Well the last of an astounding five Love Cherish Adore wedding fairs is now sadly over with…and what an amazing day it was at Ayers House!

As sponsors of this fair, we were able to showcase our own display along with some amazing collaborations with other like minded vendors.

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The long table in the library was a take on a mad-hatters tea party with use of our teapots, teacups, trays, cake stands, tins and other mis-matched vintage goodies! Ayers House showcased their Chiavari chairs, while Lilli-Anthus stunned us with her floral expertise once again.

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Our timber barn trestle tables are a great match for the Conservatory, which is only one of the reception rooms on offer at Ayers House. Here we showedour mis-matched vintage plates, glassware and cutlery pretty vintage mix with the venue’s Bentwood chairs, Lilli-Anthus’ floral centrepieces in their crystal vases and our brand new Copper place cards holders, which Jess Matthews Design hand wrote each place card.

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The lawns out the front of the venue offer the perfect setting for a ceremony, where we were able to show what a real-life ceremony would look like, complete with our birch and timber arbours, signing table and our mis-matched vintage timber chairs.

Arbour greenery & aisle flowers – Lilli-Anthus // Artwork on By The Oaktree chalkboards – Jess Matthews Design  // Clear Marquee – Adelaide Hills Party Hire

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See you next year! xo

By The Oaktree loves baby showers and Nicole’s shower was no exception!

Knowing that they were having a boy made the colour theme simple…BLUE it was with a touch of vintage. Food drinks, games, a play area for the kids and of course a gift area were all in the brief.

Joining our trestle tables together to create a long feature down the room meant that we could feature our vintage crockery, platters, cake stands, vases and gorgeous flowers and allowed everyone to chat around the table whilst picking at the yummy food the family had prepared.

We hope you had a great baby boy shower Nicole and wish you all the best for a safe and health arrival of your first child!

We were lucky enough to exhibit at Chapel Hill’s first Love Cherish Adore last Sunday and what a magnificent day it was. Their breath taking views were shown off with the gorgeous weather and food and wine showcased was to die for!

This was By The Oaktree’s smallest stand yet, which challenged us to be creative within the space…but we pulled it together and had a lot of fun doing so. Check out the pics below thanks to Susie Styler Photography…

Looking forward to seeing you at the next Love Cherish Adore wedding fair at Ayers House on Sunday 20th September!

At the start of this year I decided that there were 2 things I wanted to do for myself in 2015 – learn floristry and calligraphy basics. So when I saw Brick + Mortar Creative advertise Jess Matthews ‘Introduction to Brush Lettering Workshop’ I knew I had to do it….and now I am obsessed!

The more creative, casual side of this style of writing is much more suited to me than the perfection of calligraphy, so was meant to be that I was one of the lucky ones attending Jess’ workshop. I am excited to be able to incorporate this more into By The Oaktree through chalkboards, place cards and any other hand written work required. I can’t wait to make some more posters and greeting cards too!

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Next up is ‘The Science of Styling’ with Megan Morton’s The School, which I am over the moon about attending and meeting her.

(Images Source – www.theschool.com.au)

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And finally I will get to learn all about beautiful flowers with the lovely Liesa from Fleur De Lys Flowers.

(Image Source – www.fleurdelysflowers.com.au)

Will keep you posted!

The biggest appeal of a DIY event? It’s creative and cost saving, right?

Creative, most definitely! You can find endless projects online these days, especially with inspiration from Pinterest and Instagram. DIY allows you to add your own personal touch to your event — and if done well, it can produce amazing results!

However, the biggest consideration for DIY is the cost. That’s the main reason why people opt for DIY — to save money.

So, I now write to you as a bride who did everything DIY for her own wedding. We spent SO much time and money sourcing paper, fabrics, vases, jars, chairs, crockery, glassware and so many other vintage pieces to create our own unique wedding. At the time we thought DIY would be much cheaper than forking out money for a wedding planner and hiring all the decorations and wedding pieces ourselves.

My husband and I knew we wanted to do it ourselves, but we were faced with 2 options. We could either buy everything and then try and sell it all afterwards (to get our money back). Or, buy everything and start our own vintage styling business afterwards, hiring out everything we bought for our own wedding.

We chose the latter and this is how By The Oaktree started. In our case, it worked out very well for us, because it was a business expense. But from experience, I can tell you that it was a costly exercise — time consuming, expensive and required a huge amount of storage space.

So, does DIY REALLY mean you save heaps of money?

By the time you pay for materials, spend time working on projects (this can be days or even months), and possibly making some mistakes along the way, it actually doesn’t end up much cheaper at all. Unless you’re a DIY wizard with magical powers, DIY weddings, can actually make your wedding planning more stressful and time consuming.

My advice, as someone who has been there; leave it to the professionals. Let them use their knowledge to help you create a beautiful event that you can enjoy the lead up, as well as the actual event, whatever that may be!

I hope that helps, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me,

Jenna xx