Local Wedding Magazines

Hey there!

I have noticed that the new editions of a couple of local wedding magazines have come out in the last few weeks.

White is a wedding magazine that covers the Central Coast, Newcastle, Hunter Valley and even further. The one thing I especially love about this magazine is all of the real wedding stories.

Another magazine that came out recently is the Newcastle & Central Coast Wedding magazine. If you are planning a wedding in the area, you should get this one as a starting point. It only comes out once a year and has so many suppliers in it for you to look at.

I advertised in it this year. You may remember me the photo shoot that I posted about in November and me showing you the bouquet I had made for it. Well here is how it looks through the lens of a professional...

And do you know what was even more surprising when I flipped through the magazine? There are a few photos from my wedding in there! Even the page that introduces the 'flower' section is a full page of my actual wedding bouquet! So unexpected!

Wedding Magazine photoshoot

Every year around easter time the wedding bible comes out. It is the Newcastle Central Coast Wedding magazine and covers everything you will need to plan your wedding anywhere in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, The Hunter Valley or Central Coast.

Last week I needed to make a bouquet to appear in the next edition of the magazine. I decided to keep it simple and use flowers that are available at all times of year. But at the last minute, I was tempted by some gorgeous garden roses that have just come into season. Oops - there goes the 'available all year' theory out the window.

I drove my bouquet up to Redhead where a professional photographer took a photo of my bouquet. You will have to wait to see the great photo he took in next years magazine, but until then you can see the dodgy photo I took instead.

It has cream and champagne roses, cream garden roses, white lisianthus and cream lisianthus.

Mingara 'Getting Hitched' Expo Aftermath.....

I think I have finally recovered enough from the Mingara bridal expo that was held on Sunday, to actually write a post to tell you about it. So lets start from the beginning......... (get ready for a photo overload)

It all started on Monday last week when I had some Oriental Lilies delivered. Because the weather is so cold, these flowers need to come in earlier than everything else so that they have an opportunity to open. Well that is supposed to be the plan anyway.... more on that later.

These are the rest of my flowers that arrived on Friday...Clockwise from the top left hand corner we have: pink oriental lilies, white oriental lilies, white and cream roses, molucca balm, orange tulips, pink and hot pink and cream roses, white singapore orchids, pink blushing brides, white lisianthus, green hydrangea and some dusty miller foliage.

It was up to me to actually turn these flowers into something beautiful. My only problem was that my lilies weren't opening. So on Saturday when I needed to start making the bouquets, my lilies looked like this...

Aaaauuuuuugggghhhh! Sometimes working with lilies is an absolute nightmare. In winter, it is so cold that the flowers don't want to open, and in summer, they open way too quick and don't last well in the heat. If any of you have ever chosen lilies in your wedding bouquet and can't understand why they are such an expensive flower for bridal work, it is because we need to order two to three times more flowers than what you actually need in your bouquets to make sure enough flowers open in time. They are also a flower that usually needs to be wired for use in bouquets and wired flowers are more costly.

So I left the lily bouquets until last and just hoped for the best. These are what I came up with...

Bouquet 1: posy consisting of 40 cream roses and a frame of camellia leaves

Bouquet 2: posy consisting of 30 pink roses and 1 bunch of pink blushing brides, with a frame of vibernum leaves

Bouquet 3: posy consisting of 30 hot pink roses, 10 orange tulips, 1 bunch molucca balm and a frame of vibernum leaves

Bouquet 4: teardrop bouquet consisting of 30 white roses, 2 bunches white lisianthus, 2 stems white sinapore orchids and 1 bunch of dusty miller foliage

By the time I had done all of these I had a few more lilies open but not enough to fill the bouquets. I made up as much of them as I could and planned to wake up early hopefully to many more open lilies.

I woke up early and found that I had just enough flowers to finish off the bouquets. Phew - how lucky was that?!

Bouquet 5: wired posy of pink oriental lilies and magnolia foliage

Bouquet 6: I did this same one at the last expo and it was so popular amongst the brides that I decided to make it again for this expo. And again it got alot of special attention. This is a wired cascade bouquet of white oriental lilies, white singapore orchids and magnolia foliage

After only 4 hours of sleep and finishing off all the bouquets, it was time to head off to the expo. My poor hubby spent his day off work, helping me in my stall. He was such a great help, handing out my pamphlets and talking to people when I was already busy talking to other people. I was so proud of my gorgeous man and felt really lucky that he was there to help me out.

It was a great day. There was over 1200 people that came through and I got such a positive reaction to my stand. People were just so lovely and saying the nicest things. I've even had quite a few enquiries already!

Thanks to everyone that came in. You made the expo a great success.

I ended up giving away the natural stem bouquets which left me with the wired bouquets to take home. And can you imagine that when I looked at them today, 2 days after the expo, they still looked pretty good? Flowers love this cold weather. Take a look.....

The Weekend Summary

I'm finally back after a busy weekend.

I've got lots of photos to show, so first I'll start with Jenny's wedding which was on Saturday.

Jenny had white freesia posy bouquets for her and her 3 bridesmaids. They smelt absolutely gorgeous!

All packed up and ready to deliver: And on Sunday I was an exhibitor at the Diggers at The Entrance wedding expo. It was my very first expo so I was a little nervous, especially when everyone kept telling me about the few hundred people that were queued up outside waiting to get in. I needn't have worried though because it was easy. I had fun, spoke to alot of brides and met other exhibitors who were also at their first expo so I was in good company. Here are some photos from the day. Me all set up at my first expo:
And here are some close ups of the bouquets I made
and the photo of this purple one looks a bit dodge, but its because I was holding the bouquet on a bad angle towards me. It makes the bouquet look like it's a weird shape but I promise you that it was actually round. Thanks to everyone that came to see me. I really appreciate your support. Now I need to start thinking of ideas for next months Getting Hitched expo at Mingara. If you have any suggestions.... let me know.

Congratulations Delisser Photography!

Last night I attended the magazine launch of the new 2009 edition of the Newcastle Central Coast Wedding magazine.

Now when I was planning my wedding, this became my bible. It has so many vendors listed in the one place and I found it very helpful.

All of the magazine advertisers are invited to the launch so I dragged my hubby along and we actually got a lift up to the party from our wedding photographer - (who I have since become friends with) - Julie from Delisser photography and her husband Grant. This is the first time I have advertised in a magazine so I was pretty excited.

We had a bit of sparkly, some lovely canapes and then the formalities got underway.

One of things that I didn't find out until last night was that there is alot of secrecy about the front cover of the magazine. All of the photographers are invited to submit a random selection of their work that may be featured throughout the magazine. On the launch night, the front cover is revealed for the first time and the photographers find out who gets the prestigious front cover position.

Well last night as I was standing next to Julie, the cover was revealed, I heard Julie gasp and then the MC announce that Delisser Photography had won the front cover! Julie was genuinely surprised but to be honest, I wasn't surprised at all. I have always raved to people about how gorgeous my wedding photos are. Julie and her husband are an extremely talented team and they are so deserving of this accolade. I don't know how the publishers picked which photo would go on the cover because that particular wedding that Julie and Grant shot had so many breathtaking photos. Congratulations guys!

So it turned out to be a very fun and successful night in the end. We even noticed that two photos from our wedding were in the magazine!

Newcastle Central Coast Wedding magazine is released in stores today.

*These are the 2 photos from our wedding that featured in the magazine!

Advertising

While the studio is being painted things are going full steam ahead for The Kissing Tree. I have booked an advertisement with a local wedding magazine called Newcastle and Central Coast Wedding. It comes out annually around Easter time so it will be in the shops soon. The Kissing Tree already appears on it's website directory. And I also joined an online wedding directory called Weddings 4 U. We can be found in the wedding flower section. There are a couple more things in the works but I will let you know about them when they have been confirmed.