Who won Ketchup’s 1st birthday giveaway??

I have to do that irritating thing where before announcing the  winner, there is either a commercial break or a long speech! Most of you are going to skip over this bit to see who won but once you’ve checked and come back to re-read-I just wanted to say how AWESOME all the entries were. I wish everyone could win something but alas, life is cruel! Thank you for participating and showing so much love not only to us but to Ketchup as well! We all truly appreciate it and I doubt this is the last you are going to hear of Ketchup and The Unreal Bride teaming up together! We absolutely adore Ketchup and can’t wait to work with them again! Thank you Ketchup for letting us preview your new and fabulous collection!

Now to more important things.

The winner of the giveaway is ……………………..VIVANI !!!!

Congratulations Vivani Here is what you won-a wonderful neon accessory from Ketchup-I suggest you better buy a bag to go with it

 

 

 

We used Random Picker to pick a winner -you can click here to get to know it better!

The {Un}Real Diaries : Make up & Bling

Just looking at those two words -make up and bling written together made me wonder if I should tell April to write about this since both topics are far away from my area of expertise. Now that I have started,though, I figured I might as well give it a shot. If you haven’t figured by now, make up and me are distant distant cousins who like each other sometimes and the other times, we forget about each other’s existence. Just so you get an idea , I bought my *first* lipstick a month before the wedding, and figured out the purpose of foundation.It’s true- I am 29 years old and have survived with kajal, mascara and chapstick all these years. I was (am) one of those people who’d peep in to the MAC store and wonder what actually goes on in there with all the ladies (and men) dressed up in black with these things that looked like Batman’s utility belt. It was a different world to me and kind of intimidating.

I’m not against the idea of make-up but it’s just not a priority as it is for so many people. Post wedding, I carry around a little make up pouch and feel quite ‘grown-up’.Ha! Anyway, for the wedding, I decided there would be some make up but it would have to be managed internally (read:in the Unreal Bride office) because there was NO way I was going to any beauty salon where they would most definitely paint my eyes magenta/maroon and gold regardless of the colour of my outfit. I am shuddering at the thought of that and a big poof of fake hair on my head that seems a criterion for every bride.

Thank goodness for friends who went to all girl schools and spent days and days trying out hairstyles and make up on friends.Endlessly.Who is this talented friend, you ask? None other than April! She said she would happily do my make up and boy ! was I relieved!  The combination of April + her love for make up + pinterest was the best ever!

To cut a long story short, we visited MAC, bought all the necessary condiments (?) to paint my face so that it wasn’t obviously painted (how curious is that!) and combined it with her existing stash of make-up , we were all set to go.

We did do a dry -run to test out what colours suited me and stuff. You MUST do this to know what will happen on the final day and if a certain look will work for you or not. Here is a picture of our trial run-

Erm. Best leave the wine out if you want to actually get somewhere. Clearly , I thought I was a great make up artist judging from what I did to April’s face. Let this serve as a what-not-to-do-on-your-wedding-day make up tutorial.

So,in reality the night before the wedding is when we actually did a dry run and April did a perfect job.

Thank you Mother and Amrit for the photos this day.

On the day of, everything went seamlessly- except for maybe one ‘cat’ eye becoming longer than the other (or was that the other night?) -regardless, it was rectified immediately . The make up was perfect and I looked exactly the way I wanted to. Nothing over the top but with just a little bit of drama! Here are some getting ready photos taken by a very talented friend who you all must be pretty familiar with by now- Maya Singh. She played a huge roll in video documenting the wedding so she was only ‘allowed’ to take photos right in the beginning which I am so glad she did!

Photos by Maya Singh

In case you are wondering what happened to my hair- it was a stroke of pure genius on Aprils (and Pinterests ) part where we were able to take my one side longer hair and make a really cute side ponytail situation. That was a blessing in disguise because I was sure I would have hair issues but I was wrong! Oh , joy!

Here is the picture that was inspiration for the hair-do. I couldn’t find the actual post it was linked to but if you know where it’s from-let me know!

Via Pinterest Via Victoria’s Vintage

As far as the bling goes, I like it more than I like make up , but I like silver more than gold. I didn’t want to spend truckloads on something that I would probably wear only once in my life and that is where Amrapali came to my rescue. Not very expensive, unique designs and so many things to chose from! In the end – I wore a combination of Amrapali jewelry along with some of  my Mum and Masi’s jewels. This was not pre-planned. All these decisions were made on the spot. By the end of it, I really lived up to the saying- “Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue.”  It was totally unintentional but not unwelcomed

Photos by Maya Singh

I guess I should end this post with some wedding day make up gyan , right? Nothing complicated to it-just remember-know what you want and stick to it. Find the right make up artist that works for you even if it means you do your own make up on your wedding. You don’t need to wear a kilo of foundation to look gorgeous.Find your style-make up wise ,jewelry wise and stick to it.

Oh,and last of all-wear waterproof mascara . xx

Read more of the {Un}Real Diaries here.

Photobooth : R+R

It’s raining photo-booths!! Not that we are complaining! Photo booths give us the perfect opportunity to expand our creativity and improve our ‘controlled’ photography. This year (by which I mean 2011)has been just such a photo boothy kind of year and not one has been the same. I am rather pleased that people put so much thought into their photo booth and it isn’t just another add-on at a wedding/party/event. The things you can do are endless and the fun to be had in a photo booth is incomparable.

This was an extra special photo booth since it was for a very dear friends engagement party . It’s nice to be appreciated by your friends for the work you do and when they treat you like professionals, you can’t help but think that maybe you are doing something (very) right.

The theme was to keep it minimal-white and gold. We had been dying to use these paper flowers seen all over Pinterest (of course) – they are so delicious looking – and this seemed the perfect opportunity. Though the flowers are YUMMY in all these colours, we decided to stick to white (since that was the theme) and to add some gold to it.

Via Pinterest, originally from here

I had shown April these flowers as an example and actually had no idea how to make them-I am challenged in that sense but thankfully she isn’t ! The next day when I went to her house, I saw her living floor was covered in paper, little helpers cutting and folding the paper and these gorgeous white flowers strewn all over! Over the next few days, hundreds of flowers were made and anyone who stopped by helped by folding or opening out a flower. The making of the flower really deserves a post of it’s own which you will have to wait for! {Coming soon : DIY tutorial for making paper flowers }

Here are some photos of the photo booth under construction in April’s home. They were up against a window and the light streaming through the paper flowers just added to the gorgeousness of it all.

Once the flowers were ready, we added some gold cloth to the bottom just to add that splash of colour. It all came together when we set up the backdrop in the little tent at the engagement. As you can see from the photos, the white cloth with the gold print on it went perfectly with the backdrop. We didn’t want too many props since we figured every one would be dressed in their finery which meant loads of colour  and over-doing the props would take away from the minimalistic feel of it all!We couldn’t resist the moustaches on a stick though and even had tiny little chalkboards and colourful frames as part of the prop box!

The lovely couple!

Here are some fun photos from the photo booth!

Check out more of our photo-booths here, here and here!

Photo Booth Styled, Conceptualised and Photographed by The Unreal Bride

FYI, our next post will be something that has been long overdue , a bridal session we had mentioned in this post here and the DIY tutorial on how to make these paper flowers! Forgive us for being so out of it lately- you will know why soon enough! Give us some time and we will be back full swing!

Tuesday Shoesday: Black Beauties

Gorgeous.Gorgeous. Gorgeous. On every count. I want the horse, the boots, the bag and yeah ok even the gloves.

Photo by Ditte Isager via Pinterest 

Check out Ditte’s website- absolutely beautiful photography!

Some more Tuesday Shoesday love -

{Magnolia Rouge}  {Brancoprata} {Postcards & Pretties}{Beyond Beyond} {Niche White} {Marry You Me}

Photo of the week

Today, Pinterest sent me (and all you other Pinterest-ers) a real sweet e-mail first thing in the morning . I thought I should post something I found on Pinterest just to celebrate this idea that has become a way of life for so many of us now. We were just talking about it at the Unreal office today- earlier we would spend too many (non constructive) hours on Facebook but now we spend all those hours on Pinterest - where we get inspiration, ideas and just get to stare at pretty things all day long!

Here is our photo of the month- found via Pinterest (obviously!!). Isn’t it adorable!

Viva la Pinterest!!