yellow Archives - Hanami Dream | Cotswolds copywriter

Top Spring 2018 colours from Pantone®

by Hanami Dream | 6, September, 2017 | blog, trends

The children are only just back to school today so I was surprised to see the news from Pantone® about Spring 2018 colours landing on my desk already – how exciting!

Their timing to announce the next season’s colours has been much earlier this time around and ahead of all the fashion weeks. In February, we were left waiting until after both New York and London Fashion week to announce their Fall 2017 fashion report. But the Spring Summer 2018 New York fashion week isn’t due to kick off until tomorrow so I wasn’t expecting Pantone® to announce their colour forecast just yet. It’s great to see their report is going back to being a forecast rather than a colour counting exercise from the catwalks though.

So not only is their timing unexpected but so are the colours – both in quantity and palette.

This season, instead of the usual 10 colours, we’ve been given an extra 2 to make 12 colours that Pantone® forecast to be the colours for Spring/Summer 2018. As if that wasn’t enough, they’ve also thrown in 4 bonus colours that act as neutrals and core basics.

I am so pleased to see yellow featuring high on their list – it’s such a comforting ray of sunshine. Does this mean that we’ll finally see a yellow as the colour of the year in 2018? I’ve been desperate for a yellow (or an orange colour) to get top billing for a couple of years and I cross everything for a bright colour like Meadowlark to take the top slot.

These Spring colours are certainly attention grabbing and there’s even a neon yellow amongst them. For me, I love that they are continuing the Spring 2017 trend away from pale pastels. This palette is right up my street! I love the blues (Little Boy Blue and Sailor Blue) and how these evolve in to my favourite colour of purple. With Pink Lavender, Ultra Violet, Almost Mauve and Spring Crocus.

The pastels that are used are barely-there colours and really work with the trend for gentle, ethereal and floaty materials and textures that are featuring in bridal attire at the moment.

I also like the food based colours that show a real culinary influence of Cherry Tomato and Coconut Milk, with a bit of added spice from Chili Oil.

Along with this is some wonderful floral inspiration for a beautiful spring meadow such as Blooming Dahlia, Spring Crocus, and Pink Lavender.

Plus the evolution of green continues in to this season. From the freshness of Greenery for Spring/Summer 2017 (and colour of the year in 2017), to the evergreen foliage of Shaded Spruce from Fall/Winter 2017, to a wonderful teal colour in Arcadia next Spring/Summer 2018 that mixes calming blue in to the green mix.

There’s also some unexpected earthy autumnal colours (like Chili Oil and the rich chocolatey brown of Emperador) that seem a little out of place from a traditional Spring palette but will act as great transitional colours to take us in and out of seasons.

The top twelve colours from NYFW for Spring 2018 are:

Meadowlark 13-0646
Cherry Tomato 17-1563
Little Boy Blue 4132
Chili Oil 18-1440
Blooming Dahlia 15-1520
Pink Lavender 14-3207
Arcadia 16-5533
Ultra Violet 18-2828
Emperador 18-1028
Almost Mauve 12- 2103
Spring Crocus 17-3020
Lime Punch 13-0550

Plus these from LFW (which are pretty similar to the ones from New York apart from the addition of another blue, a couple of wonderful dusky pinks, a warm burgundy and a fresh green):

Cherry Tomato 17-1563
Palace Blue 18-4043
Ash Rose 17-1514
Nile Green 14-0121
Meadowlark 13-0646
Blooming Dahlia 15-1520
Ultra Violet 18-2828
Spiced Apple 18-1325
Pink Lavender 14-3207
Almost Mauve 12- 2103
Rapture Rose 17-1929
Lime Punch 13-0550

Pantone® have also created a Spring 2018 Classic Colour Palette. These are a group of neutrals that are core basics in the form of navy, grey, beige and off white (of Sailor Blue, Harbor Mist, Warm Sand and Coconut Milk respectively).

The bonus classic neutral colours for Spring 2018 are:

Sailor Blue 19-4034
Harbor Mist 14-4202
Warm Sand 15-1214
Coconut Milk 11-0608

It’ll be great to see how couples incorporate these colours in to their weddings next year. I can see how the classic neutrals will play a big part in coupling up with some of the more vibrant choices.

Pantone® is the world-renowned authority on colour and the Pantone® Color of the Year is always really influential in any popular colour themes in fashion, interior design and weddings.

See some of my trend predictions for weddings in 2017 and look out for my report when the 2018 colour of the year is released later in the year.

Inspiration: vintage literary afternoon tea wedding

by Hanami Dream | 6, February, 2017 | blog, inspiration

A beautiful Saturday in April 2015 saw the wedding of Erica and Ruby at Cogges Manor Farm.

: Photography by Tom Weller

: Photography by Tom Weller

: Photography by Tom Weller

: Photography by Tom Weller

: Photography by Robin Smith

Cogges Manor Farm is nestled in the lovely market town of Witney and offers two stunning seventeenth century barns for weddings. They were a perfect blank canvas to add loads of personalised details to the day with vintage books, afternoon tea, lots of handmade touches and accents of yellow. This wonderful vintage literary wedding was captured by a number of professional photographers (who are also close friends of the couple) who each had a different section to cover throughout the day.

The couple hadn’t heard about this wonderful venue until Erica’s sister sent them a link to Cogges’s website. They instantly fell in love with the barns when they went to see them and booked their wedding date on the spot! And from there, they produced a beautiful, creative, DIY budget rustic barn wedding. It came complete with hay bales, bunting (kindly loaned from friends & family) and the Cogges chickens running around.

Most things were either handmade, collected or sourced by the couple or their family and friends. They even held a craft session at a local pub and invited their friends and family to stamp out thousands of cat and tea pot shaped confetti from old books. They hand made photo bunting from photographs of themselves over the 5 years they’d been together, as well as hand made centrepieces of brown ale bottles (with brown string wrapped around the necks adorned with buttons), and beautiful handmade paper flowers (again from old book pages) that they held as alternative bouquets too.

The brides both made a great entrance in to the barn. Not only were their outfits stunning, with Erica’s wedding outfit (of trousers & waistcoat) handmade from design to finished garment by the amazing local Oxfordshire wedding dressmaker, Geraldine Jarell of Oxford Frocks. But they also both walked into the barn from opposite large barn doors. They were escorted by their respective fathers and walked a mesmerising figure of 8 around their 100 guests seated on hay bales. The couple met in the middle of the barn, surrounded by all their friends and family, and had an enchanting ceremony complete with the lighting of a candle.

There were lots of personal touches to decorate the barn, such as a stack of Beatrix Potter books that Erica was given as a child by her aunt (who sadly couldn’t make it from Canada on the day). There was also an old gramophone that belongs to Ruby’s dad which played records of Eva Cassidy and the like during the reception drinks in the walled garden.

Photography by Tom Weller

Afterwards, the guests were treated with a ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ themed wedding favour. As they came back in to the barn, they helped themselves to a surprise book. These were a job lot of paperback books bought from eBay and each wrapped in a brown paper parcel and stacked on a table. This gave people something to chat about at their tables before and during their afternoon tea. Many people told the couple after the wedding that the book they chose was perfect for them!

Afternoon tea has featured in this couple’s story for a while as Erica proposed to Ruby at Jane’s Enchanted Tea Garden in Oxfordshire on 29th March 2014 (the day that gay marriage was legalised). So it is fitting that afternoon tea was also the theme of their wedding day, utilising vintage mismatched china that they had collected over a year. They visited numerous charity shops and car boot sales accumulating enough tea sets to host afternoon tea for 100 guests. The afternoon tea was served inside the Wheat Barn on rustic picnic benches (Ruby wanted to avoid white table cloths at all costs!) And now all of this china is used to serve loose leaf teas and hot chocolate in their own pottery cafe, Busy Brush Café in Wallingford. Delicious sandwiches, scones and cakes accompanied their afternoon tea.

Guests were encouraged to leave a finger print on an alternative guest book tree picture, plus write a personal message to the couple on vintage postcards left in a vintage suitcase.

A beautiful ‘Thank You Tree’ was displayed in the barn with luggage tags carrying messages to thank family & friends that had helped them – from solo singing during the ceremony, to loaning fairy lights that made the barns twinkle, to taking photos at the wedding, the endless search for China teapots etc. They borrowed the tree itself from their friend Anita who owns Country Collections shop in Wheatley.

In the evening, the guests were spoilt with some of the ‘best jacket potatoes you’ve ever tasted’, cooked in an old Victorian Oven out on the veranda. Plus, the wedding cake was actually a 1.5m high cake stand stacked full of jars of retro sweets that people could nibble on throughout the evening.

Then came a brilliant spectacle as the couple’s first dance was a flash mob dance where Erica and Ruby started dancing alone to Happy by Pharrel Williams. Then 5 friends, one by one, jumped into a well learnt dance routine. Mid way through the song lots of other guests got up and joined in too. What a wonderful way to take the pressure off everyone looking at the couple and so much fun!

After this the happy couple didn’t leave the dance floor and enjoyed the songs of a local Witney band, Vinyl Daze, well into the night.

This vintage literary afternoon tea wedding proves that with some personal touches, great friends, time and creativity, a beautiful barn wedding can be produced without breaking the bank.