Grandparents' photos on a wedding bouquet

A wedding is made more memorable and meaningful when elements and even people important to the couple are incorporated into the little details. At our wedding, my husband and I made sure to display photographs of our parents’ weddings at the reception lobby, because they are the most important people in our lives and we wanted to say we love them in a way that mere words won’t be able to.

In the photo above, Dwight and Janis of Vancouver included black & white photos of their grandparents on her bouquet. I thought it was a beautiful way of paying respect to their families and at the same time it subtly added a stylish vintage-y feel to the bouquet that matches the rest of their motif. But more importantly, it’s a powerful personal stamp that adds more substance and purpose to a momentous occasion.

The gorgeous photo is courtesy of Vancouver-based Pelaez Photography. See more of their photos on their journal.

Here’s a wedding backdrop idea – how about using hanging fabric panels with bright and modern graphic prints at your wedding ceremony or reception? Bold and striking graphic prints will make any ordinary place look extraordinary and they will also add a contemporary touch to your wedding.

In fact, you can base all your wedding elements around the graphic you choose. As an example, the Propeller in Sunshine design in the above photo can serve as your inspiration for your wedding’s color motif. Your bridal party’s dresses can have the same sunshine orange and sage green color  scheme and their bouquets and the table centerpieces can have a few stems of a flower similar to the one featured in the hanging artwork.

The best thing about it is that after the wedding, you can use the hanging panels in your home as a lovely and lasting memento of your big day.

The graphic hanging fabric panels  featured above are from inhabitliving.com. They are made from 100% sustainable recycled polyester and are handprinted and handmade in the USA with environmentally-friendly inks with no chemical waste or disposal generated.

Here are a few others that caught my eye -

AILGO-Ailanthus in Grass and Sunshine

AXGR-Axis in Grass

TIMC1-Timber in Chocolate 1

CATI-Cattails in Ice

You can get the fabric panels individually or in sets of three, and you can also mix and match as some designs come in a variety of colors. Visit InhabitLiving.com and get FREE SHIPPING on orders over $50.00.

The first time I read about the Katamari Damacy Wedding via Boingboing last year, I thought that Aidra Frazier and Ernest Leitch are probably the biggest Katamari Damacy fans in the world. And when I saw their wedding photos, I thought they were geniuses to have been able to pull off something like it. It’s a first of its kind in wedding history, and they stayed true to who they are even at their wedding – no matter what people might say.

As for Katamari as a theme – well to be honest I know where they’re coming from since I play the game myself and can attest to how addictive it can be. I just never thought it could be translated to a wedding scenario.

For your information, Katamari Damacy is a  puzzle-action Japanese-invented video game by Namco. In this game, The King of All Cosmos (ruler of this bizarre world) accidentally destroys the stars and constellations while he was drunk. How does he fix this gigantic blunder? He sends his son, the Prince, to earth to roll a magical, very sticky ball called a katamari over objects, collecting them until the ball has grown big enough to become a star.

You can see how the game play goes in the video below.

(All photos of Aidra and Ernest’s wedding are by photographer Kristin Schulz)

Their pretty wedding invite bears a hint of what’s to come.

The bride and groom and everyone in their bridal party was dressed in bright, playful colors. The “signature” Katamari headgear of course almost stole the show.

The Katamari theme was cleverly carried out in everything, from their floral centerpieces, their ring holder, their wedding cake, and even their wedding decor. I’m very impressed with the craftsmanship of these pieces, just take a look at the pics above.

All photos are by Kirsten Schulz Photography. See more of Aidra and Ernest’s Katamari Wedding photos here.

If you’re working with a shoestring budget and / or aren’t keen about wearing yards and yards of satin, organza or silk as you walk down the aisle, there are a ton of lovely wedding dress options out there. I’ve rounded up a couple for your perusal.

This above-the-knee Cotton Eyelet Dress with Metal Detail by Theme may look radical as a wedding dress on its own but it is perfect for a beach wedding. It cleverly takes the boho look (courtesy of the eyelets) and adds a rocker edge with circular patterns of metal studs. The strategically positioned cut-out styling reveals sun-warmed shoulders as the keyhole neckline tastefully highlights cleavage. This dress, which  can also work well as a tunic after your wedding (how’s that for maximizing your budget?), is lined with a loose-weave fabric resembling cheesecloth to prevent show-through while ensuring that the feeling stays airy and light. Designed to hit at thigh.

This Jersey Maxi-Dress with Butterfly Embroidery by JWLA is long and breezy enough for a spring (or summer, since we are on maximizing mode) garden wedding. It is embroidered all over with delicate butterflies, creating a romantic, feminine effect. The flattering empire cut balances lush hips and a full bust as it highlights the waist.

The best thing about these dresses is that they are simple yet that are not overly fussy and, most importantly, can be re-used after the big day.

Tune in next time for more picks.

Both dresses are available at MyShape.

In case you haven’t been to Poptastic Bride’s online shop in the past week, I would like to announce that we have recently designed a new collection in time for spring called the Cherry Blossom Garden.

But first, I would like to introduce you to the sakura and its seeming mystique:

From wikipedia: A cherry blossom is the name for the flower of cherry trees known as Sakura in Japanese. In English, the word “sakura” is equivalent to the Japanese flowering cherry. Cherry Blossoms are indigenous to many Asian states including Japan, Korea, and China.

Every year the sakura symbolizes the arrival of spring as they bloom majestically for one whole week, just one week and that’s it for the rest of the year. In Japan cherry blossoms also symbolize clouds due to their nature of blooming en masse, besides being an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life.

This mystique (and of course their beauty) has made them a very popular motif for weddings all over the world, and it doesn’t matter whether the wedding is held in spring or not. Below is our tribute to this pretty bloom. The designs are available on wedding invites, wedding binders, save the date cards and stamps, thank you cards, Keds shoes, and more items.

Cherry Blossom Garden Invitation

As always, the products are 100% customisable. Just replace the text and bride & groom’s names with your own and voila, you have your very own wedding invitation in no time at all. Be sure to check out our step-by-step instructions on how to personalize your Zazzle invitation.

I just love the ethereal and dreamy quality of Icelandic band Sigur Ros’ music. (If you’re not familiar with them, Gobbledigook from their fifth album is a good place to start.)

Some months ago, I was listening to a randomly-generated iTunes playlist on my computer when up came a track that was buried in the depths of my music library for ages. (Tip: set your mp3 player to shuffle, you’ll never know what gem you may find in your music collection, especially if you have been listening to your favorite playlists and nothing else over & over).

The track I’m referring to is Hoppipolla, a song from Sigur Ros’ 2005 album Takk…

While the song played in the background, I realized how wonderfully majestic it would be to walk down the aisle to that song. It’s beautiful, please have a listen, you won’t regret it.

So I thought, why not use alternative or indie rock tunes as wedding music? Gone are the days of swaying to songs of the near-far-wherever-you-are variety, especially if you don’t normally listen to that kind of music anyway. There are tons of great tunes by independent musicians and what’s great about using them is that most of the time, your guests will not have heard of these songs before.

I have put together a couple of playlists consisting of Indie Rock Love Songs For Your Wedding so if you’re looking for music to play while saying your I Dos, please do check it out.

Since we now live in the digital age, it’s quite easy to have access to a million and one photos that will document your big day…  and this is the main reason the lomo camera has gained such amazing popularity in recent years.

The word LOMO is often used to refer to the Lomo LC-A and other LOMO branded consumer cameras but the term can also refer to other plastic toy cameras, such as the Holga and the Diana, whose blurred, vignetted photos have delighted many a hipster.  These toy cameras are also dead simple to use, and like they say in the Lomography website, “don’t think, just shoot” because the best photos come out of spontaneous, extreme and impulsive situations.

In this light, lomo wedding photography has also gotten popular in the past decade, and it’s easy to see why. Just check out all the dreamy, artistic photos  below and on the Lomography website.

If you’re interested in owning a lomo camera, I suggest you start with a Lomographic Holga Starter Kit. I have a trusty Holga 120N myself and it has already traveled to a ton of places with me.

(Images are courtesy of the Lomography website)

Hello and welcome to Poptastic Bride.

This site was initially created to update you about the latest products in our online store. But since we have all this space, I thought why not use it to showcase other great stuff that might inspire hip and cool (in other words poptastic!) brides (and grooms too) to come up with the wedding of their dreams?

So join me as I take you through a host of fresh ideas and inspiration to help make those dreams a reality.

You can read more about Poptastic Bride and its philosophy here.

(Image courtesy of Stock.XCHNG)