Wrap Up

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The good news is that five months later we’re still married. The even better news is that I’m finally sitting down to share the details of the wedding. Time really does fly, eh?

Our Venue: Mt. Baker Clubhouse
This was the least expensive venue option we found in Seattle for the number of people we wanted to invite (maximum capacity at the Mt. Baker Clubhouse is 200). It also allowed us to have the DIY wedding we wanted, but still have a beautiful venue that had a roof. (Covered weddings are a must in Seattle.)

The perks to the location of the Mt. Baker Clubhouse were that we went to the park across the street to take all of the photos before the wedding (THANKFULLY it stopped raining for a couple of hours that day because we did not have a plan B.), and we were able to sign the marriage license next door at Mioposto…while drinking a celebratory beer. (The beer obviously wasn’t necessary, but turned out to be exactly what I needed.)

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Fabric Boutonnieres

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First of all, can we talk about what a ridiculous word “boutonniere” is? Want to know how I spelled it the first time? Boutionierre. And I guarantee you wouldn’t have known the difference. I just looked at it 4 times and don’t see how those two words are different.

My point is that I decided to make the boutonnieres for the wedding party. Bridesmaids, groomsmen, the groom, the flower girl, the ring bearer, the father of the groom and my brothers all got one. The mothers of the bride and groom got one put on elastic to wear around their wrist. My logic with this was to have something unique, simple and nice to look at, that wouldn’t distract from anyone’s outfit.

I made different sizes for all of the above people – the bridesmaids got the biggest size, then the men got smaller ones (more masculine you know?), and then the flower girl, ring bearer and moms got the smallest ones.

I started by (being really sketchy and) taking apart a boutonniere that I bought at J.Crew (thanks J.Crew!) in order to scrutinize how they made it, and to use one of the petals as a pattern. If I had purchased all of the boutonnieres, it would have cost me about $200. When I do a quick calculation, I discover that I spent about $14…including the original boutonniere I purchased. Which means if we do one last quick calculation we figure out together that I saved about $186.

Here’s the one I bought at J.Crew.

This is what it looked like after I dissected it.

Here’s a version of the petal I used as a pattern. (Even the biggest size I made ended up smaller than this.)

Aaand here’s the final product.

Subtle, right?

I didn’t include the entire wedding party because I haven’t seen the ones from our photographer yet. This little snippet is courtesy of our friend Mark.

 

Here Comes The Bride

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If you’ve read 5 or more of these wedding blog posts you’ll know that I got a whole lot of inspiration from our dear friend Martha Stewart…and her million or so dear friends she has working for her. (Fun fact: When I was living in New York City I almost worked at Martha Stewart Living. And by that I mean that I interviewed for a job there and did not get it.) What baffles me most about Ms. Stewart is that her whole jail time thing was actually a good move for her career. Little tip for the entrepreneurs out there (LindsayLohan), that is not normal.

Anywho. Thanks to Martha Stewart, I was able to make a cute sign for our flower girl and ring bearer to hold. See the step-by-step tutorial here.

Here’s a photo of Alder and Sienna practicing in (mostly) what they would wear to the wedding. They probably did 46 laps around our apartment. I took a mental note that day – the next time I babysit anyone, I’ll ask them to practice holding a sign for something really, really important. (It gives you time to answer emails and stuff.)

And here they are the day of the wedding.

Understandably, Alder got a bit nervous right before they were going to walk down the aisle. The solution? I gave him a pirate sword from our pile of photo booth props to hold. I may have told him it would make him invisible to all of the guests. All I know is that it worked, and that it was awesome. I haven’t seen any pictures of them walking down the aisle yet, but I’m guessing our photographer will eventually have some to share. What I do have is a photo our friend Mark took right before we all walked down the aisle:

The cutest, right?

Update! Here they are walking down the aisle. Love. it.

Photo courtesy of Char Beck.

Programs

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Remember the Save the Date cards my brother Derek made? Visual:

For some reason when we ordered those (we got them printed at 4by6.com), we ended up with about 150 extra. Waaay more than we were expecting. So rather than spend the money on getting fancy programs printed as well, I just recycled the save the date cards. More work? Yes. Worth it? Yes. I got to cut paper and drink some wine while watching silly movies. Success all around, I’d say.

First, I cut the “Save the Date” text out.

Next, I added the word “program” where “Save the Date” was and adhered decorative paper to the back of the card.

Lastly, I adhered the list of the lovely people in the wedding to the back – on top of the decorative paper.

There are obviously last names on the actual program, I just chose to hide them from the scary people out there on the world wide web.

The cake!

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I can say pretty confidently that we had the best looking wedding cake I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the best tasting. It was exactly what we wanted – simple, square, classic and pretty.

 The details: Three-tier lemon scented white cake with raspberry curd and vanilla bean butter cream frosting. I’m not exactly sure how she did it, but it was definitely executed flawlessly. 

Thanks to my mom for the top two photos, to Mark Velasquez for the remaining photos and of course a big fat THANK YOU to Anne for such a lovely cake.

 

Seattle bridal shower: Part 2

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My third and final bridal shower was absolutely beautiful. (I am in fact writing this after the wedding, but rest assured that it occurred long before October 22nd. I’ve just been a little too preoccupied to put any decent amount of thought into this post.) Steve’s cousins threw it for me at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle. You may recognize the name as it is the hotel the Beatles fished from in the 70′s. Visual:

Present day visual. Minus the fishing pole, add the fancy drink:

What I loved most about this shower was how personal it felt. There were tons of childhood photos of me, quotes I’ve said (“amIrightoramIright?” for example), an apron sewn by my mom for everyone to sign, etc. It all made me very special because it was all about me. Which, when you think about it, doesn’t really happen that often in life.

Birthdays, Eh.
Weddings, You have to share that with the groom.
Funerals, Don’t count.

The bridal showers that have graciously been thrown for me, and this one in particular, have made me feel very lucky and very loved. Which I’m not afraid to say is a very good feeling.

Thank you Megan and Sarah! :)

More table photos!

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Our friend Mark was kind enough to take a whole bunch of photos at our wedding. 645 photos to be exact. Considering this is what he does for a living, Steve and I definitely lucked out in that department. My number one piece of advice when planning a wedding, or just for life in general, is to be friends with or be related to lots of talented people.

It occurred to me today that I should probably add the photos Mark took of the table settings, since I forgot to when writing yesterday’s post. So here they are.

THANK YOU Mark!! You’re the best. :)

The Table

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Here are a couple photos of how the tables looked at the wedding:

(Above photo courtesy of my friend Kelsey.)

(Above photo courtesy of our photographer Char Beck. Who was awesome and we love and who you should use if you need a photographer.)

These are actually the only two photos I’ve seen of the tables, although I’m sure there are more out there. But for now this will have to do for the visual. The components of the table decor was:

1. Second-hand jumbo tea lights and holders from my friend Monica. Read the post about those here.

2. A vintage book (purchased for .50 cents each from the Seattle Public Library Book Sale) for each couple or for each person who came solo. I would say about 10% of the books were given to specific people on purpose, but all the rest were sort of random. Read about those books here and here.

2 a. A coloring book and crayons for each child who came.

3. Each of those books got a book mark (you can see those poking out in the top photo).

4. A stack of three vintage books wrapped in twine.

5. Handmade napkins that I plan on eventually turning into a quilt (and in case anyone is curious, after washing them I only threw away 8 that were stained). Read about those here.

6. Flowers in jars that we borrowed from my mom. A few flowers were taken from Steve’s parents garden and the rest we bought at Pike Place Market for a whopping $75. $75! In wedding talk that may as well be free. And a family friend was kind enough, and talented enough, to arrange the table bouquets as well as the bridesmaids bouquets.

7. Table numbers. I used my trusty X Acto knife and decorative corner punch to make these bad boys. Plus I used sturdy resume paper that I already had so I didn’t actually have to buy anything to complete them.

8. Name cards that told the guests which table they were at. I used the same exact supplies for these as I did for the table numbers. Visual:

I put the cards in stacks of ten so I would have a lot of mini victories as I was working. By this time in the wedding prep, it was definitely mind-over-matter.

About a week before the wedding my mom wrote the guest’s name on the outside and the table number on the inside.

When I break it all down like that it sure seems like a lot of work. Probably because it was. But spread out over a few months, it really didn’t seem like a big deal. Until I got to the name cards about two weeks before the wedding, and then I had the attention span of a potato bug. Wine helped though.

P.S. If anyone knows anyone who knows anyone in the Seattle area who might be able to use jumbo tea lights and holders, 19 table numbers, or some vintage books, please do let me know.

I never

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Ever have to plan another wedding. That’s the mantra that keeps replaying in my head. It was absolutely perfect, I would not change a single thing about it, but I would never do it again. Ever. I see all these stacks of ‘random wedding stuff’ (leftover vintage books, bridal magazines, extra invites, etc) and ‘wedding to-do lists’ around the apartment and I cannot even express my glee that it doesn’t matter any more. It’s over! It was a success! Hallelujah. My plan for the blog now is to break down the big day in small chunks – easier for the reader to digest and easier for me to focus on. I have a ton of advice, tips, what not to do – that sort of thing, just waiting to be regurgitated through the blog and in case there’s anyone out there who could benefit from it I’m going to write about everything probably more than I should.

My brother took this photo before the ceremony actually started. This sort of gives you an idea of how I felt all day – happy, laid back, and despite what one might assume from this photo, completely sober.

(You may remember this post about the photo booth props I made with some friends? This tiny top hat is one of them. Also, this photo booth was generously donated by a friend and her husband who made it and used it at their wedding.)