Allana and Jared were married at Strand West in Amsterdam, a little known beach club just 10 mins from Amsterdam Central Station. They wanted a laid back, budget friendly wedding that reflected them. The bride designed her own dress through Dolly Couture, the bride’s aunt did the flowers and they designed their own stationery. They also decorated the venue themselves.
“We made almost all our own decor for the wedding,” Allana explained. “The venue already had some great paper lamps and disco balls so with some help from my girl friends we made 30+ paper pompoms and hung some white lace bunting. We chose simple white wild flowers in a collection of old glass for tables, and had white and transparent balloons everywhere. I made my own wedding favoors; Haribo hearts in glassine envelopes in a ladies and gents version with tiny bunting (that was a long project!)”
“We didn’t have a theme as such, but knew we wanted a relaxed, modern wedding that still incorporated a couple of Scottish and Dutch traditions”, she continued. “More than anything, it was all about the people and making the most of having everyone together to celebrate. We kept colours simple and clean by sticking with mostly black and white and a bit of baby pink for a little colour pop. There is a great Dutch word, ‘gezellig’. It doesn’t have a literal English equivalent but pretty much means cosy, friendly, comfortable and enjoyable. Our wedding was definitely gezellig.”
“One of my favourite moments was walking down the stairs instead of an aisle, and doing it together. In my mind, floating down the stairs hand in hand seemed so romantic, until it actually came to walking down them in my new heels and I released how incredibly steep they were! After 10 years together, being ‘given away’ wasn’t the right thing for us. We chose to walk into the ceremony together, like the team we are. I still remember the excitement at hearing our entrance music and as our wedding party started walking out, being left alone for a few seconds together before we took the stairs and everyone’s eyes fell on us.”
“I actually had to cut myself off from Pinterest!” Allana laughed in conclusion. “I enjoy crafting but the volume of ideas ended up being overwhelming. I kept reminding myself that we didn’t want the place to be too busy so in the end, we made our decorations, invitations and favors. My clever bridesmaid made some handkerchiefs embroidered with our wedding date as gifts for our mothers to catch all those happy tears. For my bridesmaid gifts, I wanted something they could use everyday but still be a reminder of the wedding so I created each of them a monogrammed tote. These things were time consuming, I’m not going to lie, but I’m glad all our items were personal and unique and saved us some money to invest in other things.”
