Welcome Erin of Sparkle & Hay!
Hello Wenderful readers; Erin from Sparkle & Hay here! I was thrilled when Wendy asked me to be a guest blogger for her – hopefully I will not disappoint!
As a bride-to-be (October 2010) I know how exciting the wedding planning time is, and also how overwhelming it can be! With so many wonderful sources of wedding inspiration out there it seems as though you are constantly bombarded (in a good way) and can easily go into wedding design overload. Newly engaged, it sometimes takes a couple a bit of time to figure out their “wedding style”; this was the case with my fiancé &I. He wanted the large, traditional wedding involving all of our friends and family while I preferred the idea of a smaller more intimate destination wedding, hearinga villa in the countryside of Tuscany or farmhouse in Provence beckoning to me. We ended up compromising, and found a beautiful vineyard about an hour from home in Stonington, CT which will allow us to invite all of our nearest and dearest while also providing a destination atmosphere. The vineyard is set on an inlet of the long island sound and has 100 acres of salt marsh, trees, and of course, grapevines. The actual building is a WWII aircraft hangar with fantastic raw energy, a rustic yet utilitarian feel – idea for me to bring in provincial touches to soften it up. So I took to the internet and began bookmarking and printing images of other weddings and details that I liked. This is what prompted me to start my own wedding blog – Sparkle and Hay. Initially the blog was truly going to be an organizational tool for me to compile all of the beautiful (rustic chic) images and ideas from around the web which inspired me for my wedding. A blog seemed the easiest way to store this information, and to share it with friends, family, and all of the wonderful vendors we have partnered with, as a bonus, it almost created a planning diary for me to have and look back at after our big day. So what is rustic chic? To give you a peak of what it will mean for my big day, here is an inspiration board for my Provencal Rustic Chic Wedding:
And because I love them so much, I also wanted to share with you our fantastic save the dates created by Lucinda Wesson of Chocolate Creative Design & photographed by Anna Sawin. To set the stage, each of our guests received a little burlap pouch meant to resemble a vintage feed sack. In it were clues for what they can expect on our big day; wine corks for the vineyard, Provencal lavender & a piece of wheat, along with a paper airplane folded from a page of a French love poem book – altogether rustic chic!
So now that I’ve shared my style – tell me about yours! What do you envision your wedding day to look like and where do you draw your inspiration from?
Thanks for sharing a piece of you Erin!
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