This wedding is one that is near and dear to me personally because it is my own... it's hard to believe that this day took place 1 year, 1 month, and 1 day ago... reflecting on our wedding day, and the event itself... there's not one detail I would change! I figure since this was the first wedding I had complete control over ever detail, I should show you some of my favorite detail shots from the day
The photo below is a signature shot which our
photographer {Michael of Memories by Michael} takes at each wedding he shoots... the wedding invitation with the rings. We designed our invites ourselves, chose the pretty paisley liner, which became a huge inspiration for the motif used throughout our wedding. These were 100% DIY, they were gocco'd to also reflect the other reoccurring motif - the sand dollar - another items used throughout our event. Then once all the pieces were finished, my whole family helped assemble this 7 piece labor of love - and we were so happy with the way they turned out!
I have to say looking back on the whole event, we were so thankful that we chose to work with Michael for our wedding photog, he was a true pro! He was fantastic at capturing candids throughout the day, and he also caught so much of mine and my hubby's personality on film, for better or worse. =) If you splurge on two things, I'd say get your dream photog {within reason} because only they will capture those perfect moments that will last longer than any other element of your special day. The other item that's splurge-worthy is the dress {within reason of course too, c'mon you want your guests to eat right?} I say the dress as well only because that photog will be capturing you looking your most radiant, so you want to make sure every time you see those fabulous photos you see the most fabulous version of yourself too!
...ok back to the wedding post...
Looking back I'm really glad I went with my instincts on keeping these JCrew
juliet dresses for my gals... there was some thought that they might be too bright or flashy, but they came out great in photos!
Jewelry design was my first creative love... and here are the pieces I created for my ladies - simple yet eye-catching earrings and a gold sand dollar necklace to help tie the sand dollar motif through from our invites, to bridesmaids, to cocktail napkins, and even shells used throughout the decor. For my own bridal jewelry, I chose to have understated, yet classic earrings - they provided a nice dangle with an ivory coin pearl at the end, they were very light and did not compete with my
Twigs & Honey orchid hair pieces {shown below center}. You can find my jewelry by clicking on the etsy box on my blog to the left.
Along the planning road I stumbled upon the gocco machine {
find more info here} which opened doors to designing and personalizing my paper goods. Below left are our fan programs which displayed our other wedding day motif - a paisley pattern and sat in some vintage dovetailed boxes. I gocco'd the paisley pattern from the background of our invites onto the programs, our escort cards {shown below, right attached to finger starfish}, our table menus, as well as on our valet tags {which hung from our guest's rear view mirrors thanking our guests and asking them to share their photos with us via Flickr}. One more item not shown were our cocktail napkins, i gocco'd the navy paisly onto white napkins and also gocco'd a gold logo onto navy napkins which included our names and wedding date centered under a gold sand dollar. Also, if you're curious about the container the escort cards are in; it's a rustic trough... my family shares a love of antiques - this happened to belong to my brother and sis-in-law.
As you can see, our wedding details were quite handmade and personalized - below, that same sister-in-law {who's a talented interior designer and crafter} made two adorable ring bearers pillows using an eyelet fabric that we used in other areas of the decor {for example: the eyelet wrapped candle in the neighboring photo which were on the fireplace mantle as well as used for one of our three reception tablescapes} ... she's so talented! She also put me in contact with an artist friend of hers who did a FANTASTIC job painting this mural with our wedding vows on it, all while incorporating the paisley motif! =) Both my husband and I agreed that these days there isn't much significance placed on traditional wedding vows - so we wanted to highlight and showcase them during our reception, as a large focal piece over the reception hall's mantle and showcasing our cake which was positioned in front of the fireplace.
{side note: I don't have anything against writing your own vows, it certainly would've been quite a challenge had we tried to write them ourselves... so if you do write your own, more power to ya!} =)
We also loved the idea of incoorperating paper lanterns to help accent our wedding day decor... and I was delighted to find these damask light blue ones on sale at
World Market - and they worked out great outside hanging above our cocktail reception area, in that are we chose to keep the color scheme light and airy, hence the white and light blue.
Once the party moved indoors for dinner and dancing the color palette darkened up to deeper shades of blues and we infused purples too! This is a cool shot our photog captured of the lanterns which hung over the dance floor.
Aside from our photographer, my other favorite vendor was our florist... they did such a fabulous job interpreting the vision for our florals to help enhance our wedding day style. My bouquet was extremely important to me because it was a very sentimental piece... I wanted to honor three women with it: my mom and both of my grandmothers. I didn't want an all ivory bouquet so they used some light blue hydrangea, mixed with coffee berries, and phalenopsis orchids {which is what my mom's wedding bouquet was 40 years prior}. Second, I wanted to make sure there was quite a variety of flowers present in it to honor my dad's mom - the woman with a greenhouse and green thumb, she's also the woman who inspired me to learn about plants in general {she and my gramps were celebrating their 70th anniversary in 2008}. Lastly, I had the florist wrap my bouquet with my other grandma's vintage hanky, which you can see in the middle photo below {it was my something old}. And the photo below, right is of one of our centerpiece designs, which I feel communicates the our style so well!
Finally, I'll leave you with my absolute favorite element of our day... our ceremony arch - it was built by my dad and I, it wasn't easy, but it was something my dad and I worked on together and it was made with love. Not to mention our florist did such a superb job decorating it in our colors of the day - deep purple, light blue, indigo, and ivory. After the ceremony and family photos - my brothers whisked it upstairs to the reception and placed it behind our sweetheart table to repurpose it during our reception, since it turned out so great!
if you'd like to see more details from our day you can view the slideshow
here... i love that our photo set it to our first dance song - steady as we go by DMB.
I hope you enjoyed this post about our wedding... this event was the inspiration, the motivation, and the door to pursuing my creative aspirations in the wedding world... I look forward to all the upcoming events I am so honored to help and take part in! And most of all, I look forward to sharing those events with all of you...
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