2014 — get ready for us!

Happy, happy new year... a little late, but heartfelt all the same!

Last year was possibly one of our most exciting years ever — we had our first Mooks Design babies — our founder, Caro, had twin boys in March! They are already a firm favourite in the Mooks office and we spend many hours being entertained by their antics!

We've also been working on new products and ranges and are really excited to launch these later this year. Keep visiting the website www.mooksdesign.co.uk for more details and sneaky peaks!

2014 sees a change in direction for Mooks... we will still working on gorgeous paper products and innovative designs but this year will see us move away slightly from wedding stationery.

We're really excited to see where this year takes us... it's already proving to be full of surprises and the creative juices are well and truly flowing. Watch this space.

A very happy new year!

A brand new year... and what a year it's going to be!

2013 is already gearing up to be our very best year yet — it it a coincidence that 13 has always been our 'lucky' number?

We want to wish all of our clients, past present and future a very, very happy new year as well. Wishing you everything you would wish for yourselves and more.

The new year has already bought exciting news and changes.

Firstly, Mooks are delighted to have been mentioned on Martha Stewart's wedding blog, no less!

We were asked by Leoma, last year, to create the favour tins for her wedding, using the monogram design that a friend had created for her.

Her lovely wedding has been featured on Martha Stewart's wedding website, along with one of our little favour tins! This perfectly highlights that, as well as our own delicious designs, our tins work beautifully with a supplied design, if you happen have one!

Photo: Polly Alexandre

You can visit the page by clicking on the link below:
Leoma and Gary's Devon Wedding, In Martha Stewart Weddings 

.............................................................................

The second exciting news is that we've finally launched our — long awaited for — new range! Hurrah!

China Roses was originally inspired by the pattern on a vintage china plate! We LOVED the watercolour design and were totally fascinated by the way that the flowers were made up of lots of different shades of the same colour.

We have lots of couples who want to colour-theme their wedding day but, instead of everything being a little too 'matchy-matchy', want to try and use their chosen colour in lots of tones to try and keep a fresher, less formal feel to the day.

This lovely design offers exactly that!

Instead of endlessly worrying if your flowers will match your stationery, your bridesmaid's dresses and your favours, you can now relax (well on this particular point anyway)! You can use an entire spectrum of tones from the same colour palette, to theme your wedding. It's a much more modern way of looking at things and will make it much easier when choosing the key pieces and accessories for your big day!

Photo: Fiori By Lynne

Photo: www.s6photography.co.uk

We are delighted with our new addition —we hope that youll like it and are keeping our fingers crossed that it will be as successful as our other ranges!

We're so looking forward to 2013 and meeting all our new bride and grooms! Luck and love to you all — many this be a stellar year! 

The small (but perfectly formed) team at Mooks x

Seeing spots before our very eyes... perhaps a trip to the optician is what's needed?

Just had an email from a lovely customer asking about the bunting invitation that they'd seen in the October issue of Wedding Ideas... DOH! Totally missed that one! Our eagle eyes have obviously let us down — thank goodness for our keen witted customers!

October 2012 Wedding Ideas magazine  —Mooks Bunting Invitation

We produced the pink polkadot bunting wedding invitation a couple of years ago, but since then have had a fair few requests for bunting wedding stationery — and also 'Great British' wedding stationery themes — so this year, we combined the two and created a Union Jack version. 

Great British Wedding Stationery — Order of Service

Great British Wedding Stationery — Seating Plan

Great British Wedding Stationery —Table-Name Card

All items of stationery — as with all of our designs — are available in this range, but we've included a few bits here for you to see. If it takes your fancy, please get in touch! :)

Look out for Mooks in Wedding Ideas Magazine this month!

More lovely press coverage in October for Mooks!

We're delighted that our friends at Wedding Ideas magazine have featured a few of our mint tin wedding favours this month!

You can see our tins printed on pages 264 and 265 of the October issue... there are a few different designs that have been shown — none of which are on our website  — so it's a great opportunity to check out something a little different!


You can see the cherry blossom design on page 265 — this was designed for a lovely couple called Louisa and Bob who's pretty, oriental theme ran throughout their entire day! We designed all of their wedding stationery, from save-the-dates to the reception stationery.

Have a look at the matching thank-you card that we created...

 

 















Also featured, on page 264, are our Hot Pink Gerbera favour tins and Stripe designs. You can see the matching 'Stripe' design stationery on a previous post on our blog —4th January 2011— we've since created this design in a few various colourways for different couples. If you like the design, but want a different colour combination, please get in touch and we can create it just for you!

In the press this month...

Mooks appear in the brand new October issue of Perfect Wedding magazine — two features no less!

The first editorial mention shows our Vintage Lace 2 invitation which we created for a lovely couple last year. The bride's theme was scarlet and ivory and she chose to have all of her wedding stationery recoloured to tie in with this colourscheme. Very bold, but striking too... perfect for a winter wedding!

All of Mooks wedding stationery can be recoloured to match your colourscheme — 
if there's something that you'd particularly like but don't see it on our website, as we design and print all of our stationery to order, we'll be able to create something especially for you.

Perfect Wedding Magazine — October 2012, page 51

The next article is all about a couple that based their wedding around a school theme and Perfect Wedding have featured one of our Wedding Pub Quiz Cards!
 

Perfect Wedding Magazine — October 2012, page 116

The couple that we created this particular design for were teachers and asked if we could produce the quiz card to look more like a school test sheet.
Never one to turn down a challenge, we happily obliged and the final quiz sheets were a triumph! Gold stars all round : )

The wedding pub quiz cards are a fantastic ice-breaker; if you have guests at your wedding that don't know each other very well — or have never even met — the quiz cards soon get everybody chatting and we've been told by quite a few of our customers that the tables of guests can soon get very competitive and raucous! It's a great way to instil a bit of camaraderie within your guests and a fun way for people to get to know each other without feeling awkward or self conscious!

Hello autumn!

Unbelievable that our great British summer is just about to bow out, when it didn't even really make a proper appearance this year! It has felt a lot like autumn has been with us for most of the time!

Still... autumn is a lovely time of year! Colourful and cosy, with the anticipation of long windswept walks, bonfires and Christmas just around the corner!

We just thought we'd show you a seasonal design that we created for bespoke commission from one of our lovely couples. Topically, it is a wedding invitation with matching favour tin for an autumn wedding... we were asked by the gorgeous Lucy and Ben to create something fun that reflected their season of choice for their nuptials.

Their Autumn style wedding invitation was printed on gorgeous, shimmery, pearlescent stock and came with a matching orange envelope! The bride and groom were delighted with their invitations and apparently their guests have been very complimentary! Always nice to hear : )

It's always lovely when we get asked to create something a little bit different from the norm! We absolutely love our 'Off-The-Peg' ranges — and are really proud of all our designs — but it's always exciting when you have a client with a vision of what they'd like and we have to turn their ideas into reality!

If any of you future bride and grooms have an idea, for your wedding stationery, that you'd like turned into print and paper — no matter how small or vague — do get in touch, we'd LOVE to hear from you!

Wedding Favours...

We have been busy bees recently...

wedding season is in full swing and since the launch of our favour tins, there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day!

We were honoured to be asked by our favourite little wedding magazine 'Wedding Ideas' to be a guest blogger and write a piece for their blog, all about wedding favours! The lovely girls there have already been instrumental in drumming up business for our personalised favour tins but thought that this may be another way to increase the sales and awareness for them.

Never one to turn down a challenge, our creative director Caro, took up the gauntlet and wrote a piece all about the history of the wedding favour!

It's been slightly edited for the Wedding Ideas site, so here is our original unabridged version...

'Art Deco' design, personalised wedding favour tins from Mooks Design

Origins of the wedding favour

Have you ever wondered where the custom of giving wedding favours originated from? Many modern brides probably don’t realise that this is not a recent development, but a tradition that began centuries ago!

The first wedding favours, known as ‘bonbonniére’, were given as exclusive gifts to the wedding guests of European aristocrats.

A bonbonniére was a small, ornate box —made out of silver, crystal or porcelain— often encrusted with precious stones. These beautiful vessels were then filled with cubes of sugar or other luxury confections.

In those days, sugar was such an expensive commodity, it was only afforded by royalty —or the very wealthy— but as the price of sugar decreased, the tradition of giving wedding favours was then embraced by brides and grooms from more humble origins.

Over time, the bonbonniéres began to contain almonds. For centuries, plain almonds were commonly given to female wedding guests to represent well-wishes for the couples new life, but in the thirteenth century, almonds coated with sugar —known as ‘confetti’— were introduced. The bitterness of the almond and the sweetness of the coated shell symbolised the bitter sweetness of marriage. 

Confetti then evolved to sugared almonds, which is the tradition that most of us are familiar with today.  But did you know that, traditionally, five sugared almonds —presented in a box or bag— represented fertility, longevity, wealth, health and happiness?

Favours for modern day weddings have now evolved even further and, these days, anything goes! So whilst the tradition of giving wedding favours still continues —and is still very much part of today’s modern bridal etiquette— the symbolism of the gifts has changed, as most couples now choose to give wedding favours as a thank you, to their guests for sharing their special day.

'Baroque Vine' design, personalised wedding favour tins from Mooks Design

'Gerbera' design, personalised wedding favour tins from Mooks Design

'Damask', personalised wedding favour tins from Mooks

How much should I spend?

There are so many options available to brides and grooms these days and modern wedding favours can really vary in price, according to your budget.

Wedding favours need not be expensive and money savvy brides can still purchase traditional bonbonniére or you can make your own, very simply, by filling organza bags with sugared almonds or sweets.

Couples with a little more to spend are spoilt for choice as you can buy everything, from miniature bird cages and photo-frames to bottles of your guest’s favourite tipple... the list goes on and on!

It is alleged that William and Kate gave each of their wedding guests a pair of cupcakes, boxed up with the couple’s official engagement photo!

Ultimately, when determining how much to spend on your wedding favours, you shouldn’t feel obliged to spend half of your budget on presents for your guests. Your friends and family will be attending your marriage to show their love and support for you both and really won’t expect a diamond encrusted gift.

'Baroque Vine', personalised wedding favour tins from Mooks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personalised favours

One of the nicest things about today’s modern favours is the option to tie them in with your wedding theme or even reflect your personal interests. There are even lots of companies who specialise in creating favours to match your wedding stationery! This is a great way of creating a harmonious look and feel for your big day - right from when your guest’s receive their invitation to when they take their seat, at the dinner table, and are presented with their ‘thank-you’ gift from you.

Couples who are musical could give their guests a CD of their best-loved songs and green fingered bride and grooms could give personalised seed packets; these are lovely and unique gifts, as they are a long lasting reminder of your special day.  You can purchase ‘Forget-Me-Not’ seed packet favours from Mooks Design, www.mooksdesign.co.uk; they are fully personalised, with the details of your wedding, and can also be recoloured to suit your theme.

However, if you prefer something a little more traditional, but with a modern twist, Mooks have just launched some gorgeous little favour tins; a nod to the very first ‘bonbonniére’. These little stainless steel tins are not encrusted with precious stones but, instead, beautifully adorned with a personalised label and jam-packed with sweets or heart shaped mints.

Once your guests have eaten the contents they’ll be left with a useful little tin, to keep their pins, stamps or other treasures safe and sound, which will also act as a lasting reminder of your marriage!

Finally, whichever route you go down, choose favours that are personal to you ­—and a lovely memento of your special day— and you won’t go far wrong!