Hold onto your hats, because this fête captured by Nadia Meli is one part loads and loads of fun and one part serious style. Complete with a couple that is definitely in the running for my favorite/most adorable couple of the year, a vintage dress overflowing with pink tulle and details branded to perfection – it’s safe to say this parade of perfectly curated pretty is fun and then some. It’s all like one big happy pill, and you can get your dose right here!
From the Bride…The moment you mention the word ‘wedding’ a lot of factors around us would say “what you need to do is this and that and the other… “. We decided from an early stage that we would like to design and build our wedding as honestly and true to our identity as possible, because we’re still crazy kids at heart and all we wanted was to have FUN! So how does ‘honesty’ manifest in a wedding? The invite was the first step. Kone is an amazing Illustrator, storyteller and loves to read & write, whilst my heart lies in print graphic design. So we thought we could combine these attributes by printing a newspaper full of stories about us, event information and things to do around my home town Landsberg am Lech. Basically create an invite that is tangible, a reflection of us and invites our guests to join the ‘sweet forever extravaganza’ – an experience of a lifetime! Not only was the invite fun to make, but the printing costs were also much cheaper than the usual custom made invites. We also made heaps of stickers, stamps, welcome maps and signs of our hand made graphics, which helped keeping the “theme” tied together. Our colour scheme and design was a mixed influence of township barbershops from Southern Africa and 50s sweet shop days. Turquoise and pastels was the way to go, as we’ve seen a fair amount of these in our travels and also felt they were fun, bright and lovely.
Speaking of the 50’s, I’m a secret 50’s era lover and generally keep it simple, yet find little ways to bring that element into my life, i.e. fashion, records, etc. For that reason, on my wedding day I decided to rock the Marilyn Monroe look in a “me” sort of way. My bridesmaids dresses were matching the colour scheme and the cut were suppose to be light and fun. Not too glam and heavy. We like it natural. Kone is an old boarding school boy so he likes to look as neat as possible. With his favourite colour being blue, I think he did a very good job with the styling. The men wore ties in the day, and in the evening they wore bow ties, to make the evening reception as comfy as possible.
The day itself was a dream. It truly was fun! Kone and I have that as a rule in our relationship, is to make each other laugh at least once a day – I think that really showed on the day. The church ceremony was beautiful and truly spiritual. Friends of mine, who’ve never been to church in their lives were deeply moved and that meant the world to me. After the ceremony we followed a German tradition, where you have to saw a piece of wood as your first task as a married couple. It was so much fun and you really have to work as a team to make it. The evening reception started off with some refreshing cocktails in jam jars and the guests enjoying the sunshine before the happy couple arrived. We wanted the whole place feel more like someone’s house rather than a fancy dinner party, so we collected jam jars, bottles and various glasses for drinks, tea lights and vases. The flowers were ordered from a local flower shop and my aunty and sister just placed them loosely in the glasses on the night before. I loved the simplicity of that. During dinner time, we were listening to all our favorite Afro-Jazz records and as favour bags, we gave them hand drawn black & white postcards of places we had been too, pencil crayons to color the pictures in between meals and a wooden carved animal from South Africa. Who says you have to be a kid to color pictures in?
We had a whole upstairs area that we called the “guest area” where our guests were invited to explore, have fun and leave us notes. So we had a small sweet shop called Tante Emma Laden (a German traditional corner shop which sells sweets and other goods in paper bags), and so our wonderful friends from around the world brought in sweets from everywhere, and set it all up in jars and all complete with a gumball machine! It was a United Nations for sweets.
Then we had a wall called “the museum of us”, where we hung up all our memories from pictures, postcards to concert tickets. The photo booth, which was set up by my friend Sonia Epple, was so fun and we got amazing pictures out of that and the notes were typed on library cards with a type writer. We love books, so we wanted the library cards to go into our personal library at our new home. I think all in all, we are super happy about the entire day. Most of our ideas really worked and most importantly, our guests and ourselves had loads of FUN. I wouldn’t have changed anything about the day and am so thankful for all our friends who made it so special.
From Kone…There were heaps of fun things around, but my favourite small touch was when my wife gave us pins to wear at the reception venue which read Powww! I used to collect keyrings/pins/badges when i was an awkward teenager so having us both wear these on our wedding night felt so fun… The whole spirit of the day, was an incredible mix of kids growing up whilst staying young at heart; after all, growing up is for tree’s…
Wedding Photography: Nadia Meli / Wedding Venue: Mittelstetter Muhle in Bavaria, Germany / Wedding Design, Decor + Stationery: DIY by the Bride & Groom / Wedding Dress: The Vintage Wedding Dress Company, London, UK / Hair + Makeup: Catharina Wagner of die Hochzeiterinnen / Head piece (bow only): Accessorize, London, UK / Veil: 9″ ivory blusher style veil with comb from Westernbride on etsy.com / Sash, gloves, brooch and earrings: BHLDN / Shoes: Rachel Simpson / Poww pins: Vectorcloud, etsy.com / Wedding band: Original 1939 White Gold Ring from GoldAdore, etsy.com / Bridesmaids Dresses: Mint Chiffon from Dorothy Perkins / Mint lace: Zara / Pink Chiffon: ASOS / Stone with Bow: H&M / Groom suit: Suitsupply, London / Groom shirt , Tie and shoes: H&M + Next + COS / Groomsmen: H&M + American Apparel / Sweets pantry boxes: Schoenhaberei, Germany