I will wrap up our wedding series by the end of the year but until then this post is focused on the accessories we bought, commissioned or made.
Our Rings
Our wedding rings were made for us by the lovely jeweler Eve Redmond (Divinity Studio) in the Manchester Craft and Design Centre. We chose a classic yellow gold pair but we preferred the straight finish rather than the D shape. Very briefly we thought of personalizing them but for some reason we didn’t feel inspired so we decided to have them plain. We can always engrave them later when inspiration strikes.
Chris’ Cufflinks
After an uninspiring preliminary look through various stores we started searching on Etsy and notonthehighstreet. We found everything from Dark Invader ( I have learned that it is actually Darth Vader but I feel closer to my original ignorant version) to initials. We kept two choices either map locations or personalized coordinates. Chris chose the second one. Since Manchester has been such a great place for us and we have been very happy in our little flat on the outskirts of Northern Quarter we chose the coordinates, the longitude and latitude of our place there.
My Shoes
I found the shoes online at Karen Millen and fell in love. I happily ordered them at the store and went to try them on the same day. They hurt even in the store but I was happy to ignore that part. They looked beautiful so that’s all I needed to know. I discovered later that the color is called Cornflower Blue. It is a lovely light combination of blue and purple. I love the name of the colour. My shoes were the first thing we bought for the wedding and from there on it seemed that we orbited around this colour for many other decisions. One of them being Chris’ tie. We were lucky to find just one to match perfectly the shade. As well his beautiful suit had very subtle thin threads of the same shade.
My Flats
This part is the main reason for this post since it describes something we created. As beautiful as my shoes were I knew and I was also advised to get a pair of flats. And fair enough after 4 or 5 hours in my Cornflower Blue beauties, I was ready to wear flip flops or become a true Mancunian girl and walk barefoot. The key was to find a pair the same color as the high heel shoes. No luck in finding a pair to buy. Chris and I, mostly Chris has been playing with painting various things. So I decided I wanted a plain white pair of flats, white which we can paint on.
The tools you need are: acrylic colors, painting brushes and a pair of white flats. An advice is to try and get a pair that is made from a simple enough material, swede, or flats which have a lot of embellishments may be difficult to paint on. I would also suggest to buy a cheap pair first and try it out once. You never know how it looks like until the paint dries and you want to make sure you like the result. I am loving more and more these projects so we will probably do it again for other occasions.
It is fun to look around shops on the High Street and even indulging and buying something nice but I feel longer term appreciation for items which are created by a local artist/designer/crafts(wo)man. And even this is not as gratifying as creating something yourself. Each is a different experience and each one of them can be fun. Cornflower Blue Fun 🙂