Honestly, that’s what it actually says in the dictionary.

We have worked with some pretty cool people this week, some of the best in the industry. We have even teamed up with massive retro photography giants lomography.com.

As well as having a huge online community with over 3 million members they also make and sell analogue cameras – they are new cameras, that shoot film, based on iconic designs from the 50s and 60s. RETRO-TASTIC. Lomography have kindly given us a whole hoard of their books and camera’s to give away to you lucky bunch EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. THIS. WEEK.

All you have to do is leave a comment on one of our posts this week (including this one) to stand a chance of winning either a Lomography film camera or Lomography London notebook. A winner will be picked from every post, so make sure you get commenting folks.

Rock My Love.

Rock My Wedding is also spreading a little love over at lomography.com. Three lucky couples will win a photoshoot styled by RMW and shot by some of our favourite photographers, who will all be using lomography cameras and equipment. All you have to do to enter is submit your best Lomographic shots that reflect the phrase ‘Rock My Love’ so if you are already down with the super cool lomography movement then head over to the Rock My Wedding Lomography Rumble after 1pm today (the link won’t work before then) for more details on how to enter.

Lomography Style.

The wonderfully colourful and dream-like iconic square shots that you produce with a Lomography camera are becoming so popular and desirable now that some wedding photographers have started carrying them around in their standard kit bags. I’ve not yet seen a wedding entirely shot on these retro creations yet, but it is becoming increasingly popular to have a few lomographic shots thrown into the mix.

Below is a selection of images from Joanna Brown. She shoots on digital and takes a selection of images with her Diana F+. First of all then 4 images from 4 weddings, shot digitally.

And now, the same 4 weddings, but this time the 4 images are shot on a Diana F+ Lomography film camera.

Now you can’t get much more retro than that! I love the soft focus, the red light bleed and colour cast. With Lomography you never quite know what you are going to get until you get that film developed. I love the element of surprise. I think the balloons image is my personal favourite – the effect of the film, colour and focus combined with the balloons themselves give the image a perfect 70′s retro feel.

And there we have it, an introduction to Retro Week on Rock My Wedding and a good dose of wedding pretty thrown in for good measure!

If you are feeling the lomography wedding love you can view a few more wedding related images over on lomography.com by clicking here. These were competition winners of a previous Lomography Rumble… so you can check out the standards before entering the Rock My Wedding Lomography Rumble too!

Pop back for another retro dose of W-day candy this afternoon.

Adam.

…Oh yes indeedy.
Theme weeks are back on RMW.

Make sure you join us, we have retro giveaways EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

The Weekly Round up.

On Monday we went Down Under.
On Tuesday We served up a dose of Winter Bling and asked What is love in our Coulson Macloeod giveaway.
On Wednesdday we dreamed in pretty and then we dreamed about Stationery.
On Thursday we went back to the 60′s and caught up with real bride Celine.
On Friday we asked if Size Matters and What’s New For You?.

Another super duper week then, yes?

Well, just wait until next week – it’ll blow your retro socks off.

Adam.

(And no this isn’t just another excuse to buy new outfits*….)

Last week Adam attended the Reverie on-line magazine launch at Browns Brown (if you haven’t seen this gorgeous glossy yet then you need too folks) and I was invited by Mark Niemierko to the Dorchester for an afternoon with Darcey Miller, Martha Stewart Wedding Magazines’ Editor, to celebrate the best of British in the industry.

I’ve never been to the Dorchester before and I have always been a huge fan of Martha Stewart both as a super successful business woman and of course in particular, her contribution to the evolution of W-day styling and design so nothing was going stop me attending… not even the fact that I had woken up that morning with a face like Simba the Lion King due to an allergic reaction to…. fabric softener.

(Don’t ask)

Floral displays by Rob Van Helden, a selection of stunning gowns and Darcy Miller with David Fielden.

The Dorchester is fancy. Very fancy indeed. As I walked through the door hair firmly windswept and stuck to my lipgloss (why does it do that?!) I immediately felt under-dressed, so should have put a swanky dress on…. Epic fail number one.

Posh frock or not the decor was beautiful, the penthouse suite (yes I know, for a minute there I felt all a bit Julia Roberts and the bathroom was actually bigger than the blue banana…) was filled with an abundance of tulips, roses and general floral greatness courtesy of Rob Van Helden.

The loveliest cake courtesy of Peggy Porschen.

And then there were the designers, David Fielden, Philippa Lepley, Caroline Castigliano and Sassi Holford were all there enjoying afternoon tea and admiring the bespoke Peggy Porchen cake…. yes I was completely star struck (probably stood there grinning manically like a loon)… but they were all really lovely and keen to discuss the increasing popularity of W-day blogging in the UK.

Clockwise from top left, Stephanie balls and Tory Louth from Peggy Porschen with Sassi Holford, Mark Niemierko and Phillipa Lepley, Darcy Miller and a handsome waiter model, a selection of UK Blog Queens, Madeleine Macey and Petrina Nystrom from Temperley London and Harriet Walker from Mustard Catering, Ian Carmichael and Samantha Moore from Browns Bride.

As aesthetically pleasing as the surroundings were nothing was quite as easy on the eye as the waiters. Like actual Disney Prince Charmings but in REAL LIFE. Turns out Mark Niemierko employed some male models to serve the canapés…. Never has a crostini looked so pretty.

And without a doubt epic fail number two was when Mark introduced me to his friend and Hairdresser Ian Carmichael, so awestruck was I by his amazing do (seriously, you have never seen shine and swishiness like it) I didn’t even say Hello, I just came out with some rambling along the lines of OhMyGodDoYouUsePurpleShampooToGetYourHairSoAshyBlonde ?!.

I later found out he is the Queen’s hairdresser.

Yes the actual Queen. Her Majesty has recently given Mr Carmichael a royal warrant due to his 15 years of service….

And I asked him if he used… purple shampoo.

Excellent work O’Shea.

Here’s a highlights video of the event so you can see even more of the fancy – and just how awesome Mr Carmichael’s barnet actually was.

All photography courtesy of Jeremy Enness.

You can see more pictures and details over on Rock N Roll Bride, Anna And The Ring and OMG I’m Getting Married.

Big Feeling All A Bit “I Helped Him Carry A Watermelon?!” Love

Charlotte xxx

P.S Adam is loving the fact Mark Niemerkio is doing the whole double breasted jacket thing, makes him feel like he knows what he’s talking about in the fashion stakes.

* This is clearly a lie.

Sometimes team RMW get an idea for a post and we really aren’t sure how it will be received by you lot, and sure sometimes it’s a surprise for us when we get it wrong, and occasionally it’s a surprise too when we get it right… a good surprise.

Anyway, the upshot is – maybe we’ll share more of our little behind the scenes design decisions with you gorgeous lot in the future… if for no other reason than we found it really blooming helpful and easy when we came to make our decision…. Because you guys had already made it for us!

There was big love for design 2 (the champagne flutes) but you wanted the three flutes from variation B done in the style of variation A. Also, a lot of people wanted the font from design 3… your reason above anything else was that combination would be the one that reflected RMW the best. Well, how could we argue with that?

So there it is – a design by committee. I’m pretty pleased with it and I’m now looking forward to the Real Bride Hen Do more than ever. Yup, I’m going – I think I might be the only boy there but hey ho what can you do eh? Duty calls and all that

It promises to be a fantastic party – an all day event of pampering, craft workshops, dresses, jewellery and décor – all fuelled by some serious chin wagging and fizz quaffing… but I have already said too much!

The Real Bride Hen Do is taking place next weekend so all will be revealed in good time.

Personally, I can’t wait to get my nails done.

Adam.

Anyway, one day Charlotte popped up the staircase for a chat (and to ask me to turn the volume down) and to cut to the chase – a few months later Rock My Wedding was born.

So, most of the little graphics and bits and bobs that you see on these polka dotted pages are my handywork (so don’t say anything rude about them!) including our branding and site design – obviously I get massive amounts of input from Charlotte who is herself very creative, why only yesterday she could be found bragging on twitter about her GCSE grade “A” in Art…

But where is this leading? Well, today I have a bit of fun for you all – you get to help make an executive decision on a brand new bit of RMW branding, but first of all you are going to need to know the design brief. Allow me to explain…

The Rock My Wedding Real Bride Hen Do.

Our Real brides are truly representational of the fantastic community that Rock My Wedding is built on. They are always giving each other advice, sharing ideas, plans and generally supporting each other on their journey to become a “Mrs”.

This year’s brides have gone one step beyond and have taken it upon themselves to arrange a party, a big old get together before they disappear off and tie the knot. Our six real brides will be there, as well as most of the other brides-to-be who entered our real bride competition back in May 2011.

Much of the organising for this shin-dig has been done by real bride Shirley and Kim from The Pink Pumpkin, an award winning wedding design and planning consultancy – so it is bound to be a top notch got-to-bloody-be-there event. But that’s all you lot are hearing about it (for now!).

I was asked to do a bit of branding for the party, a party which we hope will become a regular event for all our future real brides. I’ve come up with 3 ideas, each with two variations. We want you to tell us which one is your fave and help us make the final choice.

The Design Process.

So, as you now know – I used to be a graphic designer and I love a bit of branding work. I know a lot of you guys are going to be getting stuck in with a bit of D.I.Y design for your own big days so I thought I would take you very briefly through my personal design process, you never know it might just help you out. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a “lesson” everyone is different after all and if it gets boring just skip to the next section where you can see the final designs.

For me a glam party means cocktails, so initially I thought I’d draw out something geometric in silhouette to represent that, then look how the shape may be able to interact with the text.

I should probably point out that I always work in black and white initially. Why? The more restrictions I put in place the easier I find it to focus and “be creative”. If you are thinking of design and creative ideas for your big day – it’s much easier to put some boundries in place first, be them budget based, colour based or material based. It all helps to focus your mind, channel your vision on what you can achieve and prevent what I call “blank canvas syndrome” (if you give me a blank canvas and tell me to do “anything I want”, all I will manage to do is panic and then run off for a cry).

So, moving on to the next design. I liked the glass concept so I thought I’d try a variation on that but try and go for something softer, a bit more hand drawn and scrawly. So, I reached for my old dusty copy of “The Twits” to try and get a bit of Quentin Blake style inspiration. Realising that I had been sat reading for the best part of twenty minutes (that Mr Twit eh? What a joker!) I put “The Twits” down and pen to paper…

The result? A few Blake-esque champagne flutes. I thought 6 in a row would be good – one for each real bride but then I decided do an option with just three flutes. Harmony is an important part of design, and for some reason we find a grouping of three items harmonious. Three is not a crowd in the world of design!

At this point Charlotte with her GCSE grade “A” throws me a curve ball, “I like the hand drawn effect – but how about we draw a little bride” and after failing to understand how she wanted it to look, she scribbles down her vision.

So, above you can see Charlottes scrawling *ahem* masterpiece, and my “re-interpretation”. I decided to do a variation by adding in a bridesmaid (one on each side for the sake of harmony again).

Compare And Contrast.
Nearly there now – all they need is a bit of colour – back to the design lesson folks… The concept of “Harmony” extends to colour as well as composition, we humans like to look at colours that harmonise on the whole. They don’t have to match perfectly but the closer they are the more unified everything will look, and we like that very much. However, we also love a bit of contrast – a small area of striking colour contrast can really lift the overall effect of your chosen colour pallette. Think about your wedding colour scheme – most likely you will go for a few key colours or shades that sit closely together… but you can’t beat a bit of colour pop here and there – like a bright yellow bouquet for example (see below).

Right, that’s the lesson over with – now for the fun bit.

The Final Designs.

I’ve put all the final designs onto luggage labels to give an idea for how the branding might be used… it also helps prevent the designs from looking like they are floating in mid air.

Please do let us know which one you prefer in our comments box – and don’t worry, we have pretty thick skin here at RMW so if you think they are all a pile of pap then feel free to let us know!

Design 1 – Cocktail Glass.

Design 2 – Champagne Flute.

Design 3 – Bride/Bridesmaids.

So that’s it – two variations of each design, a mix of composition, complimentary colours and a few doses of colour pop.

So, judge away folks and we look forward to telling you a whole lot more about the Real Bride Hen do in the near future.

Adam.

This year I was thinking about asking Santa for a new carpet for Christmas, because I thought at least it’s a drop-down-the-chimney-friendly shaped parcel…

…Is that sad?

Please let us know what you are asking Santa for, and if you haven’t quite yet set your thoughts in stone, maybe team RMW can help make your mind up.

Cast your peepers over our super seasonal Christmas 2011 wish lists… and click on anything that takes your fancy!

What Charlotte Wants…

I was a little bit surprised to see that this year my “Please Mr Santa wish list” mainly consists of geek gadgets… and not a single bit of make up in sight…

Maybe I’m waiting for the sales?

Polaroid Camera from Polaroid.co.uk

Yellow Satchel - ASOS

Grey/Blue Desk Lamp – John Lewis

Bus Print Pencils – Paperchase

Headphones – Nixon

POP Mugs – Pedlars

Orla Kiely Radio – John Lewis

Star Print Scarf – The White Company

What Jenny Wants…

What I want this Christmas is some serious retail therapy (mainly footwear based) with a good old slab of choccy thrown in for good measure. Oh and a few other nice things as well please Mr Santa

Leather Biker Jacket – Diesel

Retro Camera – Lomography

Cadburys Chocolate – Cadbury’s Direct

One Piece Swimsuit – Modcloth

Ankle Boots – S Sense

Owl Bangle – Modcloth

Vogue Covers Book – Amazon

Knee Boots – Vivienne Westwood at Hervia

What do you think? Are you going to be jealous of Charlotte and Jenny come Christmas morning? Or have you got bigger and better plans in motion?

What are you gorgeous lot asking Santa for this year? – And please do share with us any last minute under-the-tree presents that you might have found for your nearest and dearest… team RMW‘s Christmas shopping is, shall we say, as yet rather incomplete…

Big yule log (time is running out) Love!

Team RMW.

Here it is then. I’ve even annotated it to help out those of you still trying to shake off the cobwebs of Saturday night…

Simple eh? so here’s the thing:

All through December I’ll be keeping an eye on the Rock My Wedding “like” situation over on our Facebook page. and for every extra “like” that we have received by the end of December we’ll be giving one pound to The Childrens Society. (up to a limit of £500.00).

The number on our fancy equation graphic shows our total number of likes as of December 1st, so now it’s down to you guys to make those digits soar.

The Brummie Blog.

Because RMW is born and bred in the Midlands we will be donating to The Childrens Society West Midlands. You can read at bit more about some of the life changing projects they work on via the links below.

• Children at risk on the streets.
• Children with disabilities.
• Young refugees.

We like to do something to make us feel all smiley and warm at Christmas, and If you’d like to put a smile on a child’s face (maybe one to rival the smile you’ll have on your face at the point when you say “I do”) then please head over to the The Childrens Society. or click here to make a donation.

That’s it. Please help us to rock a childs life. Thanks peeps.

Big “smile-from-ear-to-ear” love,

Rock My Wedding.

RMW: So… you’re going to give us our own stand?

Ocean Media Yes, we are going to give you your own stand in our “bloggers area” They’ll be you guys and the I am Staggered team, so play nicely with them!

RMW: Yeah we can do that. And you want us to run a few inspirational seminars for the brides to be?

Ocean Media Yes please, 33 in total to be precise…

RMW: Erm…. ok.

Photography by Rock My Wedding.

The Plan.

Once the panic had died down (approximately 7 weeks later) we set about planning first of all how on earth we were going to take a piece of Rock My Wedding To Earls Court one weekend, and then to the NEC the following weekend… in the end we decided the best thing to do would be to actually literally do that. We ransacked our RMW offices, taking all the knick-knacks, thrift store finds and clutter that we surround ourselves with.

So our ‘set’ was actually real stuff from our offices. Charlottes crates (she has a crate problem) My gin bottles (I have a gin problem) assorted records, vintage cameras – we even took Charlottes desk… which incidentally is made from old planks of wood that they used to mature cheese on (she has a cheese problem).

Photography by Rock My Wedding.

The Presentations.

The next nightmare was what were we actually going to talk about? This may sound silly to you folks but it’s one thing to sit at your desk and tap away about weddings on your keyboard… it is entirely another thing to stand up in front of loads (hopefully) of people and actually speak. Out loud.

In the end we just decided to look back through the blog and pick out 10 or so of our favourite weddings… once we had done that our wedding inspiration seminars pretty much wrote themselves… we took a few images from each wedding and popped together a keynote presentation that we hoped would be informative to all the brides to be that we were going to meet.

Ok. I’ve made this sound easy…. maybe a bit too easy…. At this point I’ll say Don’t try this at home folks… we are dedicated professionals and we know what we are doing.

We loved the weddings that we choose for the presentations so much that we decided that only showing one or two images from each one was not going to do them justice. So we made some books, with loads more detail in from each wedding. The idea was to pass them around after the presentations, just incase people wanted more…

Things were falling into place.

Photography by Rock My Wedding.

Show Time.

Presentations ready. Books ready. stand decor ready… not quite! We needed some help to make our set super pretty!

We were absolutely overwhelmed with the flower arrangements that Rebel Rebel produced for our London shows and Bloomingayles created for Birmingham. You guys got it spot on, the flowers looked ace. Pocket Typewriter created the amazing luggage labels that you can see in the images – they went brilliantly with our assorted bottles and kept everything on brand perfectly. I also must thank notonthehighstreet.com for sending us parcel after parcel of assorted wedding pretty and Coulson MacLeod for providing the graphic slates that really brought our crates to life.

You are all legends.

Photography by Rock My Wedding.

The Rest Is History.

The rest is a blur really, and not just because we were stationed right next door to the Champagne bar! Charlotte, Vix and I survived on adrenaline and coffee (and ok, maybe the odd glass of Lanson) for 2 weekends on the trot. I had to buy new shoes because my feet hurt so much. Charlotte had to ration her talking to save herself for all the one-2-one sessions she was doing inbetween the seminars. Vix had to hurriedly D.I.Y up some RMW cushions when our original items were stolen! It was hectic but it was fun.

We were so thrilled that so many people came to see us – the organisers found us a PA system so that the crowds could hear (no-one was expecting so many people). People asked questions, we even got the odd round of applause(!). The polka dot books went down very well (some went walkies!) and to be honest, it was really nice to actually meet people and talk face to face rather than via the blog, Facebook, twitter etc… It is something Team RMW hope to do much more in the future, whether that’s via shows or simply by getting out more into the community.

And as for our friends at I am Staggered, well it was great to be able to hang out with them for a few days in London and Birmingham – they are genuinely lovely guys (this may not do their “stag” image any favours but it’s true)

But, as for playing fair… look what they did to the picture of me in our National Wedding Show programme… my poor lovely face (and chest!)

Photography by Rock My Wedding.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into our first big show, we really hope to be back again in February when the National Wedding Show returns and this time it’s got some new very swanky branding.

Click the link to have a look at their new holding page, it’s very fresh, very clean and very now. It looks as though the 2012 National Wedding Show may be the best one yet.

Adam.

When I was buying my first house I suddenly couldn’t get enough of ‘Property Ladder’ and “Location, Location, Location,’ programmes which prior to the event of taking a step onto the ladder myself held no interest what-so-ever. Then, when I was doing the house up, it was suddenly all about ‘Grand Designs’ and even ‘Changing Rooms’ for blogs sake. It’s a similar thing with Christmas, once it gets into late November/early December all I want to do is pop on a classic xmas film in order to let the seasonal spirit sink in (usually it’s ‘Home Alone’ but maybe ‘Love Actually’ if I’m feeling soppy.)

So, bride and groom’s to be – now that you are tying the knot have you discovered a new found passion/obsession for wedding related movies? And if so, what’s your favourite? It doesn’t have to be a film about getting married, it could simply be a film with a wedding in it…

To get your minds engaged I am going to start you off with my top three wedding films, in reverse order:

3. The Wedding Crashers…

I think If Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn actually crashed your wedding you’d probably let them stay for the reception too…

2. Four Weddings And A Funeral…

Probably Richard Curtis’s least sentimental feature film, or at least the one that is most subtly sentimental. Curtis is a master of comedy (and bad language). I remember watching this with my parents as a 14 year old lad and going very red faced during the first scene as the dialogue almost exclusively consisted of ‘the F word.’ Gordon Ramsey’s favourite film.

1. The Wedding Singer…

Classic Adam Sandler, you either love him or hate him… but for me Steve Buscemi and a cameo by John Lovitz make this film extra extra special.

The 80′s bride in the opening scene is ace, I want to see the Mark Knopfler style head band, complete with floral accessory making a big comeback in 2012

Also, it has a brilliant 80′s soundtrack, Billy frickin Idol’s in it and there is a scene with a Delorean. Do you need any more reasons to watch this film? Not only is it my favourite wedding film, I think it might even creep into my top 10 films of all time! (Don’t judge me on that).

Now It’s Your Turn…

I’ve gone with three comedy’s, but maybe that’s a sad reflection on the fact that I seem to be unable to take anything too seriously – are there even any serious wedding films out there?

Anyway, drop me a comment with your favourite W-day flick! And feel free to slate my choices…

Happy “Im currently watching The Wedding Singer for the 35th time’ Sunday,

Adam.

If you loved our White on White feature earlier in the week and you’re a bit of a nosey parker (like moi) then you might be interested in seeing this spectacular behind-the-scenes film by Suzy Hogan of Pearl Productions….

And if you want to see even more video footage then we’ve also got a wee bit of insight into the Cosmo Blog Awards that we attended last Wednesday. Yes that’s Adam looking particularly petulant because we didn’t win… ha ha ha.

Adam is all out to pick up that trophy next year. Yup… even if that means dying his hair pink.

Hope you are having a lovely Sunday folks. We’re off to Derby to see my best friend Sarah (Vix’s elder sister as it happens) and her two gorgeous strawberry blonde girls Isla and Fearne. As I am officially “fake” Aunty Charl then I have very good reason to buy cute little girls outfits….

Big Any Excuse To Hit The Shops Love

Charlotte xxx

P.S It was Adam’s birthday yesterday – he is both sulky AND old!!!!