How it all began...

It’s been a year since we started Saffron Vintage Hire & Events and I have finally found a moment to write our first blog post. It has been the busiest and most marvellous year and we feel very lucky to have had so many lovely events take place.

This was the year that my husband Will & I got married, bought and started renovating our Victorian cottage, tried our hand at growing a few veggies and most wonderful of all, made our perfect baby girl, Isabella.  

It was also the year that we started our little business, Saffron Vintage Hire & Events; a prop and china hire, styling and event management company. We supply all manner of vintage props and crockery to brides, party planners, photographers, retailers, corporate companies, TV and film.

They say that you should “do what you love and love what you do”, well we love vintage, in all its forms. Vintage living and style are part of what makes us, us. So this, (with a smidgen of design, renovation, craft, fashion, babies, gardening and whimsy) will be the focus of our blog and we hope you enjoy it!

So, what happened a year ago to kick off our business venture? 

A wedding of course! And a vintage one at that...

The infamous plum brandy

We got married on a freezing cold but sunny winter’s day at Hedingham Castle in Essex. A beautiful candle lit ceremony was followed by vintage reception and good old fashioned knees up to a playlist 1940s and 50s tunes and everyone had a fabulous time(partly due to the homemade plum brandy favours)!

Sharing the day with our nearest and dearest is what made it such a fabulous event but I think it was the vintage details that made it so personal and memorable for everyone, especially us.

Will and I share a love of all things vintage and have been collecting for years! We knew we had to incorporate our vintage style into the day and roped in lots of family and friends to help us. Within six months we had collected literally hundreds of pieces of vintage crockery for our guests to use (we only had 80 guests but it became a bit of an obsession). And it didn’t stop there. We scoured the country for unique vintage finds that would help to decorate the venue and say something about who we are. Hedingham Castle was the perfect back drop for our props and we did all of the styling ourselves, learning a few lessons along the way.

During the post wedding clear up, we realised that we had accumulated nearly 500 pieces of stunning vintage crockery and a hoard of vintage props and furniture, none of which could reasonably kept at our little cottage. We thought about selling it all on eBay, but I couldn’t bring myself to part with it. We’d gone to such pains to acquire everything and there were some very beautiful things that I’m sure we’d use again...one day.  We are also quite green and love to upcycle and reuse where possible. There was only one solution. Hire it all out to other brides and like minded folk so they can create their own version of vintage loveliness.  

I worked for a number of years as a television production manager, so knew a thing or two about prop hire and with many years in events organisation, I thought perhaps I could be useful to brides, companies and planners in need of an extra head/pair of hands/spreadsheet obsessive.

I found some lovely barns to store it all in, built a website, got a facebook page and our little vintage hire and styling business was born.

Our suitcase table plan, featuring family weddings of the past...

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