Perfect Print Gifts

Two of our great friends gave Jubbs and I one of these prints for our birthday.  I have since payed the pleasure forward to another friend of mine.  I think they would make a great gift for older bridesmaids or groomsmen.  It is a unique gift and a nice change from what people normally give for the thank you gifts.

They have an array of colours and also different types of maps, from the UK to the USA, to Australia.  This can then be a cool personal touch if adapted to the country that your bridesmaids or groomsmen come from.  I gave my friend one of Australia as she is married to an Aussi and has lived there for a number of years.  They both loved it and I must admit, I am pretty proud of myself! 

All images from boldandnoble.com

They are all priced at £43 unframed but are made to fit off the shelf frames.  Visit the website to see a larger range of their designs www.boldandnoble.com

I am a huge fan!

NY

A Bridesmaids Gift Idea

Images from theoldbagcompany.com,
Annie Angelopoulou & monsoon.co.uk

I don't know about you but when it came to deciding what to get my bridesmaids as a gift to say thank you, I was a bit stumped.  It is hard to buy one present for all as everyones tastes differ, so I decided to leave a beach bag in each of their rooms filled with some goodies that I thought would come in handy whilst they were in Greece.  I had 2 grown up bridesmaids and 1 who was 6 years old and altered the bags and fillers accordingly.  For the older two I got them very different types of bag as they are completely different personalities.  Hels loves green so it was a no brainer to get her a hand painted, handmade, green bag that I found in Chania town and filled it with Korres suncream factor 15, Korres aftersun, a book and a pink & white polka dot sarong. Parks loves monochrome and is very organised, the old bag company do a great spotted bag with magazine pockets which I then filled with factor 15 Korres suncream (and a factor 50 for her husband as he is of the pale skin type), aftersun, a book and a black sarong.  On top of this they also were given their antique brooches which they used to affix their pashminas at the ceremony.  As for Evie my bridesmaid of 6, I filled her cute bag with girly magazines, some jewelry from Accessorize and a little fabric jewelry bag ( she had just got her ears pierced and was very excited), which she loved.
The one thing I learnt from organising the wedding was things add up and cost start running away from you.  Rather than blow a lot of money on a gift, that a lot of the time they will never use (going from personal experience), get them something simple that they can enjoy during your wedding and beyond.  What the girls loved about their gifts was that I had thought them through individually rather than just giving them a generic present.

 NY

Sometimes DIY is Best

….  It really is!  With the previously stated problems with hiring, DIYing some aspects of your Greek wedding is really the easiest way to handle the problem.   Now I am not going to say it is all a bundle of fun, because some of it isn’t but the end rewards make up for it!  I found it very hard to stomach that 200 tea light holders were going to set me back at least £400 and that was without any candles in them. So I decided to make my own! It may have taken a little longer than expected but I got them done!  I found an online site where I could buy 200 small Jam jars for £60…perfect. Next I bought some fine wire from Homebase and some raffia!  After getting comfortable on my sitting room floor in front of a good movie I set about constructing the rustic tea light holders.  It took me about 2 weeks (don’t worry, I wasn’t sitting there solidly, only 1-2 hours an night) and too be honest they were perfect for what I needed).

The other detail that gave me a lot of jip (and Sara will definitely agree as I dragged her halfway round Athens looking for them) was the Bombonieres.  My god!  It was so painful.  I looked everywhere, changed my mind about 100 times and still wasn’t happy.  I have drawers of these things from all my family’s weddings and for me it was important not to waste a lot of my budget on something that I did not deem as hugely important.  In the end I put my mother and 2 family friends to work and made up some cute little packages with an evil eye and the Koufetta inside.  There was also an explanation of what the Koufetta stood for inside, for all the non Greeks.  My father did have some issues with this area as it is traditional to have something made of silver, for the family at least but in the end he caved and for me it was the best decision.  Most of the young (or not so young) were just happy taking away the hats and wigs.

NY