Smock Alley

What better way to spend a November Monday morning in Dublin then in the beautiful Smock Alley Theatre. This was the scene for a day long creative shoot with the best of the best wedding suppliers in Ireland last week.

Starting nice and early at EF Studios for hair and makeup transformation. Super talented early birds Emma Farrell and a Michelle O’Halloran whipped model Katelyn into shape for the day ahead. But the star of the show was Sean Emma's beau!

Frog Prince Events supplied the beautiful flowers and table wear. 

Paul from Moat Hill Photography capturing every bit of light through those spectacular stain glass windows of Smock Alleys Banquet Room.

Jen and Jay from Cupcakes and Counting helping us out as well as delivering the stunning wedding cake 

Karen from The Parlour Press designed the most beautiful wedding stationary to add the finishing touch to our bridal shoot 

Want to check out more behind the scenes from the day here are The Dream Teams instagram handles  

Wedding Gowns @sfoycouture. 

photography @moathillphotography

Forals and events @frogprinceevents

Venue @smockalleytheatre

Hair @moh_hairdesign

Make up @efcstudios

cake @cupcakesandcounting

stationary @parlourpressweddings

model @primamodels @katelyncass

 

More to come next week on what we where photographing on this shoot- exciting news!

Holiday Inspiration

It was a week of daydreaming of my holidays and catching up on work. The blue skies and warm weather becoming a distant memory. Looking through my pictures I may have been a little obsessed with Portuguese tiles.

We are back on Monday with a very personal Bridal Muse and a dress that I love deeply

Creatives at work

Cake please! Today we dive into the world of Suzanne from CocoaMoiselle.

Tara Ahern Photography

Who is your bride?

There is no straight forward answer to that question! However, having met hundreds of gorgeous brides over the past 4 years in business, whether it is a boho celebration or an upmarket, lavish wedding, I can definitely tell you that brides who come to CocoaMoiselle are looking for something unique and special. My brides tend to have a keen eye for design and detail, know what they want and have great ideas for their cake. They are stylish ladies,  planning fabulous weddings!

When do you feel most inspired?

I am inspired by everything and anything. A lot of the venues I deliver to have beautiful decorative details everywhere, from the floors to the ceilings!  The Irish countryside is also a sight to behold,and I am lucky to travel through a lot of beautiful places when I am delivering my wedding cakes.

Old buildings and old books, ruined castles, fabric, cutlery, patterns, sculpture and pottery, any kind of art, nature, trees, flowers and poetry, I love it all and appreciate all the beauty in the world. I will often stop for lunch after a delivery in a picturesque spot and take it all in before I go back into work. I'll also stop off at any castles or ruins that catch my eye. One of the perks of the job :)

I love when all baking, filling and covering is done at the bakery. It is time to decorate! I usually stick on a cd and work away on my cake,  decorating and adding details until the cake is finished to perfection.

How do I feel meeting a new bride?

This isn't such a straightforward answer either!  I usually just meet my bride once, at our consultation in the showroom. So we have an hour to get to know each other and go through the design of the cake and of course , taste the cakes.

I am always glad to meet new brides as I know there is a new chance for me to create another beautiful cake.

Sometimes , if my bride lives abroad, We don't get to meet at all, but we do all the planning and design by email. I have also had very cool, laid back brides just email me and order a cake directly from my website photos! Everyone's approach is different but it is always a positive experience for me.

What do I like to hear from a bride?

It is always music to my ears when my bride tells me she trusts my judgement and allows me to design the cake whatever way I think is best.  I love being given a design brief and working from that and allowing for last minute changes to be made as I work on the cake. I love all my cakes, but my favourites are most definitely the ones where I was given a design brief and a budget and let loose!

How did I find my calling?

I was either going to do Fine Art or Culinary Arts in college. I chose culinary arts as I had always loved cooking and saw myself with a career in hospitality. I worked in restaurants as a chef, then as a pastry chef , and developed a love for pastry, desserts and sugar! While living in Melbourne, I took some sugar craft courses and this quickly became an obsession. I haven't looked back since. I've worked in some great restaurants as Pastry Chef and trained in confectionery artsin Toronto . I absolutely love what I do. I've always been driven and wanted to work for myself. I am very lucky to be doing what I do for a living.

What a great insight into Suzanne's business and creative process. Check out all of CocoaMoiselle amazing work here

What questions do you have for your cake supplier, hit the comments below and we will do our best to answer them for you.

Creatives at work

It was back in 2016 at my first Glitter studio appearance that I meet the lovely Jen. Full of energy and creativity, I could not help but be captivated by Cupcakes and Counting. So this week we chat to Jen about how CupCakes and Counting came to be, about inspiration and the ideal bride. 

Who is your bride?

My bride is anyone who loves stunning floral display. I have a deep affection for flowers and beautiful botanicals these are the main inspiration for my wedding cakes. I love decorating our wedding cakes with handmade, delicate sugar sculptures. I like to recreate nature’s blooms and turn them into edible art. 

When do you feel most creative?

It’s when the brides (and grooms, sometimes) tell me about their love story. How they met, their favourite story about each other,  a memorable holiday together. All these contribute to how I design their wedding cake. This is when the boost of inspiration and creativity just flows freely and allows me to create wedding cakes that uniquely and specifically suit my couple.

How do you feel meeting a new bride to be?

I am always full of butterflies before I meet a new bride-to-be but I am very, very excited at the same time. I cannot help but imagine that I might be the one making their wedding cake. You see, it’s not just business for me. Given the opportunity to make their wedding cake, it is wonderful to think that you become part of their fairytale, of their romance, of their happy ever after.

What do you like to hear from a bride? 

Each bride is unique and may come up with questions that are relevant to her and not so for others.  What’s important for me is that they are able to tell me what they actually want i.e. how her wedding cake should look like. A bride well equipped with a set of questions during cake tasting/consultation is always a pleasure to work with.

How did you find your calling? 
Back in 2013, a very powerful typhoon had hit my husband’s hometown in the Philippines. The damage was so severe that the city was left with no power, no food, no clean water, and no proper shelter.  Our family survived the onslaught, however, the number of casualties raised to alarming heights. My husband and I decided to hold a bake sale to raise funds for our neighbours who got severely affected by the calamity. We sold cupcakes and we were able to send a considerable amount of monetary assistance to our neighbours who have been displaced and needing support. Our fundraising had finished but the orders didn’t. People were still asking for our cupcakes long after our bake sale ended. This is how Cupcakes and Counting was born.

Thank you do much to Jen and Jay for sharing their beginnings and photography's with us today. I can say that not only do their cakes look incredible they are delicious.

Check out www.cupcakesandcounting.com and their Instagram Account rocks

Share with us today your wedding cake questions

Sparkling Fun Weekend

We are in recovery mode in Sarah Foy Studio this week after an epic weekend at The Glitter Studio.

One Fab Day curated another wonderful wedding event for brides-to-be. Thoughtfully put together with magical installations and hand picked vendors. I love meeting new brides, chatting style and trends for 2017/2018. I have come away inspired again to create and to really bring the best designs and service to our new brides.

I also had a blast meeting up with vendors to see what they are creating. So inspiring to see Irish companies bring such amazing quality and creativity to the world. So here are some suppliers I think you need to check out and some great pictures of our weekend.

Keeping us supplied wth essential salted caramel cupcakes all weekend. Jen is a sculpture of cakes www.cupcakesandcounting.com

Not one but two amazing make-up artists rocked all weekend. Meeting new brides and styling our models for the fashion showcase - alannawallace@gmail.com and efcreativestudios.com

Hair styled beautifully by roller.ie and Claire Barry Hair.

Horetown House , Co.Wexford who convinced me to drink gin - lots of arm twisting went on there. 

Frog Prince for putting some serious style into the weekend.

Did you make it to The Glitter Studio? Would love to hear what you thought? If you didn't get a chance to chat to me, please drop us an email info@sarahfoycouture.com with any questions you may have. 

 

Glitter studio

It's going to be a busy week at Sarah Foy Couture - it's Glitter studio week

This time last year I made my first appearance at One Fab Days wedding event - Glitter studio.

It was the most fun I have ever had at a fair. Meeting the best brides, best suppliers and just having fun all weekend.

What have I in store for Glitter studio this year? New dresses, our new line of accessories and me there to answer all your bridal dress questions.

Pop by and say Hi... bring chocolate if you can.

Ps. Quick flash ticket give away over on my Facebook page for one hour only this evening

Behind the Scenes

On a January evening three weeks ago I sat down on my couch utterly exhausted. My phone beeped -  an email from Aisling at Butterfly photography with just one picture from the day. Breathtaking, it had been a busy day but it was all worth it for that one amazing image.

Butterfly Photography

Today we give you a behind the scenes look at our latest photoshoot.

Inspiration for the day started back in November last year. A meet up with Stacey from Making Faces Gorey got us all excited to collaborate again. How did we collect our ideas? I love Pinterest so that's always a good starting point for me - check out our Pinterest board.

I wanted warmth, tranquility. I choose soft tulle in warm gold, heavy silk crepes in creamy tones and finally luxurious silk velvet in pale pink. From there I draped and played with the fabric till a dress was formed.

The day began early with fires burning at Murphy's Barn to keep Prima model Natalia warm while Catriona from Headrush.ie and Stacey from Making Faces Gorey worked their magic.

Event stylist and florist Sharon from Frog Prince Events was let loose on the Barn. Spending hours transforming the venue into the most beautiful wedding scene. While also whipping up our bouquet and floral crown .....one amazingly talented lady

It's was our photographer Aisling's idea to take a trip to the beautiful Raven Nature Reserve and Curracloe beach. Teamed with the amazing weather and Butterfly photography's talent these images where dreamy perfection.

To finish of our wedding scene. The super talented Jen from Cupcakes and Counting supplied us with her stunning three tier cake. Which got the styling treatment with Sharon at Frog Prince Events. With wedding stationary from Wedding Fusions.

So much fun working with all of these super talented artists. When let loose to imagine and create their magical touch shines through. Check their work out below

Venue - Murphy's Barn

Model - Prima Model Natalia

Hair - Cathriona at Headrush

Make up - Stacey at Making Faces Gorey

Photographer - Aisling and Dan from Butterfly photography

Event Stylist - Frog Prince Events

Cake - Cupcakes and Counting

Stationary - Lula at Wedding Fusions

 

 

 

Creatives at Work

Camelia from Austen Flowers

Picture an empty room with exposed stone work walls, wooden floors and a large cable window. The first time I worked with Camelia was at a photoshoot at the Old Deanary in Ferns, Co. Wexford. She was let loose on this room for an hour and transformed it into wedding bliss. Delicate winter flowers on the table dressing and creeping vines along the walls to bring the surrounding nature into the room - that is talent. So where does Camelia draw her inspiration from and how does she go about finding the right combination for your wedding

Photo by Butterfly Photography

Who is your bride?

Being based in the picturesque Wicklow countryside and with a background in horticulture, my floral style is natural, loose, organic, full of textural foliage and architectural twigs and other foraged finds, so my bride is a nature loving person, adventurous, stylish, travelled, hunts unusual floral designs and is not afraid to be ‘different’.

When do you feel most inspired?

The more quirky and unusual the brief, the more exiting the project becomes. Each wedding is approached as a blank canvas: we start with a mood board of images (not necessary of flowers) and develop a theme. The next step is choosing the perfect seasonal flowers for the designs (I insist on seasonal, both from an environmental and cost view).

I feel very lucky to work in an ever changing environment and the inspiration can come from the most unexpected places: the pattern of a scarf, the icing of a cake, the colours of a comic, and the texture of a feather…

How do you feel meeting a new bride to be?

The flowers are such a new and unknown subject for many of my brides. Our consultations are a flutter of ideas, images, mood boards, fresh flowers – we start from ‘I have a vague idea of what I want’ and finish with ‘I know that you will bring my vision to life’. My relation with most of my brides starts as a client and ends as a friend. The process of designing the wedding flowers involves a long conversation (in a virtual medium most of the time) that, by the time I deliver the bridal flowers, I fell that we have known each other for a lifetime.

What do you like to hear from a bride?

I’ll keep it simple: ‘I trust your artistic flair and I am happy to leave the whole creative process in your hands.’‘ Is there anything you can’t do?’ because the answer would be that, in floral terms, the impossible doesn’t exist (I just love a challenge!)

How did you find your calling? 

I suppose I had a love of nature since I can remember. I use to spend my holidays with my Granny in the countryside and her love of gardening and outdoors was my greatest inspiration. From there followed a 5 year degree in Horticulture and a Masters in Plant Protection. After a short stint in my mother’s ‘Louise Austen Catering’ company in Wicklow and several experiences both with creative freelance floral designers and florist shops in Dublin and Wicklow, I established my creative venture, Austen Flowers, and, as they say, I never looked back.

 

Thank you Camelia for share insight into you passion. Check out Austen Flowers

www.austenflowers.ie
https://www.facebook.com/austenflowers/
https://www.instagram.com/austenflowers/
 

Flowers are such a beautiful tradition for weddings. From a simple bouquet to a grand top table display. Are flowers top of your wedding list wants? Or are you overwhelmed with the choices and combinations out there. Share your thoughts with us in the comments below and see if we can help

My Inspiration - V&A

While in London in December for a friends tropical themed birthday party - yes you are reading that correctly. I managed to sneak off for an hour to take a trip to the Victor and Albert Museum. They never fail to have a exhibition that I want and have to see.

I found the Undressed. Brief History of Underwear and was intrigued

Now before I found my calling as a wedding designer I had worked as a lingerie designer for a company based in Dublin, so this was of particularly interest to me.

Beautiful silk and lace detailing . They showed how underwear had evolved through the ages and how modern lives and fashion changed how underwear was designed.

There was for me two stand out pieces that made the exhibition.

The modern day evening wear that was inspired by underwear. As a big fan of Elie Saab, to see his lilac creation up close was fantastic and humbling, the hand work detail amazing. Layers of silk and lace carefully placed to create the most beautiful silhouette . So inspiring to see

Elie Saab

Secondly the video piece - The "Babydoll" slip by Carina Gilson. This video showed the process of making a silk slip. Still even to me a designer that works to create in cloth daily I found this mesmerising. They used a method called cut away that I had seen done before many years ago in lingerie .

So how does this help me to design dresses . Well there is something very inspiring to see how fashion has evolved, moved with the times and needs of its world. It is quiet amazing to think I am part of that. Will my daughter look back at what I am creating today and think how much we have moved, changed, evolved?

What inspires you? What motivates you and excites you? We would love to hear more in our comments below.

Revived

Welcome to our little piece of wedding heaven.

Photography by Tara Aherne

This week we are reviving our blog for 2017 and here is just a taste of what we have planned for you.

I want to introduce you to the best creative suppliers in the wedding industry. For you to get a snap shot of how they work, the passion they have for their work. How invested they are in your wedding? How their love of their business will make them your best asset.

The best insight and advice comes from those that go before you. So I bring you a lovely new series where our brides look back on their day and their plans. The big memory they took away from their day... have a handkerchief handy it is emotional stuff.

I am here to inspire you to be creative with your wedding plans. I want to help our DIY brides out there with new exciting video tutorials. Helping you to create those personal touches. I want to bring you behind the scene of our business. Show you how I design and create your gowns. I want to show you what inspires me, what gets my creative juices flowing.

As the year goes on I want to hear your feed back. What you would like to see and what has inspired you on your wedding planning journey

Join us, pass the word around this week and see the new and exciting path for Sarah Foy Couture.