20 Hot wedding trends for 2008

From The Sunday Times
January 20, 2008
20 hot wedding trends for 2008
How to make your wedding one to remember

IMAGE :1 of 9
Deborah Joseph
1 Black orchids
Are you over boring white ones? You should be. This year, it’s all about the black orchid. At £400 per table centre, from the florist Jamie Aston (020 7387 0999), it’s the rarest and most exclusive breed. It isn’t cheap, but boy, does it have impact.

2 Red
If you’re searching for passion, “make your day full-on red”, says the Alist wedding planner Liz Taylor, of Taylor Lynn (www.tlc-ltd.co.uk). Red marquee? Check. Red tablecloths? Check. Red lips? Check, check, check.

3 Couture cakes
In black and white icing, or white with dark chocolate, designs become nipped and tucked, neat and flawless. Look for gilded chocolate patterns with hand-piped black pearls, or black and white polka-dot frills, for a flamenco feel. Sequins, pearls and frills will also be big this year.

4 Marquee villages
Marquee mania has taken over. This year, marquee villages are big news, says Simon Sinclair of Berry Marquees (www.berrymarquees.com): “Multiple structures, combining smaller intimate areas with larger reception spaces, rather than traditional tents, will become de rigueur.”

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5 Imaginative favours
Forget the sugared almonds, buy each of your guests the ultimate favour – an iPod Nano preloaded with your and his favourite tunes.

6 Extreme dancefloors
If you want red-hot feet, rent the Savoy’s dancefloor, on which Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra dazzled on their many visits there. Bentley’s Entertainments (www.bentleys.net), which did the planning for Posh and Becks’s wedding, has just bought it; it’s available for hire from £500.

7 Monogramming
Monomania is huge in the States, and it’s heading here, too – everything from monogrammed invitations and dining plates to favours and wallpaper. Check out Wonderful Graffiti Wedding (www.wonderfulgraffitiwedding.com), which will monogram anything and everything. Wonder Walls (www.wonder-walls.net) does personalised wallpaper.

8 Bespoke honeymoons
Want a luxury igloo in the Canadian wilderness? Or perhaps a mud hut in the Kalahari is more your thing? Either way, no problem. Based on a True Story (www.basedonatruestory.co.uk) is a bespoke holiday company that will make even the wildest honeymoon dreams come true.

9 Sweetheart tables
Can’t be bothered with the emotional minefield of planning who sits where on the top table? Forestall the family feuds by seating just your two selves at the best idea we’ve ever heard: a sweetheart table.

10 Chandeliers
So flowers aren’t your thing, but you want to avoid that conference-room feel? Go for bling instead, by hanging chandeliers above each table for guaranteed wow factor. Or just put a big one in the middle of the room. To hire them, visit Glory Chandeliers (www.glory-chandeliers.co.uk). If that’s too expensive, opt for cool lamp shades instead.

11 Orchestras
Full-on concert-style entertainment is where it’s at this year. Fly in your band from the Continent and your DJ from America. Check out Swan, a sensational 19-piece ensemble from Paris who are a favourite at footballers’ weddings. They come dressed in white and include an electric violinist and Ibiza-style podium dancers (available through www.tlc-ltd.co.uk).

12 Grazing
Forget the usual three-course sit-down do. Instead, mingle while you munch, thanks to the trend for grazing. Set up food stations around the room: think sushi bars, canapé kitchens and a pudding bar. “For one wedding, we took in Yo! Sushi – the belt, the stools, the high-top tables, everything,” reports the London-based caterers By Word of Mouth (www.bywordofmouth.co.uk).

13 Superstar arrivals
Craving a grand entrance? Do it Moroccan-style by entering the party on the shoulders of your best men, as they carry you on ornately painted wedding chairs.

14 Eco-weddings
You do your recycling. You offset your carbon emissions. Now it’s time to go the whole hog and have an eco-wedding. Arrive on a rickshaw, use an electrical generator and grow your own flowers. Oh, and don’t forget to recycle Auntie’s wedding dress by wearing it.

15 Hand-delivered
invitations With the post being so unreliable these days, more and more brides are opting for their wedding invitations to be delivered by hand. Just remember to use the ordinary post for ones to Australia.

16 Woodland fantasies
Love magic? Then follow one bride’s example and create a purple forest wedding. Spray trees purple, and mass purple and lilac flowers around the trunks. Make each table centre look like a scene from the enchanted forest in the Harry Potter books.

17 Brights
It won’t be all white on the night if you’re getting married in 2008, as flashes of hot colour are set to become the latest trend. Think turquoise and icy blues with a shock of orange or purple.

18 Multiple themes
Difficulty choosing your theme will no longer be an issue, according to Kelly Chandler, director of The Bespoke Wedding Company (www.thebespokeweddingco.com). “We’re currently planning a wedding with four themes: a Russian drinks reception, with vodka cocktails and caviar; a lunch with an Asian theme, featuring bamboo mats and oriental flavours; then a circus school for after-dinner entertainment. We’re finishing with a Moroccan afternoon tea – mint teas and sweets, with guests seated on low cushions.”

19 Black wedding dresses
“Turn the white wedding on its head and wear a black wedding dress with your bridesmaids in white,” says the London-based designer David Fielden (www.davidfielden.co.uk). Sarah Jessica Parker did the black meringue years ago, and look – she’s still married.

20 Small, decadent weddings
Got a £30,000 budget, but like only 30 people enough to want to invite them? All the better. Small, decadent weddings are increasingly popular – imagine paying for everyone’s flights to Italy, hiring a yacht for you all to lounge on, then buying everyone’s spa treatments, champagne breakfasts and personalised menus. Start married life as you mean to go on.

Deborah Joseph is the editor of Brides magazine Photographs taken from Unbridaled – The Marriage of Tradition and Avant Garde by Swarovski (Thames & Hudson £32). Order it for the special price of £28.80 (inc p&p), through The Sunday Times BooksFirst; 0870 165 8585email ian at ianjohnsonfoto@telia.com

more from the wedding in Brighton

I was completely bowled over by the wedding cake Rory's mum had done the cake the close up photo looks like sculpture, mum wasnt happy with it , the wedding photographer was though. It will certainly be gracing my website and possibly the cover of the coffee table book.


email ian at ianjohnsonfoto@telia.com www.ianjohnsonphoto.com

Weddings in Brighton

First wedding of the year and we got lucky, whilst the rest of England was being hammered with rain famous, sunny Brighton escaped it. The location for this wedding, ' The Meeting House' University of Sussex in Brighton Sussex. Rory and Traceys friends lit 900 candles and what an effect..

I just love the way the candle light glows on the bride and groom in this shot .

more photos to come from this one a great wedding cake and Tigger made an appearance.

email ian at ianjohnsonfoto@telia.com

Last wedding of the year and what a great one !

My last wedding of the year was one of the years best. It was lots of fun. Great couple Jon and Hollie, great guests, great dress, great cake, great details, great bridesmaids and what great weather for December. It was at Braxted Park, Witham ..lastly and the speeches .... 'the best speeches I have ever heard' the father of the brides opening line ' its a very emotional day for the best day ever .. West Ham 2 Manchester United 1 and Im proud my daughter got married.'

Beautiful Weddings

Ian is extremely proud that one of his weddings features in a new International published wedding book . Also that his work made the cover.


The book 'Beautiful Weddings' by Carole Hamilton features some of the best weddings from around the world photographed by some of the worlds best photographers. The wedding, that Ian photographed in the book features Claudia and Gregors wedding, the venue was a destination wedding at Hamburg Zoo , with an 'Out of Africa' theme. The marquee reception tent was lined with bamboo and the tables were esquisitly set.

(c) Ian Johnson Photo www.stockholmweddings.se

News trends ideas 2008 weddings

Reports in american newspapers say winter weddings are the new latest trend. 3 good reasons to have a winter wedding
1) More guests saying yes, 2) Easier to find locations willing to waive fees for off season, 3) great time to leave the cold for a beach honeymoon.

Rainy wedding for the bride with a golden shoe

As we know this past weekends weather was awful gale force winds, heavy rain, and a very dark December  winter wedding. Well it was the 8 though the 8th.  Victoria and Lee had done a ton of planning and it really showed  great details everywhere, for their wedding at Layer Marney Tower in Colchester. But one thing you cant plan against is for rain. In the black white shots you see Lee fighting the elements and the moment the umbrella gave up aswell.

He Googled it, I blogged it

After having photographed weddings for 17 years now, a first happened at my latest wedding. Toby had forgotten the paper with the reading for in the church. So with modern technology, outside this very old church Toby ' googled ' on his Nokia Leonard Cohen Lyrics 'Dance Me to The End Of Love'. John you can see is reading the lyrics on top of his hymn book . and I of course now 'blogged it'

 

Best of the coffee table book covers

One of the best parts now of being a photographer is working on the Coffee table book after.

This wedding was a Destination wedding in Sweden, an American Finnish wedding with a big 'ice hockey' theme. The cover is a montage of three shots from the day

I loved this out of focus shot with this Italian theme a Tuscan wall

and their wedding ring ring placed in a antique

A pure a simple French Classic Cecile and Henrik both artists.

I wanted  to show a countryside feel to this photo.

new textures and filters

Recently I have been creating new filters and textures for my photos here are a few

Celebrity Wedding Guest

I have been working on some photographs of Ted and Saras wedding in Los Angeles, the venue was the Disney Concert Hall downtown LA. There was a fantastic moment when we were doing the bride portraits, a very special celebrity wedding guest arrived


 
It was big bird ...

www.ianjohnsonsonphoto.com

a vintage Harpers Bazaar

Over the weekend I was just looking through my collection of vintage fashion magazines, when I came across a then modern wedding from Sept 1949 .The photos are classic, the wedding was a Miss Patsy Pulitzer and David Frost. An interesting note about a boy giving the bride a wedding present .. it was a fishing reel.

The dress it says is Organdie and the skirt caught up with lilies of the valley.




Over the weekend I was just looking through my collection of vintage fashion magazines, when I came across a then modern wedding from Sept 1949 .The photos are classic, the wedding was a Miss Patsy Pulitzer and David Frost. An interesting note about a boy giving the bride a wedding present .. it was a fishing reel.

The dress it says is Organdie and the skirt caught up with lilies of the valley.

Wildfire wedding Los Angeles

Over the weekend I was at Ted and Sara's wedding in downtown Los Angeles. The venue was the Disney Concert Hall an incredible place to visit. The fires had started on Sunday so there was no problems there. The drive home back along the 101 in the evening to Malibu canyon was a spectaular one against the backdrop of fire and smoke. The photos were safe right next to the door that evening just in case of an evacuation.

a blast from the past Wedding in Ravello

This time last year I took one of my favourite photos of all time.It came with a little luck and a bit of skill. Photographing in Ravello on Amalfi Coast at the famous Hotel Caruso. The hotel had an amazing infinity pool, luck would have it the clouds were were desending very fast, so i asked the couple to stand behind the infinity pool, i deliberatly underexposed the shot shooting at 1 eight of a second with flash ...

An travel article ... by Ken Coey

Whilst photographing a wedding i was interviewed about how i work ... here is the story to be published.

Ian Johnson is one of Europe’s leading Photographers of Real Life Weddings. But how does he find real life in a supposedly dying institution?

He talks to Kenneth Coey ….

A gust of mistral wind rips across Nice’s Promenade Anglais and Ian Johnson dives into attack with his camera snapping wildly. Moments later, he selects an image from his digital viewer and with a broad smile announces, ‘Now that’s a real life shot.’
And he is right. The bent back palm tree is partially obscuring the sign on the hotel roof, while at the front door the colourfully dressed doorman is grappling with his top hat and the shopping bags of a guest. In just a few seconds the famous Negresco Hotel has become the backdrop to explain that Ian is here in the Cote D´Azur to shoot a wedding. ‘A real life wedding,’ he adds.
‘All weddings are real, course they are’ he adds in an Essex accent that belies the fact that he has lived the last 15 years in Los Angeles and Stockholm. ‘Difference is if the photos show that. Do they jump out at you and capture that feeling, those emotions and special moments? Weddings are a living event not just a ceremony and I record that.’
The move from traditional group photos on Registery Office steps to a two day shooting trip for a ‘typical’ Swedish wedding at a vineyard in the south of France is as immense as Ian’s journey from Royal Navy submariner to celebrity photographer in Los Angeles. ‘You learn patience when you are under water for 30 days and to go for what you want in the fresh air,’ he says.

And he did just that on one of his first assignments which was some roof top shots of Bob Hoskins to publicise the Peter Pan film getting its US release. ‘Getting to see the real person can be a problem in these shoots. But when I eventually pulled out a £2 ‘throw-away’ camera my mum had bought me in Clacton Market, Bob just fell about laughing and that got me my first magazine cover’ he says with a glint in his eyes.

A wedding a few years later to Swedish designer Lena and life took a new turn with a move to Stockholm where he pioneered the concept locally of ‘Real Life Weddings’. While Stockholm remains his base, he also maintains extensive contacts in the US and UK dealing with private and magazine assignment weddings.

‘Yeah, spend a lot of time travelling to exotic places’ he says with a wide grin, ‘Been to Carlisle, Aberdeen, Barbados, and of course Stockholm in the last few weeks. Location doesn’t really matter to me just so long as I get the best out of it. It’s the people after all, how they relate to each other and the environment that makes the difference.’

I get the story of the weather disaster at a recent shoot in Tuscany, where they were engulfed by an ‘end of the world is nigh’ storm making all outdoor shots impossible: except, that is, for the moment the groom saw his wedding car filling up speedily with hailstones through an open window. ‘Priceless that one, he thought the window was smashed and would have to walk’ Ian adds ‘but that’s why I always like to play safe with an extra day for background shots.’

Other stories from around the globe flow, but a ‘jet set life comment’ brings a scornful reply. ‘You wanna try travelling with this mate,’ and brandishing his large and expensive looking camera in his equally large hands he continues, ‘and I got two of them. No way I’m letting these into the baggage hold.’

His wide shoulders and smile sag under the weight of the multitude of check in and baggage restrictions he encounters weekly as he jet-hops around. ‘Every week it changes and no two carriers or staff are the same so you just need to go with the flow and stay one step ahead. I even got a trench coat made with deep pockets so I could carry them on.’

But even before his laugh ends Ian is back snapping away at street signs and cafés for some background but adds as a finale to our meeting, ‘Yeah, travelling is just like real life photography, be aware of your surroundings and adapt to the best possible advantage.’
A few days later, an email from Ian Johnson arrives to let me know that the ‘typical’ Swedish wedding in the Provencal vineyard had gone well, except that the chauffeur hadn’t checked out the route to the church and the bride was late. ‘Lots of photos of a nervous looking groom ... but that’s real life mate!’

latest news from the wedding world

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Wedding at the Milestone Hotel Kensington Chelsea

No guessing as to where I was on Saturday, what a great location to have a wedding, with fantastic helping staff, I was at Milestone Hotel in Kensington, on High St Ken. This really was a destination wedding.. well not for me, but for the couple..the couple P and M were from New York.

Whilst on the balcony overlooking Kensington Palace minutes after the couple were married I asked P just to talk to M...how surprised I was when they told me what he had whispered in her ear ... he mentioned Arsenal had beaten Tottenham 3 - 1

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The last two days little off the wedding scene but after photographing dave and natasha wedding two years ago at Newick Park in Haywards Heath. I have regularly helped them with photography for their very cool website...

Envy has become the the envy of the industry becoming the best post production house in London. Their latest project is BBC 2 's 'The Restuarant'

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Following last weeks cool wedding trends destination weddings are getting bigger and bigger but with a touch of green
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