Spooky Inspirations!

I love this time of year, not only because it is my birthday, but when I lived in the UK, it was a magical time of year for me and the girls.

Witches and ghosts, nights getting darker, the clocks changing, kicking through leaves on wonderful autumnal walks and the beginning of the lead up to Christmas. 

October is all about celebrating the harvest, thanksgiving for the Americans and the winter setting in.  A truly lovely time to reflect on the year, get ready for the festive season and start to think about decorating the house.

I have done some deep cleaning of my house this past week and goodness did it need it after our busy wedding season, but now we are planning on a pumpkin carving day tomorrow with my daughters and enjoying a trick and treat filled weekend with lots of spooky dinners and activities!!

I love these photos above of inspirations for decorating the house, it is so easy to buy horrible tacky plastic things, but to use leaves, pumpkins (by the way available here from Supersol!) and little details such as black candles, coloured table linens, lots of oranges and blacks makes a stylish Halloween theme in any house. 

OK I confess I have pumpkin fairy lights over my mirror in the dining area plus my wonderful Whittards of Chelsea ceramic pumpkin and ghost candle holders as well, but we will be beautifully decorated for our spooky weekend by tomorrrow evening!!

If anyone is planning a spooky themed night we do have black table linens, black chair covers and lots of orange sashes!  A fair amount is going out this weekend for spooky dinner parties but if you are looking for something different contact us!

Happy haunting to you all and hope you have a lovely weekend!

Images courtesy of Country Living, a wonderful website for inspirations :)

Simply Elegant Wedding in Mijas

It is wonderful to design, organise and create our weddings and always hugely exciting when we see the photos of the actual day and all the planning and details come to life.

Here we are at one of our favourite venues, Villa Bancales in Mijas, a truly elegant and stunning setting for smaller wedding parties.

Bonnnie contacted us last year as she started to plan her wedding.  Carla

 helped Bonnie to organise and finalise all her wedding details was booked for our on the day coordination to make sure everything ran smoothly.

Bonnie was a charming client and did make me giggle as once everything was in place we did not hear from her at all, I actually had to email her to make sure she was still there at one point!

We decorated the gardens and pool with lanterns and candles, created some beautiful rose bridal bouquets for Bonnie and her two little bridesmaids, provided fans for the guests and dressed the tables with simple and elegant square vases filled with roses.

A beautiful day was had by all as they enjoyed a moving ceremony conducted by Natasha, followed by cocktails and delicious catering by Fiestasol and dancing into the small hours with fabulous music by Rob the DJ.

Thanks to Jeremy, who makes my day when he sends over photos, for these lovely images of a perfect wedding here in the hot summer sunshine.

An Idyllic Wedding in Ronda

I met Andrew earlier this year when he was organising and designing his fabulous wedding to Rafa in June of this year.  I desperately wanted to be at his wedding but had already been booked for one of my busiest weekends here in Marbella, my hands were tied and there was no foreseeable way I could get to Ronda for the day, albeit I did many times look at my diary and try to reshuffle the weekend, it was not happening.

However we met, planned, chatted, had lots of inspirations and I dragged Andrew to my candle warehouse and he dragged me to the most fabulous tapas bar I have ever been to and we drank lots of champagne and created the dream day albeit I had bought my sister along and goodness knows we could not get a word in edgeways!!  Another story but my sister is definitely worth her weight in gold for a rent a friend :)

Andrew, is for me, an awesomely inspiring man, with a huge zest for life that is completely contagious and there are times when you meet certain people that they bring an enthusiam into you life and make you see things with different eyes, Andrew did just that for me and it has been a pleasure to meet him and subsequently work with him.

Andrew and Rafa had a wonderful wedding day shared with their closest family and friends with their beautiful Andalucian slightly bohemian style wedding.  The Hand of Fatima was used as a theme and lots of shabby chic styling with fabulous long tables styled with country style arrangements and coloured glass and candles, my favourite style:)  I am addicted to coloured glass and always have been!

Andrew has a fabulous blog about living here in Andalucia and tells it as it is.  He is a man of impeccable taste with style and food and he even goes out cycling with hangovers, which is something I would never even consider!  Andrew's blog is well worth a visit for anyone who is considering visiting or travelling around Southern Spain.

 His wonderful diary of life here and his travels are detailed on this fabulous blog,
 the Andalucia Diary 

Our congratulations to Andrew and Rafa and hope to see you both soon!:)

A striking Hot Pink and Lime Theme at Finca Cortesin

In the height of the summer here in Spain we decorated the beautiful wedding of Susan and Sean. Starting with top hats and tails at the Encarnacion Church in Marbella, followed by a fabulous reception at the Finca Cortesin.   A huge well done to the lads who managed to keep their hats and jackets on in the spanish July heat!!

Susan wanted a brightly coloured scheme using hot pinks and limes and was quite determined to have as many flowers as she possibly could for her wedding!

We created a beautifully vibrant bridal bouquet with bright yellow cala lilies and hot pink roses and the adorable bridemaids had bright pink gerbera bouquetstied with long lime green satin ribbons, all the buttonholes and corsages were made up with sunflower yellow gerberas.

The tables were dressed with very tall flower arrangements filled with lemons and limes sitting in pink water and topped with some fabulous colourful and tropical floral displays and we decorated the chairs with lime sashes and hot pink gerberas which certainly added that party atmosphere to the already beautifully decorated reception.

Mini cava bottles tied with hot pink and lime ribbons, adorned the tables as favours and we designed the table stationery to compliment the colour scheme tying large tags with the table seating plans to jugs of sangria at the cocktail.

Our other details for Susan and Sean's wedding day also included fuschia fans at the church and our famous romantic lanterns and candles for the evening surrounding the pool and the reception area

This was a fabulous wedding and one of our favourites this year but herein lies a lesson to be learnt that never travel to your wedding day here in Spain in July in a non air conditioned car, thanks to Kathryn, Susan's make up and hair stayed put, but in plus 40 degrees without air con and a 30 minute journey to the church I am sure Susan was cursing Sean for bringing one of his vintage cars down to Spain!!!! 

This wedding was organised by the lovely Joan and our thanks to Jeremy yet again for these fabulous photos of our flowers and decorations. 

Happy Wedding Day Tiffany & Brian!

Just finished their cake for their I do's tomorrow for their 120 person Wedding. Hope your marriage is filled with love, laughter & happy tears!



green & white daisy , half vegan, wedding cake. baking &  design by elleDESIGNS

Top Tier: Vegan Vanilla Pudding

Bottome Tier:  Mint Chocolate Chip

Eat & be Married. 

Unique Thank You Card...

 I used a picture from our wedding and with a little graphic design created a Thank You Card fridge-worthy. I made a banner to switch to the car for our Thank You card, but with everything in a rush, there was no time. It turned out great!



Unique Thank You Card by elleDESIGNS