Every now and then I come across a wedding that is not only drop-dead gorgeous, but it’s so creative it warms my soul. That’s Kristen and Matt’s wedding. Kristen, an art director for a cosmetics company, created the entire event herself from start to finish, and the result, photographed by the talented and sweet Daisy Varley, was absolute perfection.

Kristen chose a Mexican fiesta theme for the wedding, full of bright colors, family traditions, paper flowers, and fabulous details!

Bridesmaids were asked to choose a Mexican peasant dress and hem it to their liking.

The wedding was held at Condor’s Nest Ranch in Pala, CA.  Guests were able to stay on the grounds, so signs pointed the way to the wedding and the camping!

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I have been so busy with wedding season that I have fallen behind a bit on sharing lovely weddings with all the fabulous EAD readers. But I am so happy to be able to share a truly stunning and inspirational wedding from Labor Day weekend with all of you.

Crista and Bill were married at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) here in Chicago. I was so excited about this wedding, as it was one of the last before a wonderful exhibit by Olaffur Eliasson was taken down (if he ever exhibits in your city, please go!). This was my favourite exhibit I’ve seen in a long while, and I couldn’t wait to shoot in such a colourful and inspiring environment.

Bill and Crista are both creatives, and Crista did a beautiful job pulling together a gorgeous event that felt relaxed and artistic.  It was also an incredibly emotional day, with Crista and her sister crying throughout the day–it was really lovely and sweet, and I was so happy to be able to share in the day along with my second photographer, Frank. Also, a big thanks to the amazing team at Kehoe Designs for designing the stunning florals that perfectly played off the rainbow of colours in the exhibit, while not being overkill. Really wonderful job; highly recommend them for very creative and unique displays and bouquets (we were all swooning over the succulents)!

Opening a present from Bill…

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Fall is on its way and it’s put me in the mood for deep and rich colors, like this burgundy and gold palette.  Build a wedding around this using ornate linens, filigree, velvety fabrics, chandeliers, and lots of gold accents.

Clockwise from top left: room styling with burgundy curtains and gold frames by Katya de Grunwald via Desire to Inspire, perfume bottle and necklace photo by Don Mears Photography via Little White Book, ornate gold, burgundy and brown office by Caroline Beaupere via Desire to Inspire, burgundy and gold bedroom photographed by Verity Welstead via Desire to Inspire, velvet and jewelled wedding invitation by Andrea Yung via The Bride’s Cafe (photo by Jennifer Skog), bride at the Ritz Paris photographed by Olivier Lalin, photo of gold and pearl necklace by Colin Cooke via Perfect Bound

So excited today to be featuring the wedding of one of our loyal readers, Anne, and Thomas!  Their gorgeous Sarasota, FL wedding was photographed by Brian and Briana of Divine Light Weddings.

Anne’s Nicole Miller gown was just perfection.  I’m a huge fan of champagne colored gowns and it’s just stunning against her skin tone.

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I adored our wedding reception. It flew by like mad, but here’s what I know: I have distinct memories of everyone who was there, it felt exactly like we’d hoped it would, and we’ve never had so much fun.

Crossing the street heading over to the reception:

We chose Ray LaMontagne’s “You Are the Best Thing” as our song, and my heart bursts through my chest every time I hear it, still.

We had a buffet of local food featuring the Outer Banks at its best: fresh shrimp served with grits, stuffed flounder, seasonal vegetables, and of course… mini strawberry shortcakes, made Southern-style with shortbread biscuits. With freshness like this, who needs a wedding cake, anyway? Not us.

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We approached a reception decor plan much the way we approached our ceremony decor plan. The reception would take place across the street from the ceremony in a tented area that leads out onto the Sound. We were dealing with a standard white tent, and wanted to incorporate three big things: color, pattern, and personal touches. We’d keep costs down by reusing elements from the ceremony and making as many of the elements ourselves that we could.

I knew from the start that I wanted patterned tablecloths, and found out two things very quickly: local rental companies didn’t offer patterns, and pre-made tablecloths for sale weren’t available in appropriate colors or patterns. In other words, we were going to have to buy fabric and make the tablecloths ourselves. Searching for the right fabric - the right color, the right patterns, all at the right price - was extremely challenging. To increase the pressure, almost every decision about reception decor was contingent on the fabric decision. We searched long and hard for almost two months before making our final selections. (Nothing went to waste - a fabric we decided against for the tables after seeing it in person became our aisle runner!) Here are the final fabrics, both from Premier Prints:

The reception tables were 60-inch rounds, so we hired a family friend to make 84-inch square tablecloths (half in the red print, half in blue) to provide a 12-inch drop all the way around the table. Each tablecloth was stitched in three pieces, with the pattern lined up so precisely you couldn’t even see a seam. Having such strong linens on the tables allowed us to use the vendor’s white underlays without sacrificing color, which helped cut down on costs.

Once we made the fabric decision, it was time to call in our floral/event design guru Renee Landry to help us plan out the rest of the space. I was inspired by tablescapes that featured separate clusters of matching flowers, grouped together in varying sizes. I was also inspired by pomanders, and was committed to reusing them from the ceremony for our tables. Here are two of my favorite inspiration images, both from Martha:

We decided to use urns to hold the large flower pomanders as table centerpieces and as accents on areas like the bar. The pomander centerpieces would be surrounded by smaller receptacles holding matching flowers, and we decided that the small receptacles should add to our mix-and-match feel by introducing yet more pattern. In order to cut down on costs, we planned on using aluminum cans of various sizes and printing patterned paper ourselves to cover the cans. I got to work creating patterned sheets using the design files that ABCD had given me, while my sister headed up the job of printing the paper and covering the cans. Lots and lots and lots of cans. And did I mention that she was super-pregnant at the time? Go sis! To supplement the look of the cans and centerpieces, my mom decorated white rice paper votive holders with whimsical red and blue designs.

The look coming together (remember our pomanders and wedding wands?):

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We were married at an inn on the Outer Banks, on a deck that led from the inn to the dunes, and then the ocean. The space has the same rustic, weathered look the defines the Outer Banks. Since “rustic and weathered” wasn’t quite the look we were going for with our ceremony decor, we needed a decor plan in place to achieve our vision. My mom, sister, and I took a trip to the Outer Banks to work with floral/event designer Renee Landry and create a decor plan that achieved three things: (1) the space should burst with personality and color (2) the space should be red and blue, but use a range of palettes and patterns so that it didn’t feel too “4th of July,” and (3) in order to keep costs down, we would reuse as many ceremony decor elements at the reception as possible, and make as many elements ourselves that we could.

I fell in love with the idea of using pomanders instead of traditional altar florals as a way to add vibrant pops of color and personality to the space. (True story: the wedding that got me hooked on pomanders was right here on EAD!) In my mind, pomanders were fun, flirty, and more casual than traditional florals, so they fit into our wedding theme perfectly. The downside of pomanders is how long they take to create, which means they’re fairly expensive to use in bulk. We achieved the look of a pomander bonanza at a lower pricepoint by making fabric pomanders to supplement the floral pomanders at the “altar,” then reusing only the floral pomanders as our reception centerpieces. We had originally planned on tissue pomanders, but the high humidity and wind on the beach called for a more substantial material. My mom took on this thankless task, using pinking shears to cut fabric squares and inserting them one by one into styrofoam centers. Each pomander took up to nine hours to create, and she made lots of them. Here’s a shot from her dining room as the pomander collection started to grow:

In person, the effect was wonderful. The floral pomanders (made primarily of carnations) were beautiful, and the overall look had so much volume that you didn’t notice they weren’t all flowers. Up close, though, the fabric pomanders were so pretty that you didn’t mind they weren’t flowers - the patterned fabric added some depth to the overall effect.

(All photos by Beach Productions)

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I’m going to tell it like it is: nothing made me feel less in the mood to get married than shopping for The Dress. Some girls get goosebumps just stepping into a bridal salon. Some girls hear chords from above when they try on The One. I was not one of those girls. Dress-shopping was the opposite of a fairy-tale for me. More like a morality tale featuring evil, judgmental salespeople trying their best to make me feel too large (”curvy” and “broad,” they said, shaking their heads and sighing) and unsophisticated to wear their gowns. I finally flew my sister down from North Carolina to help me make the final decision, desperately in need for a second opinion and someone who actually knew me to be in the room. I already had a favorite by the time she arrived, and when I stepped out into it - after a morning of trying on dozens of other gowns for her - she called it like she saw it: “This is the only dress that’s made you grin all day.”

I’m a fan of grinning, and my sister was right - the dress was light as air and felt like me. It referenced the beach with a scalloped halter neckline, had a vintage feel thanks to its beautiful lace, had a bit of sweetness with raw silk ribbons woven into the waist and straps, but felt quite modern because of the slim cut. It was Monique Lhuillier’s “Fabiana,” and it was the only one that I felt relaxed wearing, excited, even. Here I am wearing The One at the salon. No chords from above, but a lot of laughter with my sister instead, and that was all I needed.

I ordered the dress in white to coordinate with the beach and Trevor’s seersucker. His suit was something we were thrilled about; it belonged to his late grandfather and fit him like a glove. We found a tailor who modernized the fit a bit, turning the triple-pleated pants into flat fronts. We decided on a navy linen tie and a red and white gingham pocket square in lieu of a boutonniere. The result was dashing, completely beachy-handsome!

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So now that you’ve seen the fantastic “campaign logo” created us for by ABCD, can you guess what happened after that? As much as I love paper, and as much as Amy loves working with fresh, outside-the-wedding-box visions, we  couldn’t stop our collaboration at the logo. We asked ABCD to design our entire wedding stationery suite, and let me tell you… it was one of the best decisions we made in the entire wedding planning process.

By the time we brought ABCD on board, Trevor and I had already spent a couple of Saturday afternoons flipping through invitation books at stationery stores. Our basic reaction to most of what we saw? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. We needed color and art and whimsy in our invitations, and didn’t see it anywhere. We knew our invitations would set the tone for our wedding, and for a girl who used to spend her allowance on pretty paper, I wanted them to be amazing. We wanted our guests to look at their invitations and know that a mellow, tongue-in-cheek, bursting-with-love, FUN weekend on the Outer Banks awaited them. Design-wise, we needed to strike a fine balance. We wanted our campaign logo to be present, but not be overpowering. We wanted to play on the political theme a bit, but not be too gimmicky. We didn’t want traditional script or calligraphy, but we also didn’t want them to be too modern, either. We wanted a vintage and folk art flair, but also to somehow represent the beach. And we wanted letterpress, but we didn’t want to break the bank. A tall order, right? Amy took it all in stride. Here’s our fabulous stationery suite, as designed by ABCD:

The components of the suite played off each other throughout all of the pieces. We had folk art flowers, a swirl motif that hinted at ocean waves, an old-fashioned typeface along with cleaner fonts, and language that was playfully political. ABCD worked within our budget to find ways to maximize the bang for the buck. And oh, was there bang! The first thing guests saw was our love story, letterpressed on the belly band. Notice the Constitution joke… we couldn’t help ourselves!

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So how do two stridently independent and opinionated lovebirds get married in the age of Platinum Weddings, anyway? Like so many things that would follow, we found our inspiration in the world of wedding blogs.

After months of floundering for a wedding vision that felt like our own, I stumbled upon a blog post featuring a wedding “monogram” that looked like a campaign logo. I was instantly, head-over-heels smitten with how un-wedding it was. After all, politics run through both of us. I’d been writing about candidates long before I was old enough to vote, and the two of us never would’ve met at all had Trevor not been working on a political campaign. The discovery of that logo put the entire wedding planning process into focus for us. Suddenly, we weren’t grasping for wedding ideas anymore, but were full of them. The idea of a red and blue wedding felt fresh and new to us - neither of us had ever seen one before - and we loved the challenge of making sure it didn’t look too “4th of July” by using a palette of shades and a slew of mix-and-match patterns.

Blue would work wonderfully with our beachside location, and also meant that Trevor could wear his grandfather’s seersucker suit. Strong punches of red suited my sensibility perfectly - in flowers, on tables, and most importantly, in a killer pair of red satin heels on my feet! Very quickly, our wedding vision started to feel more like us than like a “normal” wedding, which was exactly what we’d wanted all along. Here’s our original inspiration board, featuring the wedding logo that kicked the whole thing off:

Meanwhile, in other stroke of blog-world luck, I won a contest online where the prize was a custom wedding logo designed by the one and only Amy Beth Cupp Dragoo of ABCD Designs (now a contributor at EAD Living!). I couldn’t believe my luck - we finally had our wedding inspiration, and now we had a super-talented designer on board to create our official “campaign logo,” too! Over the phone, I laid out our election theme for Amy to explain why we wanted her to design a campaign logo for us instead of a typical wedding monogram. Amy didn’t just get it, she loved it. Here’s the “campaign logo” that Amy designed for us. More than any other single detail, this logo set the tone for our crazy election-themed wedding:

Adams-Hanger ‘09… the ticket of a lifetime!

Next up: From logos to letterpress!

We have SO MUCH PRETTY for you today my friends… starting off with a beautiful wine country wedding from Edyta Szyszlo!  We are so excited to welcome her to EAD today with Marisa and Tony’s Sonoma, CA wedding - it’s just to die for.  Marisa and Tony are from St. Louis but decided to hold a destination wedding in California and were blessed with a gorgeous April day for their event!

I love this photo of Marisa, because she looks so relaxed and happy to be marrying Tony.

The ceremony was held at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension in Oakland.

The couple then shuttled their guests to the stunning Nicholson Ranch Winery for the reception.  Portraits in a vineyard?  Perfection.

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Our wedding month has arrived! And, overall, I’m feeling cool, calm, and collected.

The last weekend in July was a whirlwind of wedding activities: hair and makeup trials, dress fitting, and meetings with our coordinator, our caterer, and our photographer.

I was definitely reminded why we hired professionals. Each vendor asked questions we hadn’t considered: Who will walk the mothers down the aisle? Who will take the centerpieces at the end of the night?

And offered useful tidbits of advice: Ask someone other than a groomsman to drive the golf cart. Ask a family member to be a liaison to the photographer. Use bottled beer for the cocktail hour and kegs for the reception.

And eased our minds: My hair and makeup will not be overdone. Our photographer will scout the site the day before the wedding. Our coordinator will decorate and display all of our DIY projects.

Whew! I’m glad such details and logistics are now in the hands of our vendors — our very competent vendors.

And now July turns to August. The first weekend of our wedding month will be spent crafting. We still have a lot of projects we’d like to do, but nothing is really essential. The show will go on with or without cocktail napkins and sparklers.

Here’s the list of possible projects (in no particular order):

• Buy mason jars, candles, and ribbon
• Make chalkboard signs for buffet display
• Write welcome note for OOT bags
• Personalize matchboxes and sparklers
• Print escort cards and table numbers
• Attach escort cards and baby photos to clothes line with clothespins
• Make ceremony program fans
• Make barn wood signs for “wedding,” “cocktails,” and, “party”
• Make “Just Married” sign for carriage
• Gocco cocktail napkins
• Print labels for water bottles
• Make favors (this is a BIG one that I’ll tell you all about later)

And here’s my very first inspiration board that incorporates some of these details:

{left to right, top to bottom: wedding sign via Homegrown Wedding; carriage via Martha Stewart Weddings; flowers from Chelsea Elizabeth Photography; boutonniere from The Knot; escort cards from unknown source; glass drink dispensers via For the Love of Brides; red pail from unknown source; invitation suite from author’s personal collection; sparklers via EAD}

How are you other August brides feeling? Did you get any surprise questions at your final meetings? Can you believe the big day is almost here?!