Indian/Persian Wedding: Minal and Mehrdad

Here at Bella Signature Design, mixed cultural weddings are a bit of a specialty for us - we started years ago by gaining a lot of Indian Weddings in Seattle because of the way we use color, and have in the meantime created a lot of weddings where brides and grooms want to weave in parts of their cultural backgrounds (Japanese/American, Jewish/Chinese, Thai/American etc) or have the entire wedding be a traditional Indian, Persian or Jewish ceremony. As someone who has lived in different parts of the world, I adore these weddings in particular: there is something about adding in the sentiment and meaning of one's culture into this important day, and for me as a designer to design the wedding in a way that reflects that meaning and cultural heritage. One of our weddings this summer at the Golf Club at Newcastle was a stunning Indian (bride) and Persian (groom) wedding, and it was recently featured in Asiana Magazine - check out the pictures below! (if you want to read the whole article, it will be up on the press section our website soon) We loved this particular Mandap we built for Minal and Mehrdad, it was simple yet stunning, saturated with color and a fabulous backdrop for the Indian Portion of their wedding.

If you want to see more of our cultural weddings, check out or Cultural Weddings Page!

Daniela

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Green Tuesdays - Paperwink

One of my lovely brides is using Paperwink, a fabulous invite company, for her wedding - and in contacting them to help with design (we offer our brides a 'branding' design service where we will discuss the couples overall design and color palette with all of their vendors) we found out they have all sorts of eco-friendly options! There are 100% recycled papers, organic cotton papers and other eco-friendly papers to choose from. They have some fabulous wedding invitations and save the date's as well as offering custom designs. They offer cost-friendly thermography as well as letterpress - check out their website at http://www.thepaperwink.com/
Daniela

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Floral Fridays: Garden Roses - Caramel Antike

I LOVE garden roses. Although in general my tastes run more to the clean and modern, I love ruffly petalled blooms, from peonies to ranunculus and the amazing garden rose.

Caramel Antike smells heavenly (which is one of the reasons I love garden roses so much - they actually smell like roses!)

The other amazing feature of this roses besides it's unique color and fragrance is that it holds forever once cut - almost ten days, which is unheard of for many garden roses. Enjoy! This rose will be available in the next few weeks!

Daniela

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Green Tuesdays: Smock Paper

I recently found Smock Paper and swoon! I am in love. I have always had a love for letterpress - there is something about the words being deeply cushioned into the paper...

Since I prefer sustainable products when possible, I am always on the lookout for eco-conscious wedding vendors and sustainable wedding products such as 'green' wedding invitations. And so, I found Smock. These are not your typical "handmade paper with a twig through them" type of green wedding invitations. Smock uses stunning bamboo paper combined with a letterpress technology that is extremely green, using only vegetable-oil based and low-Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) inks and low-VOC and citrus-based solvents. Even their packaging is biodegradable, tree-free, and petroleum-free. Their green office and employee programs are amazing, and something any company should strive to even do a small percentage of - to read more check out their efforts here.

Why Bamboo? Smock's fabulous website says it best: "Bamboo is a truly sustainable and renewable resource. It's the fastest growing plant on this planet; it grows without pesticides or fertilizers; and it requires very little water to grow. In addition to not requiring pesticides or fertilizers, bamboo reaches its mature harvestable height in 3 to 5 years (versus 10-20 years for most softwoods). Bamboo generates up to 35% more oxygen than hardwood trees, and absorbs four times as much carbon as hardwood. Bamboo can detoxify wastewater (due to its high nitrogen consumption) and improve soil quality. If that wasn't enough, bamboo also has natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties too."

I was lucky to get some samples of Smock's invitations at the Special Event Conference last month in San Diego and found it absolutely yummy - thick, yet yielding to the touch, very soft, and perfect for letterpress.

How fabulous to get the luxury of letterpress on sustainably created paper form a company whose mission is to make the planet a better place for all of us, one wedding at a time? Thank you, Smock Paper!

Daniela

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Green Tuesdays

Added to our line-up of blogging posts here at the Bella Signature Design Blog Is Green Tuesdays! You can look forward to fabulous eco-friendly, organic and/or sustainable wedding finds, from Gowns, favors, flowers and various wedding vendors. If you are a wedding/ event vendor that features eco-conscious products or practices, let us know! And readers, let us know what you want in terms of 'green' resources!

Todays' feature is Blue Sky Bridal, in Seattle. This fabulous shop allows brides to sell their (less than 5 year old and in excellent condition) wedding gowns, which of course allows new brides-to-be to buy them at a fabulous price AND recycle instead of buy new. A win-win! If you wanted that Vera Wang or Lazaro gown and couldn't afford, and feel guilty about the jet fuel it takes to ship your gown from New York, let alone the resources that go into making a new gown, Blue Sky Bridal is for you!

Here are some of the Gowns featured on their website:

(Vera Wang, Lazaro, Paloma Blanca (love that one!)

Many of their fabulous Gowns sell before they ever reach their website, so I definitely recommend making an appointment to browse and try some on instead of just looking on the web.

Go to their website HERE for more information, directions, and shop hours.

Isn't it fabulous to look great AND be eco-conscious?

Daniela

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