An explosion of colour!

This time last year, I was knee deep in petals, and panic.

It’s coming up to our first wedding anniversary – where does time go?! Of course I can’t help reminiscing about what a wonderful craft proj… I mean, day it was! 😉

Our (who are we kidding, my) colour scheme… I couldn’t decide. So, in the end – I settled on not settling and going for a rainbow palette. A vibrant riot of royal blue, canary yellow, emerald green, cerise and bright orange. They clashed, they sang and due to the very-very-very fortunate early spring (hot!) sunshine we had in March, they absolutely shone.

Obviously every girl, gets excited about her dress, and shoes (mine were bright green!) and of course gaining a husband too – but there were so many little crafty touches to the day, that had built up over the course of the year and thought about to the nth degree. I was also just really excited to see it all finally come together in one explosion of colour. In a term used regularly by my mother-in-law, it was “Paula Planned”.

We made seed packets as our favours… “Let Love Grow!”, handmade all our table runners out of hessian and ribbons, napkin holders for every guest out of matching hessian, ribbons and lace, the big table plans, giant posters of our story, the d.i.y cake topper out of a clothes peg, 100 (yes 100!) metres of bunting, moustache and lips straws. Then collecting and turning hundreds of empty jars with coloured raffia into tea lights, a ‘Dan and Paula’ crossword (and prizes), kids party packs, oh – and – the marathon of flowers…

Each table had 7 flowers (there were 11 tables), the aisle had 20 flowers, then 9 corsages, there were spare…lets guess at 10, the bridesmaids had them on their shoes or on their wrist – each flower had 18 petals…that’s 2,304 little circles of fabric. Cut out, by hand.

Phew, what a mission…and boy was it FUN!

You may be thinking I am crazy, or you may be thinking – that just sounds like a standard craft lovers wedding! I think I am just both – slightly crazy and definitely a craft lover. I just couldn’t BUY stuff, I KNEW I could make. It would be cheaper for one thing, but also nice, thoughtful and would be exactly as we would want, no compromises.

Once I came up with the ‘Wedding Grand Plan’ (yes, there was of course, a spreadsheet involved – multiple infact) it was easy to get stuck in…and I honestly used to think – what did I do BEFORE the wedding…Where has all this additional time come from to make stuff! To be honest, I still don’t really know or understand that part. I think I went out less, and definitely slept less!

There were days where I’d do nothing – then there would be evenings where I was practically doing cartwheels as I had managed to make 6 or 7 whole flowers AND watch ‘Location, Location, Location’ (we do LOVE a good bit of Kirstie and Phil!)

Everyone said to me – ‘What will you do afterwards?!’, ‘You’ll get the post-wedding blues’… Swept up in a whirlwind of fabric and lace, Pinterest and decisions to be made – I thought, ‘Ah, no I won’t, I will be excited to have a new life as Mrs Milner, I will be fine’.

Once the big day had been and gone, the family had dispersed back to their own homes, the dress hanging back in its protective case (which, I might add is still hanging up in our room, I just can’t bring myself to put it away for good yet!) I remember very distinctly the first day I came home from work. The house still looked the same, all our wonderful cards, presents. I made a cup of (Yorkshire) tea, I sat at the table and thought… Now what?

And although I was so happy and grateful – I was also sad, no two ways about it. I missed the focus, the countdown, the opportunity to just absorb myself away into something creative and that had a wider mission and purpose. I enjoyed the fact there wasn’t a time pressure of course, and actually it was rather nice to have a rest, but I missed it all the same.

It has taken me a whole year, to realise – it doesn’t need to stop. There doesn’t have to be a reason to make stuff, plan to make stuff, Pinterest about what you want to make, do, what you love. I am sure both sets of parents would love there to be a new major event on the cards to plan for – and I am sure that this time around the colour scheme would be just pink or just blue (yet to be decided) – but for now there is not. And in the meantime – I am going to be throwing myself into lots of making and baking, of all sorts, for all seasons and reasons.

So, it’s really out of one major event of a wedding, and one year of feeling that something is missing to invent this blog, and The Crafty Lass.

Over the the next few weeks, I am going to be looking back at the wedding projects on this blog, and also with birthdays for myself, the husband (it’s a big birthday for him!), there is Easter coming up – and then summer, with the long evenings and bright sunshine , there really is plenty of craft and inspiration to look forward to!

PS

After the wedding…I submitted some snippets of the-big-day to Brides Magazine – who chose us as ‘wedding of the week’… All very exciting of course! The link to which I would love to share with you – however Brides magazine have since removed that section of their website! 🙁