'Rockabilly' Wedding Theme

Back in February Wedding Buttonique received an email to make a bespoke bouquet for a bride in Germany.  The Bride Christine lives in Saarland, one of the smallest federal states in Germany, to the South West of the country.  She told me her wedding was to be a small affair with family and close friends but it was going to be unique and different.  Her wedding was to have a Rockabilly theme. 

 

 

 

Now I don’t know about you but I had to look up what a Rockabilly wedding might entail and some of the photographs I found are stunning.  The main concept that was written is that ‘Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s’, but when you look at the 50’s rock and roll fashion images it incorporates a lot of black, white, red and navy and brings the whole theme to life.

 

 

 

Following conversations with Christine ruled out navy but the other three colours worked well with her wedding plans and items she had sourced so far.  We found some large flower shaped black buttons, various heart shape buttons, a few striped and spotted buttons, lots of vintage black buttons and ribbon.  Christine also wanted feathers on both her bouquet and the button-hole for her soon to be husband.

 

The bouquet turned out perfectly.  A lovely dome of Rockabilly themed buttons, all handmade and sculpted to shape.  The feathers are added at the end and this single bouquet has over 2 metres of black hen hackle feathers to produce the collar.  The wind flows through the feathers and brings the bouquet to life.  I love it and to get the best images of it the bouquet and button-hole were taken to my local church to photograph it alongside the stunning architecture. 

 

Christine gets married soon so this post will be updated with wedding photographs as soon as they are received.

 

Any questions please email WeddingButtonique@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @Buttonique

The wedding of Wedding Buttonique

Further to my last post which introduced Wedding Buttonique I will now explain to you how the vision for button and brooch bouquets became a reality with my wedding back in March 2013.

 

Tim and I had been together for just over 8 years when he proposed.  We have a daughter, Eva, and marriage just wasn’t discussed.  During a rare child free weekend away in Bowness, Cumbria, on the edge of Lake Windermere all of that changed.  We went for a walk along the shore line and Tim suddenly stopped, held my hand, dropped on to one knee, apologised for it taking him so long and proposed with a gorgeous ring which fitted! It was a perfect place with no one around.

We set our date for March of the following year and started the process of working out costs: what we wanted compared to what we could afford.  We needed to make, bake and do most of it ourselves!

There was already a fascination for buttons before the proposal.  This was emphasised more by looking at quirky and unique weddings from sources like Rock ‘n’ Roll Brides’ blog and from looking at wedding sites to see other people’s ideas.  Vintage sourced buttons and brooches became the main items but also Cadbury’s chocolate buttons needed to be included – who doesn’t like chocolate?  We used the purple as our main colour for the table setting, bridesmaids dresses and the bouquets.  The actual buttons could be seen everywhere; on our stationery, table pieces, bouquets, button holes and favour boxes.

All of the table settings were designed and made by us.  For the year leading up to the wedding there, it seemed, was no social life – actually we had no life!!  Evenings and weekends revolved around sewing, sticking, making and fastening of all the different items and materials we used.  The table numbers, jars of pom-pom paper flowers, the guest book, the cake and the four button bouquets – all ‘home made’ to allow us to do the wedding as cheap as possible.  If it could be made at home we did it.

 

With my design background of an Art Foundation course at John Moores University in Liverpool and four more years at Staffordshire University on a Ceramics Degree and Masters Course, there was the idea we could draw and design the items we wanted to make for our wedding day.  The years of sketch books and collecting scrap albums came to life. 

 

Wedding Buttonique has designed and made button and brooch bouquets for nearly three years now and the work is going well especially via word of mouth from one bride to the next.  One of my wedding vows was to ‘play with buttons less’.  So far that vow has not been kept but on the flip side there are lots of lovely bouquets and plenty more ideas.

 

Flowers: Wedding Buttonique; www.etsy.com/uk/shop/WeddingButtonique; weddingbuttonique@gmail.com

 

Venue: The Burnside Hotel, Kendal Road, Bowness, Windermere, Cumbria, LA23 3EP; 015394 42211; www.burnsidehotel.com

 

Photographer: Chris Freer Photography – 79 The Parklands, Cockermouth, Cumbria, CA13 0XJ; 01900 827243 www.freerimages.co.uk

 

Any questions please email WeddingButtonique@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @Buttonique

Who is Wedding Buttonique??

I thought it maybe a good idea to interview myself as a way of introduction to Wedding Buttonique.  I probably should have done this before my first post! 

 

Who are you, and what do you do?

Wedding Buttonique is a bespoke online shop specialising in Bridal Bouquets for the individual Bride.  Most of the bouquets produced have a Button theme and that theme is then linked to fit the ideas, and wedding colours, of each bride.  The bouquets can be kept simple or they could contain a selection of objects of any vintage like Steam Punk inspired pieces, a group of Butterflies or a random swathe of Pom Poms as all have been requested by brides so far.  Some brides ask for a brooch to be added, a special button or memory charm of a loved one.  All of the bouquets, corsages and button holes are all made individually by me, in my Craft Studio - also known as ‘The Garage’.  My name is Jennifer, I am just over two years married and we have a beautiful 10 year old daughter called Eva who has luckily got her mothers’ crafting genes and her fathers’ good looks.




When and why did you start you bouquets?

Like a lot of wedding suppliers, who produce handmade crafts, the original impetus came from making items for my own wedding.  That is how all of this started for me back in November 2011.  As part of the wedding plans I found a button bouquet I loved, and I already had a box of old vintage buttons from my Nan, so I set to work trying to copy it.  After a few months of errors, tears and tantrums a bouquet was finally produced that I was happy with.  A friend of mine suggested I should try and sell it as it seemed so unique to them.  This became the start of Wedding Buttonique.  Now is the point I feel I need to say that I’m not blessed with an inheritance allowing me to stay home all day!! I work full time doing ‘proper’ work – work that pays the bills.  Wedding Buttonique is a love of mine which is fitted in around after school clubs, homework (not so much housework) and looking after a family.  The bouquets are completed during the evening or at weekends when I can dedicate time to them.

What inspires you?

I love searching and finding old boxes, bags and tins of buttons.  It is what you find inside these little treasure troves that gives me ideas for the next bouquet.  Even if I don’t fully finish a bouquet off I do have shoe boxes with wired buttons ready to use.  I try not to have too much premade stock as Brides usually have their own ideas of how they would like to see something finished. 

Do trends influence the products you stock/ service you provide?

Trends do not seem to have too much of an impact on my work.  The bride that wants a button bouquet usually is not following a trend.  They are setting their own.

What is your greatest achievement with your company?

Maybe not so much a greatest achievement but a challenge I was happy to be part of was a bride from Athens.  The company she was using in Greece last summer closed 6 weeks before her wedding.  By the time she contacted me, via my Etsy site, she was struggling to find someone to help.  I do try to keep wired button stems in stock ready to use and this came in useful to complete her bouquet, and get it posted to Greece, in time for her September Wedding.  It was all a rush to find the diamante brooches and extra beads she also required but I loved every minute of it.

 

What do you see as the future of your Company? 

Wedding Buttonique is still in its infancy stage.  In February last year, after three years of making, I exhibited at my first wedding fair.  I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to my next.  Where it will eventually lead I am not sure.  My long term plans (all in my head in case my husband reads this) would be to give up my job and open a bridal shop – a one stop dress, accessories and bouquet experience.  Wedding Buttonique could do both the bouquets and the dresses in one place – but let’s get back to reality and I will probably carry on, as I am, happy in my garage. 

Any questions please email WeddingButtonique@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @Buttonique

 

 

 

Stunning Wedding in Malta

On the 8^th May 2015 Lindsay and Steve got married in Malta.  As part of her big day Lindsay approached Wedding Buttonique to commission a bespoke button bouquet for herself and her three bridesmaids.  She also ordered a matching wand and a mini bouquet for her flower girl and a set of button holes for the Groom and his men.

 

At Wedding Buttonique we work with each bride to make their bouquet special to them.  We can include personal buttons, charms or photo memory frames.  Each item will have a meaning to the bride and groom.  Lindsay gave me a gold Staffordshire Knot button to be incorporated with each bouquet and button hole.

The result was an amazing Bridal Bouquet set in green, cream and gold with a hessian collar and stem.

 

Any questions please email WeddingButtonique@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @Buttonique