We often have clients ask us how to put across on a wedding invitation the fact that children aren’t invited, so we thought we’d put this post together to hopefully give you some useful examples should you find yourselves in this situation:

In no particular order:

“We regret that we are unable to accommodate children or babies at our wedding.”

“With respect, we would like our special day to be an adult only occasion.”

“We would like to respectfully ask that our wedding day be for adults only.”

“Regretfully, we are unable to accommodate children on our wedding day.”

‘Parents please note: It is our wish to have an adult-only celebration. We hope that this advance notice means that you are still able to share our big day.’

‘In the hope that you can let your hair down, we have chosen for our wedding day to be an adult only occasion.’

‘We hope you understand that we have chosen to make our special day adults only.’

“We would like our special day to be an adult only occasion, we would however like to extend the invitation to your children at the evening reception”.

“As much as we would like to invite all the children of our friends, regretfully it is only possible to accommodate the children of close family”

“Unfortunately, it is only possible to accommodate children of the immediate family and wedding party for the ceremony and wedding breakfast. Children are very welcome for the evening reception. We hope that you will understand this decision and we very much hope you will still be able to join us on our special day”

‘We want to make you aware as early as possible that due to numbers and maximum capacity of the venue, we will not be able to invite children to the wedding or reception. We thank you for your understanding on this matter.’

“Owing to the nature of our venue, children under the age of 12 will not be able to attend. We hope that you understand and will be able to join us on our special day.”

Another somewhat more subtle approach would be to address the invitations to the adults, leaving off the children’s names – however, if a guest does not spot this (or ignores it!) and puts their children on the response card, you will then be faced with taking the responsibility to call that person and explain to them that there will be no children at the wedding.

If you would like further information on this, Martha Stewart Weddings has a great article here on the etiquette of weddings with/without children.

If you are inviting children to your wedding, we have some great tips and ideas for making them feel welcome and keeping them entertained here.

Happy Friday folks! I wanted to show you this article I wrote for Perfect Wedding Magazine, – I was delighted to be featured as an Expert Contributor (can I get that on a plaque for my door yet do you think?!)

The SOS question I answered is all about when to order your wedding stationery, I hope it’s helpful. You can also find our work featured in the editorial sections on pages 94, 109 and 115 of the magazine… Big thanks to the team at Perfect Wedding for the wonderful opportunity.

Here’s just a quick note to see if you caught this beautiful wedding showcased over on one of the UK’s biggest and best wedding blogs; Love My Dress?

It features a lovely, rustic, country themed table plan we created:

This lovely wedding was styled by the fabulously talented Cotswold-based Jessie Thomson, with images courtesy of Photo Glow. Don’t miss the full set of pictures on Love My Dress blog.

We’re offering 12 wedding reception table names from our ‘Sweet Vintage‘ range to one lucky Facebook follower this weekend…

Leave a comment here to enter, we’ll announce the winner on Monday at midday …Have a great weekend!

We always love having a chance to collaborate with fabulous professionals in the wedding industry, and I was particularly excited when the very talented Elle of Inspire Hire got in touch about a red and white, retro Americana theme photo shoot with cherry details and fun styling…. I adapted our ‘Motown‘ design to complement Elle’s ideas – and here are the results, captured beautifully by Emma Solley Photography.

I hope you like it! If you use Pinterest, we have created a board with this theme here.

Concept, Coordination, Styling & Hire: Inspire Hire  

(includes Ghost Chairs, Table Décor & more)

Photography: Emma Solley

Stationery & Paper Goods: In the Treehouse  

Flowers: Jenny Rose Flowers  

Dessert Table: Pink Elephant Cake Co.

Hair & Make Up: The Pop Up Salon

Dresses: Sarah Treble  

Hats: Holly Young   

Vintage Vespas: Virginia’s Vintage Hire   

Location: Muddifords Court   

Hello! It’s Friday and we’re feeling generous, so we’re running a little competition this weekend for all our Facebook followers…

If you’d like to win a set of postcard activity packs to keep the kids entertained at your wedding, (up to 20) simply leave a comment over on this image on our Facebook page. You must be a ‘liker’ of our page to win.

Please note, this pink paper band is merely a ‘serving suggestion’ and not included in the prize as we are sure you’d like to use something to match your own wedding theme…

The winner will be picked at random and announced at midday on Monday so do get your entries in by then..

Good luck and have a lovely weekend!

This week was World Book Day and we thought we’d feature a lovely literary wedding ceremony reading to celebrate the occasion. It came to our attention when a lovely client – Bride and talented writer Jess Billington (see her fabulous romance blog Treat a Lady, or read her regular contributions to top UK wedding blog Love My Dress) included it in her wedding ceremony, for which we designed the Orders of Service. Hope you like it and if any of our Bride-to-be followers are lovers of literature or writing, it may just be one to consider. (Please note, it’s worth googling the original version of the reading as I believe this may have been tweaked a little to make it extra personal to the Bride & Groom.

Hope you’ve remembered the flour, eggs & milk as tomorrow is the one and only pancake day! Here’s some pancakes inspiration to get those tummies rumbling!

For the image sources, please click the links: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

One of the most exciting parts of our work is collaborating with other wedding industry creatives for styling photo shoots and events – we were thrilled when Gabi of Something Blue PR contacted us about designing the stationery and paper goods for their annual press event… The theme was ‘Bold is Beautiful’ and the brief was geometric prints (chevrons in particular), a bright and lovely colour palette of teal, purple and fuchsia with a hint of gold sparkle… To fit with the fun and playful nature of the styling, I wanted to think out of the box with the stationery and came up with the idea of paper bow place cards as opposed to the traditional folded, or tag style which are our bestsellers. We think the bows work really well on the table and look forward to adding them to our collections. I hope you enjoy and feel inspired by these images which were all captured by the lovely Catherine Mead. A big thank you from us to the team at Something Blue PR, as well as all the other creative companies who helped make the event look so wonderful…

Our DIY Doily Pom Pom tutorial has had a little face-lift… hope you like it!

As regular visitors may know I (that’s me, Jenny – owner/designer here at In the Treehouse) and my fiancé Emiko are getting married in March. There are 5 weeks which shall no doubt whizz by in the blink of an eye before our big day is upon us, and we recently had our pre-wedding / engagement shoot in London, with our wonderful photographer Benjamin Toms - I wanted to share a few images with you here…

Although our wedding will take place in beautiful blustery cornwall near our home, we decided to go to London for our pre-wed shoot – and a natural choice for the first location was the lovely bridge over the Thames where just 3 months ago, Emiko got down on one knee… The day was crisp and dry, although utterly freeeeezing, and I was super proud of our little girl for smiling throughout!

Ben offers a complimentary pre-wedding / engagement shoot with all his wedding photography packages and I really can’t recommend it (and him!) enough… Not only is it an opportunity to get some great photos to cherish, but it’s also a chance to get to know and work with your photographer for the first time. It’s a good way for them to help you get comfortable in front of the camera so that there are no surprises on the big day… There are a different selection of shots from our engagement shoot here on Ben’s blog.

In the run up to the engagement shoot it was quite convenient that both my fiancé and I were just way too busy to be at all nervous or anxious about it, but none the less it was a relief to find out how at ease and comfortable we felt around Ben. We chose him as our photographer because quite simply, we love his pictures. The colour (important for a half Nigerian wedding) and the moments and emotions he captures. I truly believe that choosing a photographer is one of the most important wedding decisions to be made – the day itself may come and go too quickly for our liking, but the images will be cherished for as long as we live – shown to our children, their children, revisited on a gloomy day, reminisced over on anniversaries, admired in frames on the wall, witness to all the hard work and careful you put into those details to make the big day extra special… If you are still looking for your wedding photographer, I can’t recommend enough that you go and check out Benjamin Toms Photography – Ben shoots all over the UK and will also travel abroad if you so require…

A less visual and more practical update from us today… In the next few weeks we will have to register with the VAT man – This means that VAT (20%) will be added to the cost of all products except Order of Service booklets. If you’d like to avoid this charge you might like to place an order as soon as possible (even for weddings later in the year for which we can put your order on hold until you’re ready…) Please note that any quotations we may have given you previously will only be honoured until Friday 15th February 2013. Thanks so much

As many of you who follow our Facebook page may be aware, we were recently named one of five finalists in the Wedding Ideas Awards 2013 – a highly regarded accolade in the bridal industry, hosted every year by the lovely team at Wedding Ideas Magazine.

So many thanks to all of our followers for all your kind words and wishes in the run up to the event last weekend – unfortunately we didn’t win this year, but so very happy and honoured to be among the top 5 companies nationally voted for and shortlisted. We’re all the more fired up for next time…

I had a great night and enjoyed meeting loads of wedding industry entrepreneurs! Next time, I shall definitely be taking the whole Treehouse team though – saves me having to brave the photo booth on my lonesome!

I hope you all had a wonderful and restful Christmas break… It always comes and goes far too quickly doesn’t it!?

Reflecting on the year, it’s been a pretty incredible rollercoaster journey for us here at In the Treehouse - It has been our first full year in business, and one of astounding growth, countless blessings, proud moments & useful challenges.

When 2012 set in one year ago, I (Jenny) was running the business from my utility room single handedly – working to the smaller-than-small hours growing a little treehouse-shaped seed, and living in a general state of complete exhaustion… Looking back on how far things have moved on since then, I still have to pinch myself – although the joys have been countless, i have none the less attempted to quantify them in this round up of highlights:

In February 2012, Matt joined me full time as the Treehouse Keeper, and 3 months later, another lovely Matt joined the team as a full time Design Assistant. In June we moved into a spacious, beautiful and creatively inspiring new studio in my home town of Tavistock, Devon. We’ve had the absolute pleasure in working with over 300 couples this year (click here to see some of their lovely wedding photos), providing a whopping 50,104 pieces of stationery! (which is a little mind boggling, even if we do say so ourselves). We’ve also been honoured to be nominated for 2 national awards for Best Wedding Stationery (watch this space!)

It’s been a year of personal joys too, especially for proud new parents Matt (the Treehouse Keeper) and Leanne with birth of beautiful baby Pearl in November. In the same month, a moment I had long dreamt of and hoped for finally arrived when my fiancé proposed on a bridge over the River Thames. (In case you hadn’t guessed, I said YES!)

So, on to 2013 – I have designed this little poster which will hopefully get you inspired to see in the new year with gusto -

In 2013 we’re hoping for another busy and prosperous year In the Treehouse – and we can’t wait to share it with you. Please let us take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm for what we do, it means the world. Thanks to all the clients who have put their faith in us over this last year, we hope we did you proud.

From all of us here, we wish you a wonderful year!

As a design company, I love how our clients pretty much completely direct the ebb and flow of our work in new directions, often following emerging trends within the wedding industry. I was excited when I had an email from a regular client, Victoria – who is the owner of beautiful children’s gift boutique Dolly & Jack - I have designed stationery and web images for this lovely brand, and was thrilled when Victoria contacted me in a new capacity, as a newly engaged Bride to be! Victoria and her fiancé Sebastiano asked me to design something using the concept of national flora and fauna which represents their heritage (white rose and olive branch for Sebastiano who is half English, half Italian. Eucalyptus and fern for  part Australian, part New Zealander Victoria). I love that our stationery means peoples heritage and backgrounds can be reflected in design, and it’s something I have tried to stay true to when planning my own wedding in March to my Nigerian fiancé (eek, only 10 weeks to go!)

So, I digress! Without further ado, here’s what I created for Victoria & Sebastiano.

It’s perhaps simpler, more stripped back and more elegant than some of our previous work – that’s always a challenge for me as a designer, knowing when to reign it in and not keep adding colour, pattern, more fonts etc!

I really love the concept and the soft colour palette, which inspired me to create a mood board to match:

Florals (top left) /  Decorated Napkins / Bouquet /  Bridesmaids / Jars / Succulents on Napkins / Shoes

I hope you like it!

Just a quick note to let you know about a new addition to our ranges – Personalised Wall Planners and Wedding Countdown Planners, designed in the theme of our best selling Vintage Trinkets wedding stationery range.

Above: Personalised Wall Planner – perfect for keeping you and your family in check throughout 2013!

Above: Personalised Wedding Countdown Planner – taking you right up to the big day, it’s an exciting reminder on your wall and an essential practical tool for noting down all the wedding related tasks you need to get done. Available now for weddings in 2013.

Both the wall planner and wedding countdown planner are £45, printed on high quality A1 paper and rolled in a tube for posting. For more details and to purchase, head over to our Etsy shop.