles of your shoes in silver or in silver diamanté, it’s great to make your guests giggle when they catch a glimpse!

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‘I Do’ for your shoes from Nutmeg on Not On The High Street

The bride wears ‘something old’ as a symbol of her old life that she is leaving behind & old friends to bring into her new life. (I had an old silver locket tied into my bouquet with photos of my grandparents.) The ‘new’ refers to new hope for her new life & is probably your dress and shoes. ‘Something borrowed’ is often a garter from a happily married girlfriend is believed to pass on good luck to the newly-weds. Blue symbolises purity, faithfulness & commitment to her husband, so tie a bow & add it to your undies!

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Vintage style garter from Florrie Mitton

The next tradition we are going to cover is bouquets and flowers.. so please keep following!

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Ecocraft Vintage Garden Party Wedding Invitations

Here on the Hummingbird blog we often show you bespoke designs. Today, we thought we’d do something a little different & share with you a recent order from our whimsical stationery collection.

Jane & Gareth came to us a few months ago to order their wedding invitations. They’re getting married in March next year & needed day invitations, evening invitations & RSVP cards. They chose the Vintage Garden Party design with a combination of both laser cut & printed elements. The day invitations were laser cut & finished with ecocraft inlay & champagne ribbon. The evening invitations & RSVP cards were printed on to ecocraft card.

We loved this order so much (we really are all about craft at the moment here in the studio!) that we couldn’t resist taking a few pictures before it made it’s way to Jane & Gareth.

 

Vintage Fairytale

Carla & Michael made an appointment to came to see us at the studio to commission their bespoke wedding stationery, then the fun began!

They are getting married this September at Warwick Castle & have created a ‘Vintage Fairytale’ theme in a rich palette of soft neutrals, chocolate brown & gold.

They bought sketches, pictures & cuttings from magazines along with them & were so full of enthusiasm!

Carla told us ‘I loved the process of doing my own sketches to bring to your design studio. It’s been one of the highlights of planning the wedding so far – & I have my oversized owl up on the wall. It still makes Mike & I giggle that in my drawing the owl was bigger than the castle!’  The most personal touch is the owl which is a subtle nod to Mike’s football team, Sheffield Wednesday (aka, The Owls). ‘I love how this is a personal & subtle nod & it means I can avoid having a white & blue theme!’ Carla said.

       The invitation has been personalised with silhouettes of Carla & Mike, initials carved in the tree & of course Warwick castle itself to carry on the fairytale theme with whimsical elements.

Carla said  ’ I loved Hummingbird’s idea of putting it in a circle, it’s now like looking into a magical forest glade. It is absolutely perfect!

 They have loads of personal touches & surprises for the guests so I have only included the things that I know they don’t mind us sharing!



Best wishes to Carla & Mike for a wonderful whimsical wedding day!

Vintage Garden Party from the new Whimsical collection …

We’re really pleased to share with you some pics from our new Whimsical Wedding Collection.

If you’re planning a garden fete style wedding, love bunting or are passionate about all things vintage, this is the wedding stationery for you!

The Garden Party collection started life with our laser cut Garden Party invite & has evolved in to a whole collection of items designed to perfectly complement each other. We think it’s a wonderful mix of our best elements – beautiful laser cutting which shows the technique at it’s best & gorgeous printed pieces which can use coloured print & natural eco card qualities.

The collection also features printed Save the Date cards, printed postcard invites, Orders of Service, Menus, table numbers & names, and place & table plan cards.

The original laser cut invitation comes in textured silk ivory, with a variety of different backing colours in an array of country garden flower colours, although we prefer the eco craft..

 We’ve relaunched our website & you can now read all about this new vintage wedding stationery collection & order a sample (so you get to see the beautiful laser cutting yourself!)

Vintage Finds…..

Some lovely little vintage finds to inspire us!