Photo credit: Green Wedding Shoes

We loved this idea of a luggage tag per guest. As long as you have the table number and guest’s name on there, you can be playful and imaginative with the rest! Add on little trinkets, buttons, badges or bows – the tags double up as take home favours.

Above we have used our pastel name badges on our coloured luggage tags with our number stamps, then decorated with our embossed look love tape or drink champagne stamp. Once the guests have found their seat they can pop the badge on for an instant introduction!

Peg the tags to a twine washing line strung between two wooden step ladders, wrapped around a wooden door, or whatever you have available! An eye catching and original display….

Photo credit: Wedding Chicks

Heart Home magazine, Spring 2013

Perfect Wedding, February 2013

Asain Bride, Issue No35 2013

Wedding Ideas, May 2013

Perfect Wedding, April 2013

Wedding Flowers & Accessories, March – April 2013

Doily Days Loves Weddings, Spring 2013

Perfect Wedding, May 2013

We are hardly ever (okay, never) bakers and pictured is our first attempt – so if we can do it, you can!  They’re surprisingly tasty – like crisp shortbread, and the salt and vanilla adds a sophisticated edge. Don’t be tempted to sub margarine for the butter – you need the stiffness of the cold butter to make the dough firm enough to roll and cut. And do use a virgin stamp - not one that’s already been used with ink…

To make about 60 sugar biscuits you will need:

340 g butter, softened

400 g white sugar

4 eggs

5 ml vanilla extract

625 g plain flour (we liked half brown, half white)

6 g baking powder

6 g salt

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix well. Cover then chill the dough for at least one hour (or overnight). We suggest rolling this amount out in two batches, keeping half of the dough in the fridge as you work. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.  On a floured surface, roll out the dough fairly thinly – 1/2 cm or so. Cut out the biscuits – we used a champagne flute to get the size pictured, although biscuit cutters would be easier for big batches (how about hearts?).  Place the biscuits about 2 cm apart on greased baking trays, then stamp them gently but firmly with birds, butterflies, ‘With Love’, ‘Mr & Mrs’… Take your pick!  Then pop into the oven for 6 – 8 minutes. Any unused dough can go back in the fridge to be rolled again once chilled.

Practise ahead before the big day, and test keeping qualities – we reckon they stay good for at least a week in an airtight tin.

Clockwise from top left:  1. Wedding in a Teacup  2. Rock n Roll Bride  3. Ruffled Blog  4. Sanctuary  5. Caught The Light  6. Ruffled Blog  7.  Love My Dress  8. Truly Madly Dottie Blog  9. 100 Layer Cake  10. Furuyatakashi  11. Ruffled Blog

Clockwise from top left:  1. Southern Weddings  2. La Novia Novata  3. Wedding Dresses Galore  4. Amy Atlas  5. Etsy  6. Sheer Luxe  7. Bubble & Sweet  8. Exclusively Weddings  9. Style Me Pretty

The rose was supposed to have grown without thorns in the Garden of Eden – but somehow that spiky threat is essential to the spirit of the rose. No flower is as beloved of painters and poets. Originally from Persia, and millennia old, the rose is heavy with ancient, beautiful and sometimes contradictory symbolism – of religion, secrecy, mystery, love and passion.

Brides scatter rose petals on their tables or use them as confetti, but the flower itself has been less popular at weddings in recent years. Rediscover the rose! If you’re getting married from June until September, have a voluptuous riot of them at your wedding.  Seek out the gardeners among your aunts and uncles and parents’ friends, and beg for as many roses as they can supply just before the big day. Then tumble them into jars and jugs on your tables – they look best very simply arranged. They’ll perfume the air and drop their petals. Our pretty paper roses are artificial flowers of the very best kind – with their dusty pink colour, they remind us of flowers pressed between the pages of a book. Sensual, beautiful, romantic bliss.

A single flower he sent me, since we met.

all tenderly his messenger he chose;

deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet

One perfect rose.

 Dorothy Parker, One Perfect Rose

Unique Bride, Nov/Dec 2012

Perfect Wedding, November 2012

Wedding Ideas, Real-Life Wedding Special 2012

Perfect Wedding, December 2012

Cornish Brides, Winter 2012

He wails, ‘You know you say it takes up to two weeks for bespoke items? Is there any chance you could do that… er… a bit quicker?” ’We’ll do our best,’ we always say. And we mean it. We want to help. This guy is in agony. ’How much quicker?’ ’Er… ten days quicker? I need 10 sheets of jam labels/ 100 badges/ 80 seaside soap favours by this weekend!’ 

He practically screams the last bit. And he doesn’t have to explain what’s happened, we already know. He’s been delegated this one little job – ordering from Wedding in a Teacup – and he keeps putting it off. ‘Hey,’ he thinks, ‘the wedding’s ages away, there’s plenty of time.’ He even – unforgivably – fibs and says he’s done it and the goodies will arrive any day now. And then his bride-to-be tells him ‘everyone’s coming round’ at the weekend to make the jam/attach badges to pillow boxes/name labels to favours…  and all the blood drains from his face… and he calls us.

And we really do try and pull out all the stops to help and so far, to our knowledge, no last-minute bridegroom actually has been killed. But, guys, please, PLEASE give us more notice if you possibly can. It’s so much easier on everyone!

Image credit: Robbie Augspurger

Photo Credit: Celebrate The Year.

Of course, today’s brides with their exquisitely coordinated ensembles may not be too keen to carry the last-minute gift of a fancy horseshoe (although personally I love this idea…) but it’s a shame to ditch them completely. Good luck horseshoes used to be everywhere at weddings. In the confetti, on the napkins and the cake, on congratulations cards, sometimes even sewn into the hem of the bride’s dress.

Photo Credit: Wedding in a Teacup

Since forever, the iron horseshoe has been a protective and good luck talisman. You were supposed to find one that had been thrown by a horse, not buy a new one. People would nail them at their doors to bring good fortune and to protect the house from bad fairies and witches (fairy folk hate iron).  The English and Irish nail horseshoes with the ends upwards, to keep good luck inside; other countries nail them the other way round, so that good luck can shower out.

Photo Credit: Wedding in a Teacup

We love that iconic horseshoe shape; it balances and echoes the heart shape. We love the lucky seven nail holes (we’re itching to thread some Teacup ribbon through them!). Horseshoes are perfect for natural, country-style weddings, or simply those with a retro twist. And who’s going to turn down the chance of good luck at their nuptials? Bring back the horseshoe!

Photo Credit: Wedding in a Teacup

Clockwise from top left:  1. More than a House  2. Wedding in a Teacup  3. Pinterest  4. Wedding in a Teacup  5. Alex Monroe  6. Green Wedding Shoes  7. Style Me Pretty  8. Wedding in a Teacup  9. Etsy  10. Wedding in a Teacup  11. 79 Ideas