Jim and I first met in my hometown of Toronto in 2003 where we worked together at a publishing house and got to know each other over lengthy lunch breaks. Jim eventually moved back to his birth city of London, England and we lost touch. Three years later, after deciding to quit my job to travel to India for my close friend’s wedding, I was at a loose end with what to do with my life, when a friend encouraged me to move to London and invited me to stay with his family. After settling into my new life in the UK, I was out one night when a friend spotted someone looking at me on the dance floor. It was Jim! He found his way over to me and we spent the rest of the year getting to know each other again and eventually spent the rest of my stay in London side-by-side until deciding to move to Dubai together in 2009.

Over the Christmas holidays of 2010, Jim paid me a surprise visit in Toronto and proposed in the city where we had first met. With another move on the horizon in 2012, we had decided that we wanted to get married in the summer of 2011, seven months after we were engaged.

With friends and family scattered across the Americas & Europe and with us planning the wedding in Dubai, this made choosing a wedding location quite challenging. However, since majority of our guests and family would have to travel no matter where the wedding took place, it was actually quite liberating, as it meant that we had a blank slate when it came to choosing our location! We decided to have the wedding in Andalucía, Spain, as I left my heart in Spain the first time I went backpacking and wanted to share this amazing country with Jim. The dramatic landscape, hilltop villages, and amazing food and wine were an added plus as it really spoke to our idea of romance.

Language barriers, time differences, and distances meant that we needed the help of a local wedding planner. Initially disheartened after receiving templated responses and formulaic wedding proposals from various planners, we eventually received the kindest, most enthusiastic, detailed, and open-minded response imaginable from Lucia Fraga of Caprichia Marbella, who gave us confidence we could have the wedding we wanted. Choosing Lucia was the best decision we made since deciding to get married!

With Lucia’s help, we found our dream location in Casares, a small Spanish pueblo blanco (white village) nestled in the Andalucían hills. We were married in a ruined castle on a mountaintop overlooking the town. For the reception, we did some digging and found the Molino Los Medicos, a beautiful converted olive mill in a nearby town called Gaucin, which had a gorgeous inner courtyard for an outdoor dinner, and a large outdoor space with unspoiled views for the cocktail hour and dancing. The villa coupled as our accommodation for the week, which was a dream on two accounts: we were able to live in luxury and have the space we needed to organize things before the big day. We also found the Molino Del Carmen, another villa in Gaucin, which agreed to let our family and friends have sole use of their property for the week building up to the wedding.

As Dubai has a very small bridal market, I knew that I might have to find my wedding dress elsewhere, which was the only real pressure I felt planning my wedding. But with a trip to London, New York and then Toronto planned for some major dress shopping, I knew as long as I remained open-minded, positive, and relied on my gut feeling, I would be fine. A trip to New York with my sister found me a backless Pnina Tornai sold exclusively at Kleinfeld’s. When the designer herself walked out to add the cathedral-length veil, I was sold!

Planning the wedding away from our families wasn’t so bad, as we engaged our family in as much preparation as we could, so they would feel involved in our big day. My mother helped with the invitations, and my sister, mother and grandmothers helped sew decorations for the reception and the welcome picnic. Jim’s brother helped make a sign for the welcome picnic, and the table name-card holders (later adorned with Laura Hooper’s beautiful calligraphy) for the reception dinner, and his mother made us our guest book.

The day of our wedding, Jim’s uncle served as officiant, while two friends gave readings from D.H. Lawrence and Plato, and another friend acted as videographer. Since we were wed on a mountaintop (and thus far away from any power source), we hired a cellist to accompany our ceremony. Jim had asked his talented friend Carl to arrange a special solo cello version of Sigur Ros’ Hoppipolla to use as our recessional song, as it’s the most joyous piece of music I’ve ever heard!

Lucia found a local florist to provide rustic-looking Mataline roses in soft shades, with berries, eucalyptus and other foliage, and verdant ivy to wrap around the ceremony chairs. As an unexpected bonus, a big festival was underway in the town on the same day, so the town was decorated and I got plenty of attention from the local revelers as I was escorted through the town on a golf cart.

After the ceremony, the flowers arrangements were transported to the reception site, where we had fairy lights and candles dotted all around, including floating candles in the fountain, and Victorian-style tea-light holders hanging above the head table. When our guests arrived, we shared with them a cava and cocktail hour with over twenty different canapés and custom drinks, followed by an exquisite four-course meal with local flavours from Lepanto Catering. We gave each guest a bottle of Andalucían red wine with their name hand-written in calligraphy on vintage-style luggage tags. A Gordon Ramsey-designed iced lemon meringue followed dinner with raspberries for dessert, with coffee and a late night snack offered to guests in the wee hours. Before we had our dance, Jim surprised me by turning up with his guitar, and serenading me in front of our guests with a beautiful song he had written just for the occasion.

Our wedding photographer, Anna Gazda, who we found online, captured the whole day in her energetic and candid style and we’re able to relive the incredible experience through her work.

Wedding Planner: Lucia Fraga of Caprichia Marbella, Couture Destination Wedding & Event Planning / Ceremony Venue: Castillo Casares, Casares, Andalucia, Spain / Reception Venue: Molino Los Medicos / Wedding Gown: Pnina Tornai, Kleinfeld Bridal / Groom’s Suit: Dior / Bride’s Shoes: Ellie Saab / Groom’s Shoes: Paul Smith / Bridesmaid’s Dresses: Thayer Godess Dress, Shopbop / Groomsmen Suits: Tristan / Invitations: Wedding Paper Divas / Calligraphy: Laura Hooper Calligraphy / Catering: Lepanto Catering / Photographer: Anna Gazda from Limelight / Makeup: Lyndsey Cavanagh

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Andalucia, Anna Gazda, Caprichia Marbella, Caprichia Marbella Couture Destination Wedding & Event Planning, Casares, Castillo Casares, Castle, Cats, Destination, Dior, Ellie Saab, Kleinfeld Bridal, Laura Hooper Calligraphy, Lepanto Catering, Limelight, Lyndsey Cavanagh, Molino Los Medicos, mountains, Muted Colors, Outdoor Wedding, Paul Smith, Pnina Tornai, Shopbop, Spain, Spanish Weddings, Thayer Godess Dress, Tristian, Wedding Calligraphy, Wedding Paper Divas, Wedding Stationery
Post categories: Destination, Little Black Book Blog

Invitation by Abby Jean, Cake by Lovin’ Sullivan, Dress by Jcrew, Box on Soiree Charleston, Flowers by Rosenow Floral

The suite is so unbelievably pretty to me. The combination of the calligraphy and the block font is the perfect pairing and this color palette is so charming. Laura has also designed a custom map to coordinate with the suite, which takes the whole look to another level!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Abby Jean, J. Crew, Laura Hooper, Loving Sullivan, Soiree Charleston, Wedding Calligraphy
Post categories: Color Palettes, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

More from Laura…

Allocating Your Budget: First and foremost I think it is really important to try to factor calligraphy into your invitation budget. Many girls forget to do this and that is where you encounter the budget problems. They spend $10-$15 dollars a set on invitations and don’t factor in $2-$3 for calligraphy (per invitation). Go in knowing that the rate for an envelope in pointed pen is going to cost around $3 per invitation. If you are doing inner envelopes, factor in another $1.50 per piece.

Quick Tip…When you are at your invitation session, perhaps choose a slightly less expensive set, so that you have room for calligraphy in your budget. Everyone says this, and that is because it is true: that the envelope is the first thing that your guests will see of your wedding, and they should always be hand lettered.

Working with New Talent: If you do not have room in your budget for an experienced calligrapher, you can likely find someone just starting out in the business. They typically will have lower prices, but just know that even if you request a sample, it does not mean that your order will consistently look as good as that sample throughout. The more experience a calligrapher has, the more consistent they will be. Brides should ask for references from calligraphers who offer budget calligraphy, so that they can confirm with previous clients the quality of the lettering throughout the order.

Quick Tip…Contact area art schools to find students who have experience in calligraphy. Typically, art students will charge you much less than someone who has been in business a long time.

Help from Friends & Family: If you have no room in the budget at all, enlist your mom, aunt, or a friend with nice hand writing to do the addressing for you. You can purchase an inexpensive light box at any Michael’s store, and use guidelines to be sure the lines are straight. Practice makes perfect, so make sure they do a few practice runs on some spare paper…not your expensive invitation envelopes.

Overall it is really important to figure out what is most important to you when it comes to your invitations, and how much you are willing to spend on all the aspects of the invitations, including calligraphy, in advance. That way there are no surprises later!

Thank you so much to Laura for sharing these brilliant tips with us!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Laura Hooper, Wedding Calligraphy
Post categories: Look for Less, Wedding Invitations & Stationery

Think Creatively: I have done some pretty interesting pieces in calligraphy. Most recently, I did an order for a wedding in San Diego, CA for calligraphy on Lucite tiles. They were dark red, and the calligraphy was painted on in gold ink. They looked amazing. They were displayed on the wall with a light behind them so they lit up. The table numbers were matching, they were larger red panels with the names of golf courses as table names instead of numbers. I have also done sanddollars, compasses, and Spanish tiles as placecards as well.

In addition to envelopes and placecards, you can do all your table signs, bar signs, and miscellaneous signs in calligraphy. Also, you can incorporate camera ready artwork into your invitations, menus and programs. I do a lot of work for menus and programs. I also like to do personalized photo mattes, and I have a lot of requests to get wedding vows and poetry written in calligraphy as well.

We have a bit more to come…Calligraphy, The Look for Less!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Laura Hooper, Wedding Calligraphy
Post categories: Wedding Invitations & Stationery

Laura Hooper of Laura Hooper Calligraphy is one of my favorite calligraphy artists…her work is sweet and sophisticated, and yet it’s completely approachable. Lucky for us, Laura has totally revamped her website and the calligraphy candy is just off the charts…

Spend some time checking out Laura’s new site, exploring the MANY options available for different price points and different personalities. For those of you who are a little clueless when it comes to calligraphy, Laura has agreed to give us some of her best tips…

Finding and Booking a Calligrapher: You should definitely book your calligrapher in advance. Because we do everything by hand, we have a limited number of clients we can take on in a given time period. You should at least start looking when you order your invitations, that way, by the time the envelopes are done, your calligrapher may have space available in their schedule. A normal turnaround time can be anywhere from 1-4 weeks that I have seen. In the busy season, my turnaround is about 2-3 weeks depending on the size of the order and the number of jobs in my queue.

Popular Services: I offer a full range of services, from envelope addressing, placecards, invitation design, invitation printing, custom hand drawn maps, monogram design, etc. I also provide stuffing, stamping and mailing for an additional fee as well. The possibilities are really endless. I enjoy doing unique projects, I am sure most other calligraphers do as well, so if you have an idea, let us know.

Average Rates: The rate for an experienced calligrapher using pointed pen techniques can range from $2-$7 per envelope. You can get very nice calligraphy for $2.50 an outer envelope in a range of contemporary, popular, and classic styles on my website, and then I have several more intricate styles at higher price points, so that I can appeal to brides in different budget categories.

Be sure you know what you are buying. Many calligraphers use a felt pen or an italic pen and this does not give nice thick and thin lines. Maybe that is okay with you, but just know in advance what you are ordering so that when you receive your order back you are 100% pleased with it.

Also, you aren’t limited to calligraphers in your area only, so don’t settle! I work with girls all over the US, even Canada, the UK and Italy, so search the web for someone whose style appeals to you, and contact them for availability.

We have more to come, so stay tuned!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Laura Hooper, Wedding Calligraphy
Post categories: Wedding Invitations & Stationery

That is why I was super excited to stumble across this beautiful idea by Grace Connell..

Okay, well maybe this wasn’t meant to be a fan…but it certainly works! You could either leave the panels loose or you could bind them at the base so that they are already fanned out for your guests. They are so beautiful and I absolutely love the idea of incorporating calligraphy in unexpected ways.

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2007. | Permalink | 1 comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Grace Connell, Wedding Calligraphy
Post categories: Wedding Details