Creatives at work - Butterfly Photography

It is a delight to work with this months creative. I have been so lucky to have collaborated with Ashling on editorial photoshoots over the years and her work is incredible. Everyone of her images capture something special, a mood, a feeling, it is captivating. So today I introduce to you Butterfly Photography and their beautiful work.

Who is your bride?

The immediate thing that springs to mind is self-assured. Our brides tend to have an amazing network of lifelong friends, who they have had life adventures with, and travelled and lived with.  Along the way, these friends have provided an incredibly loving and supportive system in which each of these ladies have grown up to be confident, happy and so much fun. They bring you into this wonderful dynamic with open arms, and their men are so obviously in love with these fierce and fabulous women.  We’ve been lucky enough to be invited back by the ladies of these friendship groups to document each of their celebrations and it really is a joy to see them time and time again.

When do you feel most inspired?

Oooohh! When we’re in front of love. Gosh, I can’t tell you how excited I get when a couple realise that they JUST GOT MARRIED. When they realise that all their planning has paid off, and they just dive into enjoying the moment and the day that’s in it. It’s when they’re laughing away to each other, or pulling into an embrace when I’m dancing around them, clicking away, with an ear-to-ear grin.  It’s why I’m in this business – the love and connections we witness at weddings. Whether that be between a couple, a father and daughter, a grandfather and grandson, or a couple and their pooch - Hopeless romantic here.

How do you feel meeting a new bride to be?

Nervous as hell. I’ve always been shy and I’m definitely not a natural salesperson, but after a few minutes I relax and can’t wait to hear about all the wedding plans, how they met, and how the dress hunting is coming along. 

What do you like to hear from a bride?

If a couple is getting married in a stunning location (Wicklow Mountains, Ring of Kerry, near a beach – you get the idea) and they’re up for adventuring for an hour, I am in HEAVEN. We LOVE exploring the gorgeous countryside with our couples.

We also love to hear them say they’re not fussed about group photos. We always insist on the immediate family photos and one with grandparents, but apart from that we advise our couples to enjoy the drinks reception while we run around capturing candids and impromptu group shots. Trying to organise a long list of big group shots can be a nightmare and mean the couple is stood waiting for an hour while people are sent off to find those guests who are gone to the bar/bathroom/hotel room. Not fun for the newlyweds.

www.butterflyphotography.ie

How did you find your calling? 

Both myself and Dan trained as architects (it’s how we met – at uni), but I fell out of love with the profession after about 3 years, and didn’t know what else to do.  It wasn’t until after our own wedding that I fell in love with this whole industry.  So I stole Dan’s camera, took a couple of night classes in the local college, devoured a few books, found a few couples who took a chance on me, and I haven’t looked back since.  Best decision I ever made!

 

Thank you Ashling for sharing your passion for photography. It shines through in all your work. 

Check out more of  Butterfly photography

www.butterflyphotography.ie

hello@butterflyphotography.ie

Or hit them with some love over on

Instagram @weddingsbybutterfly

Facebook @Butterflyphotographic

Twitter @ButterflyUKEire

Creatives at work

Cake please! Today we dive into the world of Suzanne from CocoaMoiselle.

Tara Ahern Photography

Who is your bride?

There is no straight forward answer to that question! However, having met hundreds of gorgeous brides over the past 4 years in business, whether it is a boho celebration or an upmarket, lavish wedding, I can definitely tell you that brides who come to CocoaMoiselle are looking for something unique and special. My brides tend to have a keen eye for design and detail, know what they want and have great ideas for their cake. They are stylish ladies,  planning fabulous weddings!

When do you feel most inspired?

I am inspired by everything and anything. A lot of the venues I deliver to have beautiful decorative details everywhere, from the floors to the ceilings!  The Irish countryside is also a sight to behold,and I am lucky to travel through a lot of beautiful places when I am delivering my wedding cakes.

Old buildings and old books, ruined castles, fabric, cutlery, patterns, sculpture and pottery, any kind of art, nature, trees, flowers and poetry, I love it all and appreciate all the beauty in the world. I will often stop for lunch after a delivery in a picturesque spot and take it all in before I go back into work. I'll also stop off at any castles or ruins that catch my eye. One of the perks of the job :)

I love when all baking, filling and covering is done at the bakery. It is time to decorate! I usually stick on a cd and work away on my cake,  decorating and adding details until the cake is finished to perfection.

How do I feel meeting a new bride?

This isn't such a straightforward answer either!  I usually just meet my bride once, at our consultation in the showroom. So we have an hour to get to know each other and go through the design of the cake and of course , taste the cakes.

I am always glad to meet new brides as I know there is a new chance for me to create another beautiful cake.

Sometimes , if my bride lives abroad, We don't get to meet at all, but we do all the planning and design by email. I have also had very cool, laid back brides just email me and order a cake directly from my website photos! Everyone's approach is different but it is always a positive experience for me.

What do I like to hear from a bride?

It is always music to my ears when my bride tells me she trusts my judgement and allows me to design the cake whatever way I think is best.  I love being given a design brief and working from that and allowing for last minute changes to be made as I work on the cake. I love all my cakes, but my favourites are most definitely the ones where I was given a design brief and a budget and let loose!

How did I find my calling?

I was either going to do Fine Art or Culinary Arts in college. I chose culinary arts as I had always loved cooking and saw myself with a career in hospitality. I worked in restaurants as a chef, then as a pastry chef , and developed a love for pastry, desserts and sugar! While living in Melbourne, I took some sugar craft courses and this quickly became an obsession. I haven't looked back since. I've worked in some great restaurants as Pastry Chef and trained in confectionery artsin Toronto . I absolutely love what I do. I've always been driven and wanted to work for myself. I am very lucky to be doing what I do for a living.

What a great insight into Suzanne's business and creative process. Check out all of CocoaMoiselle amazing work here

What questions do you have for your cake supplier, hit the comments below and we will do our best to answer them for you.

Ask The Designer

It is ask the designer time at SFoy HQ and this week it is all about time scale.

Image by Paul Kelly Photography

"How much time do you need to have a design made? I'm worried I haven't left enough time to pick my dress and feeling under pressure to make decisions now!" - This is the most commonly asked question and statement to pass through my inbox, so today we give you all the information on time scale and when best to get started

Every designer works differently and every bridal store will have their own order policy. However, I like to have 6 to 8 months to design and complete a gown. So how does this break down for you the bride? The first appointment with us is a simple chat to get to know you and the ideas you have in mind for your wedding, two weeks after that you will have received sketches from me detailing ideas for your wedding dress. When you have had time to look over them we have a follow up consultation to help finalise the details. This whole process can take between 4 to 6 weeks.

Next step is to custom make your pattern and create your mock up. We book you in to check size and fit. Allowing you to get a look at the style and shape. Now it's order time, we calculate how much fabric will be needed. Ordering in your beads and embellishment. When everything arrives we cut and make your dress. We will now see you every 3 to 4 weeks. At these fittings we will be concentrating on getting everything fitting beautifully, then we add the little details particularly embellishments .

At the final stages we help you to get the overall look, encouraging you to try out different hairstyles, nail polish, lipstick and of course a veil or head piece. Most brides have their final fitting about 2 weeks before pick up day. This fitting is usually just to double check that you are 100% happy.

Every bride, every dress, every day is different. We often do commissions 18 months in advance or in off peak season a dress can be completed sooner but the general rule we give our clients is 6 to 8 months.

Have you a question about your dress you need answered. Email me today and we will tackle it on our next Ask The Designer blog piece .

Creatives at work

It was back in 2016 at my first Glitter studio appearance that I meet the lovely Jen. Full of energy and creativity, I could not help but be captivated by Cupcakes and Counting. So this week we chat to Jen about how CupCakes and Counting came to be, about inspiration and the ideal bride. 

Who is your bride?

My bride is anyone who loves stunning floral display. I have a deep affection for flowers and beautiful botanicals these are the main inspiration for my wedding cakes. I love decorating our wedding cakes with handmade, delicate sugar sculptures. I like to recreate nature’s blooms and turn them into edible art. 

When do you feel most creative?

It’s when the brides (and grooms, sometimes) tell me about their love story. How they met, their favourite story about each other,  a memorable holiday together. All these contribute to how I design their wedding cake. This is when the boost of inspiration and creativity just flows freely and allows me to create wedding cakes that uniquely and specifically suit my couple.

How do you feel meeting a new bride to be?

I am always full of butterflies before I meet a new bride-to-be but I am very, very excited at the same time. I cannot help but imagine that I might be the one making their wedding cake. You see, it’s not just business for me. Given the opportunity to make their wedding cake, it is wonderful to think that you become part of their fairytale, of their romance, of their happy ever after.

What do you like to hear from a bride? 

Each bride is unique and may come up with questions that are relevant to her and not so for others.  What’s important for me is that they are able to tell me what they actually want i.e. how her wedding cake should look like. A bride well equipped with a set of questions during cake tasting/consultation is always a pleasure to work with.

How did you find your calling? 
Back in 2013, a very powerful typhoon had hit my husband’s hometown in the Philippines. The damage was so severe that the city was left with no power, no food, no clean water, and no proper shelter.  Our family survived the onslaught, however, the number of casualties raised to alarming heights. My husband and I decided to hold a bake sale to raise funds for our neighbours who got severely affected by the calamity. We sold cupcakes and we were able to send a considerable amount of monetary assistance to our neighbours who have been displaced and needing support. Our fundraising had finished but the orders didn’t. People were still asking for our cupcakes long after our bake sale ended. This is how Cupcakes and Counting was born.

Thank you do much to Jen and Jay for sharing their beginnings and photography's with us today. I can say that not only do their cakes look incredible they are delicious.

Check out www.cupcakesandcounting.com and their Instagram Account rocks

Share with us today your wedding cake questions

Sparkling Fun Weekend

We are in recovery mode in Sarah Foy Studio this week after an epic weekend at The Glitter Studio.

One Fab Day curated another wonderful wedding event for brides-to-be. Thoughtfully put together with magical installations and hand picked vendors. I love meeting new brides, chatting style and trends for 2017/2018. I have come away inspired again to create and to really bring the best designs and service to our new brides.

I also had a blast meeting up with vendors to see what they are creating. So inspiring to see Irish companies bring such amazing quality and creativity to the world. So here are some suppliers I think you need to check out and some great pictures of our weekend.

Keeping us supplied wth essential salted caramel cupcakes all weekend. Jen is a sculpture of cakes www.cupcakesandcounting.com

Not one but two amazing make-up artists rocked all weekend. Meeting new brides and styling our models for the fashion showcase - alannawallace@gmail.com and efcreativestudios.com

Hair styled beautifully by roller.ie and Claire Barry Hair.

Horetown House , Co.Wexford who convinced me to drink gin - lots of arm twisting went on there. 

Frog Prince for putting some serious style into the weekend.

Did you make it to The Glitter Studio? Would love to hear what you thought? If you didn't get a chance to chat to me, please drop us an email info@sarahfoycouture.com with any questions you may have. 

 

Glitter studio

It's going to be a busy week at Sarah Foy Couture - it's Glitter studio week

This time last year I made my first appearance at One Fab Days wedding event - Glitter studio.

It was the most fun I have ever had at a fair. Meeting the best brides, best suppliers and just having fun all weekend.

What have I in store for Glitter studio this year? New dresses, our new line of accessories and me there to answer all your bridal dress questions.

Pop by and say Hi... bring chocolate if you can.

Ps. Quick flash ticket give away over on my Facebook page for one hour only this evening

Behind the Scenes

On a January evening three weeks ago I sat down on my couch utterly exhausted. My phone beeped -  an email from Aisling at Butterfly photography with just one picture from the day. Breathtaking, it had been a busy day but it was all worth it for that one amazing image.

Butterfly Photography

Today we give you a behind the scenes look at our latest photoshoot.

Inspiration for the day started back in November last year. A meet up with Stacey from Making Faces Gorey got us all excited to collaborate again. How did we collect our ideas? I love Pinterest so that's always a good starting point for me - check out our Pinterest board.

I wanted warmth, tranquility. I choose soft tulle in warm gold, heavy silk crepes in creamy tones and finally luxurious silk velvet in pale pink. From there I draped and played with the fabric till a dress was formed.

The day began early with fires burning at Murphy's Barn to keep Prima model Natalia warm while Catriona from Headrush.ie and Stacey from Making Faces Gorey worked their magic.

Event stylist and florist Sharon from Frog Prince Events was let loose on the Barn. Spending hours transforming the venue into the most beautiful wedding scene. While also whipping up our bouquet and floral crown .....one amazingly talented lady

It's was our photographer Aisling's idea to take a trip to the beautiful Raven Nature Reserve and Curracloe beach. Teamed with the amazing weather and Butterfly photography's talent these images where dreamy perfection.

To finish of our wedding scene. The super talented Jen from Cupcakes and Counting supplied us with her stunning three tier cake. Which got the styling treatment with Sharon at Frog Prince Events. With wedding stationary from Wedding Fusions.

So much fun working with all of these super talented artists. When let loose to imagine and create their magical touch shines through. Check their work out below

Venue - Murphy's Barn

Model - Prima Model Natalia

Hair - Cathriona at Headrush

Make up - Stacey at Making Faces Gorey

Photographer - Aisling and Dan from Butterfly photography

Event Stylist - Frog Prince Events

Cake - Cupcakes and Counting

Stationary - Lula at Wedding Fusions

 

 

 

Creatives at Work

Camelia from Austen Flowers

Picture an empty room with exposed stone work walls, wooden floors and a large cable window. The first time I worked with Camelia was at a photoshoot at the Old Deanary in Ferns, Co. Wexford. She was let loose on this room for an hour and transformed it into wedding bliss. Delicate winter flowers on the table dressing and creeping vines along the walls to bring the surrounding nature into the room - that is talent. So where does Camelia draw her inspiration from and how does she go about finding the right combination for your wedding

Photo by Butterfly Photography

Who is your bride?

Being based in the picturesque Wicklow countryside and with a background in horticulture, my floral style is natural, loose, organic, full of textural foliage and architectural twigs and other foraged finds, so my bride is a nature loving person, adventurous, stylish, travelled, hunts unusual floral designs and is not afraid to be ‘different’.

When do you feel most inspired?

The more quirky and unusual the brief, the more exiting the project becomes. Each wedding is approached as a blank canvas: we start with a mood board of images (not necessary of flowers) and develop a theme. The next step is choosing the perfect seasonal flowers for the designs (I insist on seasonal, both from an environmental and cost view).

I feel very lucky to work in an ever changing environment and the inspiration can come from the most unexpected places: the pattern of a scarf, the icing of a cake, the colours of a comic, and the texture of a feather…

How do you feel meeting a new bride to be?

The flowers are such a new and unknown subject for many of my brides. Our consultations are a flutter of ideas, images, mood boards, fresh flowers – we start from ‘I have a vague idea of what I want’ and finish with ‘I know that you will bring my vision to life’. My relation with most of my brides starts as a client and ends as a friend. The process of designing the wedding flowers involves a long conversation (in a virtual medium most of the time) that, by the time I deliver the bridal flowers, I fell that we have known each other for a lifetime.

What do you like to hear from a bride?

I’ll keep it simple: ‘I trust your artistic flair and I am happy to leave the whole creative process in your hands.’‘ Is there anything you can’t do?’ because the answer would be that, in floral terms, the impossible doesn’t exist (I just love a challenge!)

How did you find your calling? 

I suppose I had a love of nature since I can remember. I use to spend my holidays with my Granny in the countryside and her love of gardening and outdoors was my greatest inspiration. From there followed a 5 year degree in Horticulture and a Masters in Plant Protection. After a short stint in my mother’s ‘Louise Austen Catering’ company in Wicklow and several experiences both with creative freelance floral designers and florist shops in Dublin and Wicklow, I established my creative venture, Austen Flowers, and, as they say, I never looked back.

 

Thank you Camelia for share insight into you passion. Check out Austen Flowers

www.austenflowers.ie
https://www.facebook.com/austenflowers/
https://www.instagram.com/austenflowers/
 

Flowers are such a beautiful tradition for weddings. From a simple bouquet to a grand top table display. Are flowers top of your wedding list wants? Or are you overwhelmed with the choices and combinations out there. Share your thoughts with us in the comments below and see if we can help

Creatives At Work

Hair stylist Lorraine Browne

On a busy Saturday morning for Lorraine I popped up to her private studio in Clontarf to talk all about weddings - one wedding lover to another.

I have been lucky enough to collaborate with Lorraine on inspirational shoots over the years and have seen first hand her magical touch. However, I was looking forward to hearing a little more about what inspires her and how she became wedding obsessed.

How did you find your calling ?

I’ve been looking after Brides for years and years….. too many too mention. Lorraine Browne Hair Stylist all started way back when my parents had a wedding car business. My job was to hoover the car's on a Saturday morning and then to dress in my sailor jacket and spruce up my mullet haircut (it was the 80’s) and to be a little helper on the day…Hold umbrellas, open doors, pop champagne.

Whilst in high school I was a Saturday girl in a large salon group in my home town of Cheshire. Being a junior to a session stylist in the salon I went as an assistant on weddings, shoots and shows, I just loved it. I have been a Salon stylist, Salon Manager, Trainer for Wella - Proctor and Gamble and session stylist for shoots, shows and films. But I have always kept up my bridal work, it is my passion.

I have a great job that feeds my addiction to beautiful gowns, venues, food and the soppy romance I couldn’t be better suited to what I do …..I’m obsessed with Weddings.

Who is your Bride?

I don't have a particular type of bride. I'm very adaptable which is what I like about being a bridal hair stylist. One day I could be working on a vintage up style using techniques that I have been trained in for years and the next I'll be looking after a boho bride where the look is finished by your eye and personal style.

When do you feel most creative?

Inspirational photo shoots are a great way for me to get creative. I enjoy creating the story behind the look and finding great venues and locations. Teaming up with other wedding suppliers, we pool our talents to create something special

But for my brides it's different. I love seeing the whole look together and I think that's the same for the bride. The wedding morning is the only time the hair, make up, gown and accessories are all seen together for the first time and that inspires me.

How do you feel meeting a new bride to be?

Most of my Brides I have already met before they got engaged, they are usually a bridesmaid or a family member/friend of one of my previous brides.

I usually build up all the details I need via emails and Pinterest boards before the trial so when we meet in real life we already know each other very well. I'm a bit of a romantic and really love hearing how couples meet.

Whats the best questions a bride could ask me?

Communication is very important when a bride is choosing her hair stylist. Firstly, it has to be someone they feel comfortable with. That they can say what they like and more important what they don't like. Hair and make up is so personal sometimes you just don't know until you see it, so a trial is essential. I do a 90min/2hour trial, it is important to me that my bride can see a few options. I love when a bride has a family heirloom, veil or brooch that they would like to incorporate into their hairstyle. Those finishing touches are what I'm all about

A bride should also ask if her hair stylist is fully insured. That they are well experienced, so check any reviews and follow their work on social media.

What a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning. The super talented Lorraine while chatting away to me, she managed to wrestle my crazy locks into a beautiful hair style - that is serious multitasking and serious talent. A big thank you to Lorraine for taking time out to share a little insight to her business.

if you have a hair or wedding inspiration questions for me or Lorraine comment below we love to get your feedback

 

Website www.lorrainebrownehair.com

Email lorrainehair@gmail.com

Phone +353 872438814

twitter @lorraine_hair

facebook lorrainebrownehair

instagram browne_lorraine