Handmade wedding - photograph bunting.

My inspiration for this came from an hour or so sat on the sofa with my friend's mum having a cup of tea and looking through her photograph album of family weddings. As she was talking me through who was who and what the weddings had been like we were also commenting on all the different styles of dress. It was fascinating to see trends emerge and fall away again and to compare dresses of one era with another. We looked at length of dress, veil or not, accessories, bouquets, shoes, bridesmaid's outfits and groom's outfits. We compared wartime brides in their Sunday best to 1960s mini skirted brides with all sorts in between. We saw some beautiful outfits and some 1980s horrors. It got me thinking that I would like to reflect my interest in vintage fashion by having some sort of display of bridal wear through the ages at my own wedding.



My friend's mum as a bridesmaid in the 1950s.
I love this whole outfit and I kept it in mind
when looking for my own dress.

So I let the idea mull away in the back of my mind and began looking out for old photographs of weddings. It was a bit of a hunt but I started to build up a little collection. It was a fun search even though I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to be doing with them all! I find if you think too hard sometimes you push away the fleeting glimmer of an idea that you are having. Much better to let it be part formed hovering out of sight until the day when it is ready to ping into the forefront of your mind ready for you to use.


Relatives, names unknown, 1900s?
He is so very dapper.
I'm afraid that she reminds me slightly of Miss Havisham
due to the exposure. I hope she had a much happier life
than that.

So I waited for my idea to form and busied myself with other wedding decorations. I was also thinking about ways in which I could include our various grandparents who were no longer with us. I didn't just want to mention them in a speech, I wanted some kind of memento, object or presence of them there on the day. It occurred to me that I could try to collect up their wedding photographs and have them on display in some way. Then they would be there, we would see them, and they would be a part of the day.

My Granny (coming up 83) and my Grandad.

Granny and Grandad 1949. Granny wearing a dress lent to her by a
neighbour. Look how it swirls out onto the floor. The veil and headpiece
look pre 1940s to me.

Grandma and Grandad 1940.
A male relative designed and made Grandma's dress. He went
window shopping in London then returned to Sheffied where
they lived, designed and cut the pattern and sewed the dress.
The veil is long and the top half of the dress is surprisingly shirt
like. Look at the lucky black cats in the horseshoe!
Grandad was in the RAF and wore his uniform.

Grandma's bridesmaids. You can see her writing above naming Joan
and Cynthia.

Mr O's maternal grandparents 1945.
What a totally gorgeous dress.

Mr O's paternal grandparents 1938.
The bride and bridesmaid look to have some kind of amazing pompom accessory.
The bride's belt is a lovely detail.

I also managed to get hold of my great auntie's wedding photographs. In the group photo of my Granny and Grandad she is the adult bridesmaid on the right hand side.



My Great Aunt and Uncle in 1950.
She has a tripple buttonhole!



As above.
I like the best dress and nice cardigan approach.

I then wanted to include wedding photographs of our parents and Mr O's brother.

My parents 1973.
Mum made her dress from a Vogue pattern. The bridesmaid
on the left is my aunt who made her dress. The other two
bridesmaid's dresses were made by someone else.



Mr O's parents 1970.
Anothe lucky horseshoe and black cat.



Mr O's brother and his sister-in-law
2000.
The first scoop neck dress in these pictures.



Then my idea pinged fully formed into my mind like I hoped it would do. I would make bunting. Photograph bunting. On giant ric rac (love ric rac, knew I would find a use for it) and on lace. Using mini wooden pegs to hold the photos on. It would go above the cake and above our message tree (more on that in another post). It would be both a decoration and a display of vintage wedding fashion. It would include everyone we love who couldn't be there. It would give guests something to look at and something to talk about. It would give me something to keep afterwards, a piece of family history.

Photograph bunting in all it's glory.

In close up.
We hung two lines over the cake.
The bottom line includes some photographs from the album that I mentioned at the start.

 I put it all together when I put it up on the morning of our wedding. It was a little nerve wracking as whilst the version in my head was exactly what I wanted and looked perfect I hadn't actually tried it out so I had no idea if it would work in real life! I didn't know if the pegs would hold or if the photos would be too heavy or if it would just look a bit silly. But I loved it and am proud of it!


Mr O's mum.
Giant ric rac and mini peg details.

The bunting in position above the cake.





Close up of the pegs and lace.



The bunting made from the old photographs that I collected I put up over our message tree. I am going to cover that in a separate post as I want to include as many photos of the lovely old outfits as possible without making this one really long.

These are a few more of my family wedding photographs. Unfortunately we do not know everyone's names or the dates of the weddings but it is possible to roughly work it out from the fashions.



Look at those massive bouquets. I would say this is from the 1920s.
Delicate shoes for the grown ups and ankle socks for the children!



This is the 1920s. The bride's dress has an interesting handkerchief hemline.
Both brides have similar lace caps and veils. The younger children have
similar ruffled dresses on. They could even be the same or cut down as both
pictures show family weddings.

This is the wedding of my Granny's brother in 1937.
The bridesmaid dress material is interesting with those hoops. Look at the
huge puffed sleeves.
A big contrast to the sleekness of the bride's dress.

I think this is probably the 1930s.
Shame the huge bouquets obscure the dresses a bit.
The bride's veil is long, you can see it almost touches her train.
The bridesmaid almost has leg of mutton sleeves.

A 1940's wedding, obviously he is in uniform
but you can also tell by her suit. No fancy shoes
for her, just practical ones. I love her handbag.

Another 1940's wedding.
I like her jaunty hat.
It looks like he may have pinstriped trousers on.



Interesting old book find - Three Ghosts

Even though it could be said that I have no room left on my bookshelves I am always on the lookout for more books. I love reading and I like to own the physical articles so that I can read them again or sometimes even just to look at them. A nicely full bookshelf makes me feel very content. Whenever I go in a charity shop I always browse the book section, looking for both modern fiction and for anything old and interesting that takes my fancy. I realised whilst rearranging my bookshelves (again), to fit more books in (again), that I could do a series of posts on these old and interesting books. So this is the first of a few.

Front cover

Three Ghosts was published in 1947 and contains three short ghost stories. These are The Red Room by H.G. Wells ( first published in 1896), Rats by M.R. James (first published in 1929) and The Return of Imray by Rudyard Kipling (first published in 1891). I am not going to give away what the stories are about as you may want to read them yourself. If so, you can find the Red Room text here, the Rats text here and The Return of Imray text here.

When I picked up the book and turned it over I was interested to find that it was a greetings book. It is a paperback and the dust jacket folds out and then can be folded over the front cover and sealed. There is a space for the postage and then you could send it off as a gift for someone. I love this idea, how exciting it would be to receive books in this manner through the post. I have never seen this type of book before. It says inside that there are two more books in the series so I will be on the lookout for them. I have tried to find out more about greetings books and have not had any luck yet so if anybody knows anything?

The publisher is Sampson Low, a family run firm that began in 1793 and is still going today. I thought that they may have some information about greetings books on their website but unfortunately their archive is not complete due to bombing and to various changes in the firm.

The stories are illustrated by Laurence Scarfe (1914-1993). There are a number of black and white line drawings and four colour plates. The colour plates are quite dark and muted, which fits the ghost story theme. They are full of detail and I really like the style.

'The door creaked on its hinges as a second old man
entered'.

'While I stood gaping, one candle at the foot of the
bed went out.'

'It was not long before he was standing by it'.

'Can they get up and move....?'

Laurence Scarfe studied at Shipley Art School and then from 1933-37 studied mural painting at the Royal College of Art. At the time this book was published he was lecturing at the Central School of Art and Design. He seems to have had a varied career, illustrating for the Radio Times, showing a mural at the Festival of Britain, decorating pottery, illustrating brochures for hotels and designing posters for the London Underground from 1939-1964. The one I like best is for the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood and can be seen here.

Handmade wedding - the cake.

So, this is all about the cake. The actual cake. The edible cake. The square or round cake. The tiers or separate cakes cake. The two or three tier cake. The save the top tier or not cake. The get a chunk on the night and lots to keep afterwards cake. The lets have lots of photographs of it being cut cake. The goodness how big is the cake knife cake. The do not make me pretend to cut this cake anymore cake.The takes two grown men to lift it when I decide to change the tablecloth cake. The please do not drop it cake. The let us hope it is cooked cake. The does it taste nice cake. The oh is it not chocolate small child disappointed cake. The do we have a big enough tin for the leftovers cake.The no knitting involved cake (well, in the decorations, there had to be a little bit!). The how beautiful is that cake cake.

Some decisions about the cake were very easy to make. We knew we wanted to have fruit cake with marzipan and icing. We knew we wanted three tiers. We knew that we were not going to buy it. I was all prepared to get making when I received some wonderful offers of help from my mum, my sister and my very creative friend. As very creative friend is artistic and has done a cake decorating course she was elected chief of cake and was put in charge.

My mum made the bottom layer and my sister made the middle layer, they marzipaned and iced them. The bottom layer took 12 hours to cook! Very creative friend made the top layer, the decorations, assembled the tiers and made an extra cake that I could take along to my knitting group. Big thanks to them all.

Each tier had navy grosgrain ribbon placed around it which was then decorated with knitted flowers. All I had managed to specify was that I wanted flowers in autumnal colours and I was amazed with what I got. I can not tell you how to knit the flowers as the pattern is very creative friends but you could use a pattern from the book mentioned in a previous post or just experiment and make one up. All the flowers had button centres and some had ribbon added too which gave a really lovely effect.

The flower placement on each tier was staggered which showed off all the flowers in their glory and also made it look a little less formal which was in keeping with the mood of our wedding. We decided that we wanted to keep the look quite simple so had matching flowers on the top of the cake.

Here you can see a close up of the flowers and a little bit of detail of the cake stand. It was an ornate silver 1920s cake stand which was totally gorgeous, I loved it. It was hired from the local bakers, what an object to own!

I wanted the cake to be on an embroidered tablecloth for several reasons. I love them and collect them. I like to imagine people sat in their living room embroidering little sections day by day. I like to think who those people may have been, who they were making it for, why they choose to use that particular transfer or that combination of colours. I like to look at the needlework and imagine someone making those stitches. I do not even mind if they have the odd stain as I wonder what it was and hope that they were having a good meal when it happened.

They also remind me of my grandma. She had a few such tablecloths that used to sometimes come out at tea time. There was always a chocolate cake on a cake plate and very often jelly in a big glass bowl. Grandma had a crinoline lady tablecloth which was my favourite. I have it now and pick up others when I see them. Sometimes we used the crinoline lady china set at the same time. My sister has that. The tablecloth used was not Grandmas as I did not want to worry about it on my wedding day. But I know she would have approved and it was a way of having her there in spirit.

If anyone knows why there seemed to be a crinoline lady obsession on tablecloths, napkins and china in the 1930s and 1940s do let me know.

One great thing about having three people each making one layer of the cake is that every layer is a different recipe. They all taste marvellous but not the same with variations in fruit, amount of fruit, type of sugar and type of alcohol used to soak the fruit or to feed the cake. We are enjoying having a cake to cut at and offer to guests. It is like a little piece of wedding joy every time.

Handmade wedding - table centres.

I love a good cup of tea and a nice piece of cake. The tea is best when served in a vintage china cup and saucer, preferably when I can choose my teacup from a selection. I would probably have Earl Grey tea.The cake is best when homemade, I'm not fussy what flavour it is, although it is hard to go wrong with some version of chocolate. I like my cake on a proper cake plate, served from a larger cake plate or cake stand. I don't mind if my plate doesn't match my teacup, in fact I often prefer it as I get to see more beautiful china that way. Maybe add a doily or two. Always have milk in a jug. Make it an occasion and enjoy. Add some fabulous friends. Have a good conversation. Appreciate the moment.

So, when I was thinking about how I would like my wedding to be I realised that I wanted to have afternoon tea because it is my favourite way to combine the good cup of tea, the china and the nice piece of cake. Plus you get to add in fancy sandwiches and possibly a scone (or two). Our venue enjoyed turning my idea into reality. Several members of staff made the cakes - mini battenburgs, a super chocolaty brownie, carrot cake, lemon drizzle cake. We had fruit scones with butter and jam and cheese scones. The sandwiches were coronation chicken, local ham and salad, smoked salmon and cream cheese, egg mayonnaise (because it reminds me of children's birthday parties , happy times) and hummus and grated carrot. It was served on cake plates and cake stands, with cake plates and teacups. Nothing matched, though some tables had a set of china, but it was all beautiful.

The place names were handmade by a fabulous and talented friend.
She hand painted each one.

I was ready to beg and borrow china from friends and family and seek it out for myself. Despite Mr O's belief that I could supply a cafe with my own collection it would not stretch to a wedding, even a small one. However, the venue then managed to purchase someone else's china collection. I don't know how they let it go although I am thankful that they did. So my china stayed safely with me and we enjoyed seeing more.
I was mulling over decoration ideas, as you do, and realised that there was a very happy way to combine my favourite pastimes of cake eating and knitting. Yes, knitted cakes on cake stands for the table centres! When I did my craft badge as a Girl Guide I knitted a battenburg cake and a jam waffle and they looked fabulous. This obviously stayed in the back of my mind and came out as wedding decorations. I stumbled across a fantastic book full of patterns for knitted cakes and that was it, ready to go.

I have to say at this point that I was not responsible for any of the knitted cakes. I delegated so that I could make other things! So huge thanks go to my great friend and bridesmaid and to my mum. My friend, who had only knitted in garter stitch before, surpassed herself and made the most beautiful array of cakes. She began on the swiss rolls as they were easiest and worked up to angel cakes and heart shaped raspberry cakes. I was amazed. My mum is a great knitter so she got the harder patterns from the outset and produced beautiful doughnuts and slices of fruit flan. The fruit flans were quite a late addition so my dad and sister were roped into a production line to cut out the cardboard bases, stuff and sew!

Between my mum and myself we had enough cake stands to have one on the centre of each table. Each table got a selection of cakes arranged on the stand. I stood the stands on a tower of ladybird books which I had been collecting up with a half formed idea that they would be part of the wedding decorations, although I was not quite sure how until about the week before. I should have said that the ideal tea and cake scenario would also involve reading a good book so I wanted my love of reading to be reflected in some way.

I loved them. Mr O loved them. Our guests loved them (except the guest who picked one up to eat thinking that they were real!). They proved to be a great conversation starter and added a lovely handmade flavour to our afternoon tea.