Real Wedding: Merryl + Neil’s Green Wedding

A gorgeous + beautiful organic wedding to share with you all today! I love how fun the entire day looks and wait until you see Merryl’s gorgeous dress! Big congrats to Merryl + Neil and thanks to Michele M. Waite for sharing her photos with us. Some details into the day from Merryl.

“I was inspired by the natural beauty of the San Juan Islands where we had our wedding. I was really passionate about my flowers + my dress. I am not a very decisive person nor am I a planner, but something came over me during the planning process and I had so much fun and it was effortless to inspire the day with things that made the day so true to us. I wanted things that were local + resourceful + natural. Our flowers were gathered from local farms, my dress was made out of reused materials, our food was from local, organic gardens, we had fresh wild-caught salmon, our invitations were on 100% recycled material.”

How gorgeous is Merryl’s Wai-Ching Dress??! Just stunning. You may recognize the designer from this post I wrote a year ago. :)

Most memorable moment of your wedding day? Do I have to choose just one???! Neil and I took 10 minutes after the ceremony and snuck down to this little cove below the cliff we were married on, sat on some drift wood and had a very calm moment to ourselves. We stared out at the San Juan Islands and took it all in. We cherish that time because it was the only private time we had the whole day. I really recommend that to everyone. My sister sang a song & played her guitar as our wedding party walked down the aisle. It was so beautiful, personal and really added to the character of our ceremony. Oh, and I cannot forget the little bike riding session in my dress that scared everyone half to death thinking I was going to ride off the bluff. I was just having so much fun and being a ridiculously, extremely happy bride!!!

Any advice for those planning now? Have fun with it. It shouldn’t be stressful if you really keep in mind what it is you’re planning. Ask for help. Be passionate. Stay organized (that helps with the no stress part). Get inspired. Stay true to who you are when making decisions. Stay within your means. Have people in your wedding that are easy, not negative, not dramatic. Get creative. Do a wedding art project with your bridesmaids. Splurge on a few things. There will absolutely, without a doubt, be bumps in the road so be prepared to accept them, adapt and move forward. Cherish every moment. Get a good photographer! :)

We made a weekend adventure out of our wedding. We invited everyone to Doe Bay for Friday & Saturday night. We had a dessert social and had everyone who wanted to, paint a square on the dance floor we built earlier that day. It was a good way to get friends & family together the night before and be a part of a fun, artsy activity so that people could get to know each other before the big day. Plus then we had a sweet dance floor for the party!

Vendors
Venue: Doe Bay Resort, Orcas Island, WA
Photographer: Michele M. Waite – you can see more from the wedding here on her blog.
Wedding Dress: created for me by Chrissy Wai Ching modified from her Zolotova dress. She is located in Pioneer Square in Seattle. It was amazing!!!
Hair + Makeup: I had my hair done on Thursday at Honey Salon in Bellingham and she did such an amazing job that I didn’t do a thing to it but stick a succulent in it on Saturday! A friend from work did my bridesmaid’s hair. One of my bridesmaid’s, Stefani, did our make-up.
Shoes: I wore a pair of wedges that I’ve had for years. The girls had cute, dark orange heels from Urban Outfitters.
Bridesmaid Dress: Anthropologie
Hairpieces: I wore a veil borrowed from my friend who did our flowers. She was married at Doe Bay 6 years earlier.
Groom Suit: Calvin Klein, Men’s Warehouse
Floral Design: Katie Cassidy, family friend, gathered flowers and succulents from local farms and friend’s gardens.
Invitations/Paper Goods: We got our save the dates from minted.com and our wedding invitations from an eco-friendly site/company, forever fiances.
Cake: Red Rabbit Farm on Orcas Island
Music: Malcolm Oliver and several members of his different bands. He is from Trinidad and has been playing Reggae for years & years. He was a guidance counselor to a lot of the boys growing up.
Catering: Doe Bay Resort did all of the food and it was incredible. They grow the greens and most of the vegetables in their own garden, get potatoes from a farm down the road, the ice cream from Lopez Island, etc. Neil (the groom) caught all of the salmon for the wedding on a fishing trip in Canada the month prior.