WEDDING BLOG

Happy New Year! What started off early in 2008 as a trend in the world of weddings has now become a wonderfully regular way of thinking- thinking green! It’s so easy to incorporate eco-friendly ideas into any wedding once you know where to begin, so last January we put together a simple list of ten of the easiest green wedding ideas! We hope you will take it forward into 2009 and enjoy finding your own ways to go green!

Planning a green wedding is much easier than most couples think and its a great way to let your family, friends, and community know that youre committed to reducing global warming and caring for the earth. Junebug was recently interviewed by Newstalk 710 KIRO Radio for a series about “Living the Green Life” which included, of course, the exciting topic of green wedding planning. We want to share with you what we shared with them, so here are our top-ten suggestions for planning a celebration that shows your love for each other as well as the world we live in!

1. Choose a caterer and cake designer who emphasize organic, locally grown produce and who are set-up to compost your leftovers for you. Seattle is blessed to have numerous companies that follow these guidelines, but no matter where you live, eco-friendly businesses are available. Plus, fresh locally grown food is always delicious!

2. Pick seasonal flowers grown without pesticides. Instead of choosing blooms that are forced in a greenhouse or imported from warmer climates, try locally grown flowers at the height of their season. When your anniversary arrives the following year, youll be pleasantly reminded of your wedding day by the flowers that are in bloom around you.

3. Work with an invitation designer who offers 100% post consumer recycled products or paper supplied from carbon neutral companies. Creative opportunities abound to create truly gorgeous invitations that are environmentally friendly. You can also create your own wedding website and use it for most of your wedding correspondence to help cut down on excess paper consumption.

4. Cut back on packaging surrounding the wedding favors you give your guests, or choose ones that promote environmental consciousness. These days the marketplace is full of fun products to choose from!

5. Consider having your ceremony and reception at the same location to reduce the amount of travel required of your guests. Its easier on the environment, and easier on the days busy schedule!

6. Buy your diamond from a reputable jeweler and ask to see their company policy on conflict free diamonds. Thanks to consumer awareness and the U.N. mandated Kimberley Process and System of Warranties over 99% of all diamonds sold today are certified conflict-free. Any reputable jeweler should be well educated on this process. Other popular green jewelry options are to choose an antique ring, or have one custom made using a family owned stone or gold recycled from a special family heirloom.

7. Buy your dress or have it custom made by a local designer so you know where its production has taken place. Wear your mother or grandmothers wedding gown or other vintage dress, or choose a dress made out of one of the many new kinds of fabrics made from renewable sources like hemp or bamboo. If none of those options work for you, by all means wear the dress of your dreams and consider donating it to a worthy cause when youre finished. Even though trashing the dress has been in vogue of late, we dont encourage it as an environmentally friendly option.

8. Join a carbon-offsetting program to offset the carbon emissions produced by your wedding and honeymoon travel. Better yet, sign up to offset all your carbon emissions, at home, on the road, and at your wedding. We suggest using a well certified organization like http://www.carbonfund.org/, one that offers multiple options for carbon offsetting. We love Carbon Fund’s Zero Carbon Wedding Program with its easy to use calculator. Youll be delighted to find that even large weddings can be offset for under $100.

9. Encourage your guests to donate to an environmentally conscious charity on your behalf, or encourage them buy eco-friendly gifts locally and bring them to your wedding rather than having them shipped, to cut down on excess packaging waste. This may go against yesterdays rules of etiquette but once people realize theyre helping the environment theyll be happy to participate.

10. Rent rather than buy. Almost anything you desire for your wedding is available to rent, so look into those options before buying items you may not use again.

Remember to reduce, re-use, recycle, and rejoice! Send us your great green wedding tips and help us spread the word about planning a green wedding thats fun and stress-free!

Planning a Seattle wedding? Use the Junebug Weddings hot-list to find trusted recommendations and environmentally friendly companies.

I’m a lover of vintage clothing and decor, and I know many of you are too, but when it comes to finding a vintage frock that’s perfect enough for your big day, well, that can get a little complicated if you don’t know where to look. This post from March 2008 will get you started with some seriously helpful expert guidance!

(Vintage inspired silk dresses by Isadora’s from Junebug’s “Vintage Fashion for a Modern Bride” Fashion Report, photos by Cheri Pearl Photography)

Last month I did a post on vintage wedding dresses, and got a great question from a reader asking how to find vintage wedding dresses that fit a modern body. I knew there had to be lots of solutions out there for lovers of vintage clothing, so I called in my resident vintage expert (and big sister) Chela to get some advice. She is a long time vintage lover herself and a former stylist and costume designer, so needless to say she knows tons about vintage clothing. Plus now she’s an archivist and librarian, ie: professional researcher and question answerer, so I knew she’d be able to help! Here’s what she had to say:

Finding vintage that fits if you are a size 6 or bigger can be a challenge. We are physically larger now than we were just a few decades ago: the average American women in 2000 was about 2 dress sizes larger than the average woman in the 1950s. But don’t despair, just because it’s a challenge doesn’t mean it can’t be done. If you are a size 10 and have your heart set on wearing vintage for your wedding day, you have more than one option to find the dress of your dreams!

Option #1: Hunt
There are vintage dresses out there in all shapes and sizes, you just need to track the right one down. If you are already a vintage shopper, you probably have a favorite store or two to find your treasures. Contact the owner or manager and tell them that you’re looking for a wedding dress. Let them know the era you are looking for, your size and price range, and ask them to call you if something comes in that might fit your needs. If your favorite shop is an online store, don’t let that deter you, email them! After you’ve asked your local favorite for help, widen your search. Go to that shop you have always wanted to check out, drive to the next city, and go online. The Frock has an amazing selection of higher end and couture wedding gowns from the 1890s forward. Enoki World is a super fun vintage site that reads like you’re having cocktails with your girlfriend who happens to have a degree in costume history, and they have a bridal section. Isadora’s has an amazing selection of vintage clothing, accessories and jewelry from the early to mid 20th century AND a beautiful line of 1930s inspired reproduction wedding gowns that come in a full range of sizes. If you are considering buying a dress online, be sure you ask tons of questions about condition, and that you are crystal clear on their return policy.

(1930s ruffled organdy dress and 1950s Christian Dior gown from The Frock)

(Vintage inspired silk dresses by Isadora’s from Junebug’s “Vintage Fashion for a Modern Bride” Fashion Report, photos by Cheri Pearl Photography)

Option #2: Alter
If you can almost zip it up, if it’s just a little too short, if it’s close but not quite, there may be a way to work with it. The ways in which we’re bigger than people were in the beginning of the 20th century are pretty consistent, so fit problems with vintage clothing are pretty consistent as well. Some fit issues are deal breakers, but some fit problems can be finessed in the right situation. One common fit issue with vintage is that it’s short-waisted, that is, the waist line hits you higher than your actual waist line. If a dress is short waisted, you have two options: you can add a ribbon or piece of fabric as a waist band to give you a few extra inches, or you can turn it in to an empire waist dress by having the skirt re-attached even higher. Another common problem is that the dress is tight around the waist and rib cage. In this case, if there are large seam allowances (that’s the extra fabric inside the garment) a seamstress may be able to let them out and give you a bit more breathing room. Be careful though: if the fabric is fragile or has faded or darkened over time, the lines of the old seams can be very obvious when let out. We must be getting more buff as we evolve too, because tight sleeves are also a common problem. If sleeves are tight around the bicep or the arms eye (this is the hole where the sleeve fits in to the bodice) a tailor may be able to add a gusset (a small diamond of fabric) in the seams under the arm to give you a bit more room. Keep in mind that these are all significant alterations; they should be performed by a tailor you trust and will cost more than just getting your jeans hemmed, so factor them into your wedding dress budget.

(Vintage wedding dresses from Posh Girl Vintage)

Option #3: Reproduce
Find a vintage pattern and a good dress maker (or get your DIY on), and have a dress made just for you! This is a great way to get everything you want– the silhouette, the fabric, the fit, without dealing with any of the issues of vintage– the must, the dust, the tininess. In many cases, vintage patterns have survived a lot better than vintage dresses, and the selection is better because you are not limited to using only the wedding dress patterns. You can chose any dress pattern you like and have it made in the fabric of your choice. There are a ton of great resources for vintage patterns on the internet. Paper Pursuits has a beautifully laid out and easy to navigate site with a nice selection of mid century and later Vogue patterns. Grandma’s House has a fantastic array of bridal patterns from the 1940s forward, as well as great collection of patterns for veils and headpieces. The Vintage Pattern Lending Library has patterns from the 1840s – 1950s, and is particularly strong in 1930s options. They transfer vintage patterns to heavy weight paper that you can buy, or become a member of the library and borrow patterns. Some of their patterns have even been graded to a full range of sizes! If you go this route, make sure you or your dress maker builds a muslin mock-up of your dress before you cut into the expensive final fabric. This will let you fix any major fit issues with inexpensive fabric first, and give you an opportunity to see the dress on your body before you take the final plunge.

(1960s Belinda Bellville pattern from Paper Pursuits. I want to get married just so I can wear this dress.)

(1960s Nina Ricci pattern from Paper Pursuits. Hello, fabulous.)

Top row left to right:
1940s dress pattern from Vintage Pattern Lending Library. So sweet for a summer garden wedding.
1930s dress pattern from Vintage Pattern Lending Library. Lovely in a champagne silk charmeuse.

Bottom row left to right:
1930s bridal gown pattern from Vintage Pattern Lending Library. Look at those sleeves!
1960s Vogue pattern from Grandma’s House. How fantastic are those veils?

If you want more vintage wedding dress inspiration, check out Junebug’s Vintage Wedding Dress Inspiration Gallery on Flickr. And when you find the vintage dress of your dreams, by all means, post pictures! We want to be able to congratulate you. Good luck, and happy vintage hunting!

While writing our wedding planning book we researched every ounce of wedding tradition we could find, and while some traditions have fallen out of favor, the sentiment behind this lovely classic will never go out of style. Writing this post was a fun!

The Victorian era English saying Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in your shoe is a good luck tradition that many of you will follow on your wedding day. Its such a sweet and creative way to add a little extra meaning and magic to your wedding! Heres a bit of background on the sentiment behind each part of the saying, so you can think about what it means to you, and interpret it in your very own way.

Something old signifies a connection to the past, including your family values and family history.

• Choose a favorite photo, childhood story, or song you want incorporated into your ceremony that has sentimental value to you and your family members.
• Look to your mom, his mom and your grandmothers for lovely jewelry and accessories that have family significance.
• Carry a picture of from your parents wedding or a love letter from father to your mother in your purse.
• Wear your mothers wedding dress or veil, or carry a compact mirror she used on her wedding day.
• Make your getaway in a vintage Rolls Royce or hold your reception at a beautiful historic site.

Photos: top photo by J. Garner Photography, middle photos by Positive Light Photography and Junebug Weddings, bottom photo by La Vie Photography.

Something new indicates hope and an optimistic look at the road ahead.

• Buy new earrings or a charm for your charm bracelet that can be passed down to your daughter or another important relative in your life. 
• Have a new cocktail recipe invented and name it after you and your partner. Serve it at your reception with a recipe card as a coaster.
• Ask your friends and family members to bring a wish or a small token to add to your  time capsule box. Open it on your silver wedding anniversary.
• Start your own new tradition! Think of new creative ways to honor your marriage, your friends or support your favorite cause.

Photos: top dress by Monique Lhuilier, Badgley Mischka crystal cluster earrings from Nordstrom.com, middle photo by J. Garner Photography, bottom photos by Junebug Weddings.

Something borrowed denotes the respect you have for others who have been role models in your life. Borrow something of significance from someone you think exemplifies the traits of a good partner, and let a little of their wisdom rub off on you.

• Borrow a passage, song, or special prayer from the wedding ceremony of a couple that you admire.
• Get married at the home of a relative or spend your honeymoon at a family members vacation property or time-share.
• Use a pearl handled knife or decorative cake cutter that youve borrowed from a friend or put your parents cake topper on top of your cake.
• Borrow a favorite recipe from your mother, aunt, or grandmother and have it served at your reception.

Photos: top cake topper note card from lizaruth on Etsy.com, middle photos by J. Garner Photography and La Vie Photography, bottom photo by La Vie Photography.

Something blue is a sign of fidelity and true love. For many years before the white wedding dress came into vogue, brides were married in blue as a symbol of their purity. Nowadays, this is one of the most fun ways to incorporate color into your wedding. Play up blue in your garter, shoes, lingerie, or wedding bouquet. No matter what you choose to do make it fun and make it meaningful.

• Incorporate forget me-nots, larkspur, delphinium, or love in the mist blossom into your bouquet for a romantic touch of blue.
• Buy yourself some lacy blue under things. Splurge on a gorgeous new blue bra and panty set. 
• Have your cake decorated with blueberries and blackberries, or serve blueberry pies or tarts as an alternative to wedding cake.
• Tie a light blue ribbon around your garter or have one woven into the handle of your bouquet.

Photos: top by La Vie Photography, middle blueberry and buttermilk tart and berry basket wedding cake from MarthaStewart.com, bottom photos by J. Garner Photography and Positive Light Photography.