Via Nicole Weston at Baking Bites, a tutorial and recipe for these awesome vampire cupcakes!

Vampire Cupcakes!

Nicole’s got dozens of other tutorials for DIY halloween treats, including Vampire Cookies, Halloween Treat ideas, and these adorable gingerbread skeletons!

If you’re even remotely interested in baking I suggest you check out Nicole’s blog. She’s always posting unique and delicious recipes, as well as tips and news from the world of baking and recipe book reviews. Nicole is one smart cookie (sorry, couldn’t resist) who holds a BA in Linguistics from UC Berkeley as well as a professional pastry certificate from the LA New School of Cooking.

She does all the cooking, baking, writing and photography on the blog herself, although if she did ALL the tasting, she wouldn’t be able to keep her figure

Seeing all the vampire stuff around these days makes me wonder how long until I have some Twilight weddings up on the blog.

I love a couple who buck wedding traditions all in the name of having a fun, memorable party. Helan and Scott started their wedding with a traditional church ceremony. But their wedding reception was anything but traditional …

"Till death do us part ..."

Yaaarrrrr!

I might have mentioned this before, but I thought I’d better do a whole post on the topic. Just in time for Etsy Day, Wedding Skulls now has an Etsy shop! You can buy both wedding planner ebooks there – as well as my writing ebooks, and copywriting / marketing writing packages for Etsy shops.

But that’s not the best part. A good friend of mine – Amy Beales – has come on board as well. She’s selling her beautiful line of gothic clothing and accessories, including wedding garters, favor bags, rosaries, coats, corsets, bags and more. Every one of her creations is custom made to your exact measurements, so you can change the colours/fabrics if you desire. Her pride and joy is the Nevermore coat – a stunning red floor-length gothic coat with handmade fastenings.

For those of you who have NO IDEA what I’m rambling on about, Etsy is a network for people to buy and sell handcrafted goods. You can sign up for a free account and browse away till your eyes are sore. So many talented, wonderful people sell and shop on Etsy, and Wedding Skulls is honoured to now be counted amongst them.

Wedding Skulls are also proud members of Etsy Dark Side street team. You can find us on their website, forum and blog. If you search ‘etsydarkteam’ in tags, you’ll find all the delightful gothicky items.

We’re adding new items every day, and we’ve got TONS to add. So keep checking back. We have a special section just for – well – specials, and we’re active in the Etsy forums.

Also, don’t forget that you have only FIVE MORE DAYS of the Wedding Planner Promotion – %50 off both wedding planners when you enter the discount code mmmdonuts or buy through the Etsy shop. Get yours today!

It’s been too long since we last featured a Skully Wedding. We need more awesome real weddings, readers!

I’m always partial to a fun Halloween Wedding, so here’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. Ebony and Preston Parish married in October 2008, and their wedding should go down in history as one of the sweetest, most fun-looking, best decorated shindig ever.

Have a look…if you dare.

Now THAT'S love

Via the wonderful folks at Halloween Forum (a source of excellent advice for Halloween goodies) I present you with scans of antique victorian poison bottle labels.

What can you do with these, I hear you ask? Lots of things! Why not adapt one of these scans as your wedding invitation/STD cards or reply cards?

(If you wanted some wonderful victorian words to use, look through this Victorian slang dictionary)

Or these would make macabre labels for wine bottles at the reception. I’d imagine the conversation going a little like this.

Guest 1: ‘Is that red any good?’

Guest 2: taking another swig ‘it’s a fruity palette with dark oat flavours…

Guest 1: ‘Yeah, yeah, but it’s alcoholic right? Give it here!’ Pours himself glass. ‘You know, that really is good. What kind of wine is it? I might buy some for my piss-up next week.’

Guest 2: ‘the label says ‘tinct: fishberries. POISON.’ And there’s a picture of a skull. Oh dear…’

Guest 2 looks at his drink, then discretly spits mouthful back into glass.

Guest 1: ‘Fishberry, eh? I guess that explains the fruity palette…’

Guest 2: ‘I don’t feel so good…’

Or – if you can source a large amount of tiny bottles or jars – make poison favors. Pack them instead with liqueurs, jams, candies or soft drinks. You could personalise the labels with your names and wedding date.

I am totally using these labels in an upcoming project. I just love them

During my internet peregrinations I chanced upon this most excellent Halloween wedding photographed by the fabulous Janae Shields of San Francisco, CA. Mark and Monique lavished their wedding with fun Halloween details. I especially love the cute little Jack-O-lanterns lining the aisle.

For more wonderful photographs and a list of vendors, check out Janae’s photography blog. Any of you San Fran brides would be hard pressed to find a better photographer!