BrooklynBride

12. 06. 2010 Real wedding: Emily + Neill

This wedding is full of beautiful patterns and colors, which made it an immediate eye-catcher for me, and maybe for you as well!  Those bridesmaids dresses are to die for!

I started my planning process knowing that I wanted to do a tent (so as to have a blank canvas to work from) and that I wanted it to be in Baltimore where I am from and where my family resides. This narrowed venues down quickly and so the Evergreen House was chosen within a week of our engagement. The only date they had available when I called was July 10, so we took it. That gave us 11 months to plan.

Neill and I both love LA (don’t think a lot of New Yorkers say that) but we have fond memories of it and so i started pulling photos of LA hotel cabanas. I wanted the style to have a rustic elegance: a relaxed summertime garden atmosphere that hosted a black tie formal dinner and dancing. I also wanted to tap into some English wedding tradition so that those traveling from England felt at home. And,  wow did they ever as it rained down on everyone that day, the only day it rained in the midst of a 60 day Baltimore heat wave. With the evergreen house being yellow, I borrowed that backdrop to start my color scheme. I sent the save the dates out which were letterpressed onto yellow and white cabana stripe fabric

From there, we chose all elements carefully to pose that juxtaposition. Black metal lanterns with chandeliers, silver candelabras with tropical flowers and lemons. Neill, being a chef, helped us execute a formal but friendly dinner consisting of gazpacho with crab, iceberg wedge, and steak frites. grilled vegetables were served family style. A dessert buffet featuring the Baggan Family Mocha Cake recipe. Tables named after English soccer “football” stars. And plenty of booze and fun to go around.

Despite the rain, the day turned out to be one we will all remember for the rest of our lives. As I sat at the dinner table, I marveled at how all the hard work we’d put in had come to life and how I had imagined and hoped for.

Favorite Things: The balls of flowers, the menu, the dessert buffet, the photos, my dress!!!

Advice: Stick to your guns with vendors about what you want and make them follow through on your inspiration, but be open to things changing and be able to go with the flow. Amongst other things, the weekend prior, our priest had emergency surgery and required a substitute after the programs had been printed and assembled. Our Chinese boxes for the favors never arrived, and it RAINED on our wedding day and EVERYTHING was planned outside! The show must go on and it’s not worth getting upset about the small stuff. No one notices anyway.

Vendors:

venue: Evergreen house, Baltimore
Catering: Linwoods
Music: Powerhouse Band
Lighting and dancefloor: Perkins Productions
Flowers and Plants: Mary Ruth Chapin
Linens: Table Toppers (410) 769-9339
Bridesmaids dresses: Thread Social
Bridal Gown: Badgley Mishka C/O Mark Ingram Atelier
Shoes: Stella McCartney
Grooms Tux: Paul Smith
Stationary: printed by Typecast Press, designed by bride, graphic designer 443.695.2051
Calligraphy: Trial by Cupcakes
Photography: Jonathan Canlas Photography

[images from Jonathan Canlas Photography]

11. 22. 2010 Real wedding: Cia + Jamie

Cia and I went to the same college, so it was a fun surprise to see her wedding in my inbox…lovely little details abound, so enjoy!

Cia  and Jamie were married on a beautiful warm fall day in Oakland,  California.  Food was a priority for Cia, she works for the James Beard  Foundation, and they chose Pizzaiolo for their setting.  Besides the  fresh, local tastings, the best part of the day was the bocce court, the  chickens roosting in the coup in the backyard and the very touching and  entertaining speeches.

Photography: Gabriel Harber
Venue and Catering: Pizzaiolo – Oakland, CA
Cake: Kiri Mah of Pizzaiolo
Bride’s Dress: Ulla Maija
Shoes: Kate Spade
Invites: designed by Jake Early
Floral Design: Megan Dempsey of Letter Paper Flower
Event Design and Save the Dates: Jessica Vanderberg of Rose & Virginia
Officiate: Nora Gallagher, Godmother of the Bride
Bride’s Hairpiece: Emersonmade
Hair: Danica Winters of Plum Organic Beauty
Makeup: Alexia Ogle
Rings: The Clay Pot

[images from Gabriel Harber]

11. 22. 2010 Real wedding: Brooke + Jason

After 10 years of dating, Jason and I were engaged on Aug 19th 2009. He proposed on the corner on 79th and 3rd in rush hour traffic. It was very romantic and New York.

Our initial instinct was to get married on a vineyard with an antique feel, but neither the vineyard nor other options were doing it for us, until we found the Metropolitan Building. It WOWED me from the moment I walked in. The space, the details, the furniture, the overall feel made me feel right at home. I knew it was the perfect place for our wedding!!

Many different things were important to us. One of the most important was our vendors.

We fell in love with Kim Sozzi from Creation Music at a previous wedding- we booked her right away. She HAD to be there!!

I did a lot of research for my other vendors. Almost instantaneously, I felt a connection with Spencer from 5 West Studios, and even more importantly fell in love with his work.  His pictures seem to capture the moments in a way no others can! I also loved the videography from 5 West – I cried when I saw a sample video and I didn’t even know the couple!

Melanie from Melarosa did a fabulous job. She was sweet, real, and sincere from the start. Both Spencer and Melanie were able to ‘see’ my vision and understand exactly what I wanted!

We wanted to make sure our guests were happy, well-fed, and, of course, well hydrated! We choose Elegant Affairs and had rave reviews about the food and presentation.

With so many little details we didn’t want to worry about it, so we hired Roberta Shoten from Twist Fresh Events to handle the wedding coordination. We couldn’t have gotten through the wedding without her help!

Once the wedding day came, everything came together perfectly. It was exactly what I had hoped for!

Vendors
Dress: Pnina Tornai
Shoes: Jimmy Choo
Veil: Eileen Villena
Band: Kim Sozzi from Creation Music
Flowers: Melarosa
Food and Decoration: Elegant Affairs
Photography and Videography: 5 West Studios
Planning: Robert Shoten

[images from 5 West Studios]
5 West Studios is a member of Brooklyn Bride’s preferred vendor listings.

11. 08. 2010 Real wedding: Sarah + Reed

This sweet Brooklyn wedding really has the colorful details down pat…congrats Sarah and Reed!

The wedding was completely planned and executed by ourselves and close friends. All the decorations were handmade out of paper that was hand silkscreened with 3 mantras: Love Each Other, Promise Each Other and Celebrate Each Other. We have long been designers and own a local screen printing collective so hand making our wedding was a wonderful project we worked on together. Our closest friend, Ashley Blanch, hand made 15 beautiful pies in place of a wedding cake. The ceremony was at Grand Ferry Park on the East River – so guests had views of the 3 Brooklyn bridges during our ceremony. The reception was at Enid’s – a wonderful space that allowed us to install our wedding in perfect harmony with the existing decor. The bridesmaids and groomsmen chose their dresses and ties based on the paper/print color palette for the decorations. All the guests managed to dress in color as well! We rode a tandem bicycle from the ceremony to the reception as we are both avid bicyclists.

Photography: Jeremy Harris and Sara Heidinger
Cinematography: Daniel Roland Tierney
Event & Floral Decor: Sarah Mead
Event Planning & Design: Sarah Mead
Ceremony: Grand Ferry Park
Reception: Enid’s
Invitations: Sarah Mead
Jewelry: Jené Despain
Shoes: Sechelles
Dress: JCrew
DJ: Paul Manley
Pies: Ashley Blanch

[images from Jeremy Harris + Sara Heidinger]

11. 08. 2010 Real wedding: Youngna + Jacob

Of course you remember Youngna + Jacob’s handkerchief wedding invitations right?  I mean, seriously, how could you forget!  They were stinkin adorable!  Well here’s the wedding for you, fresh off the camera, chock full of sweet little details I’m sure you’ll love….

Venue: We were married at the mountaintop home of a family friend in South Kent, Connecticut, who generously let us use the space. It’s a gorgeous modern farmhouse on a dozen acres that overlooks 70 miles of Catskills when facing West. Finding this great location helped us choose our date; we knew it’d be peak foliage.

Date: Our date was October 10, 2010 — 10/10/10! We chose this because it was the Sunday of a holiday weekend, so we knew we could invite guests to stay for brunch on Monday, but also cause we loved the symmetry of the date and wanted to integrate it into some of the design elements of the wedding. We had 125 guests.

Dress: My dress was the first I tried on and came from Saja in Soho. The designer personally walked me to the tailor to have the dress hemmed and was amazing about getting it to fit just right. My shoes were designed by Rachel Comey. Jacob’s (the groom’s) suit was Paul Smith (came from Barney’s) and his shirt + tie were from J.Crew. His shoes were Duckie Brown for Florsheim.

Hair/makeup: I had my hair/makeup done by a wonderful woman named Frances Sorenson who came up from Brooklyn. This was a huge splurge for me! Originally I was going to have a friend do my hair and makeup (I don’t usually wear any), but knew I’d feel more confident having a professional do it. I loved the loosely, pulled back look she gave me and she was also a calming force as I nervously got ready.

Rings: Our rings were made by Caitlin Mociun, a talented Brooklyn-based textile and jewelry designer: http://www.mociun.com/

Invites/stationery: Our invitations (that you posted about!) were made by our amazingly talented friend, Kelli Anderson. Kelli has more photos and the story behind them here: http://www.kellianderson.com/projects/handkermap.html

Flowers Friends made my bridal bouquet and all the table arrangements. The boutonnieres came from Sprout, a great little floral shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My mom brought a huge bundle of bittersweet as well, from Lakeside Farm in upstate New York to add some color.

Photographer: All these photos were taken by our friend and the talented photographer, Todd France: http://www.toddfrancephoto.com/

Menu: For the wedding we went with a local BBQ spot called Woods Pit BBQ that completely won us over (yes, in Connecticut!) and had ribs, chopped brisket, roast chicken, mac n’ cheese, baked beans and cornbread and then Jacob’s (groom’s) mom made an enormous caesar salad (a family recipe) and I made an Asian slaw salad. Our beer was provided by Peak Organic, a brewery owned by our friend Mike Cadoux. We got wine from Bear Flag (great labels, great wine), which we ordered from Dandelion Wine in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They were SO helpful with letting us taste bottles and were extraordinarily kind throughout the wine decision-making process.

Cake: We didn’t get a traditional wedding cake, but Jacob loves carrot cake, so as a surprise, I had a custom-designed 12″ carrot cake made by Amelia Halverson. She is based in Park Slope, Brooklyn and I’d heard rave reviews about her cakes by a few friends. The carrot cake was frosted with a white chocolate cream cheese icing, and she created the design based on my request for it to be a picture of the two of us in a polaroid on the cake (we are both photographers), and integrate autumnal colors around that. She did a fabulous job and the cake was so delicious! The rest of the dessert table was completely made of up sweets made by friends and relatives. We had: dulce de leche cheesecake bars, pumpkin cupcakes, salted peanut butter brownies, mexican wedding cookies, rocky road bars, Jacob’s grandmother’s recipes cheesecakes and apple pie.

Photobooth: Jacob runs a Brooklyn-based photobooth company called Shootbooth, which we naturally had at the wedding! It’s designed so you feel like you are getting photographed by this antique camera, but then you can get printouts on the spot to take home with you. They do all kinds of custom backgrounds — for ours, I wanted to use the fall colors and so I sewed a series of felt garlands to string up and bought the felt circles on Etsy. You can see a gallery of photos + the video they put together here: http://shootbooth.com/index.php?/galleries/jacob-and-youngna/

Some DIY projects we did:
1. Chuppah: Jacob’s dad went into the woods and found / cut the branches we used as chuppah poles. The fabric on the chuppah was embroidered by my mom and is a modern interpretation of a traditional Korean tapestry including the symbols of clouds, cranes, water and mountains. This was also used in a separate Korean ceremony called a Paebaek that we’d had the day before.

2. Signage: Our friend Dustin John laser-burnished signs saying CEREMONY, 10/TEN/10 –>, WC with arrows into wood, which we placed around the grounds and to help people find the location.

3. Table decor: Our tables were designated by etchings of leaves that my mom made (she is a printmaker) from leaves found at my family home. So, the table names were Oak, Pine, Cherry, Poplar, Maple, Tulip, etc. At each seat, there was also a hand-sewn napkin (all sewn by my mom). Silverware was rolled and tied inside with jute, and a nametag with an illustration to match the leaves was attached.

4. Pumpkins: Our friend Vicki Hendrix did an amazing pumpkin-carving job, carving the 10/TEN/10 logo to make a jack-o-lantern!

5. Pom-pom garlands: We made a canopy of pom poms to hang over the entry-way and also behind the dj booth with multi-colored (in bold fall colors) crepe paper.

6. Food: as mentioned, our friends provided all the desserts aside from the carrot cake. Family, friends and Jacob and myself made all the hors d’oeuvres as well.

7. Guest book: I typed up about 100 different prompts on index cards, which we clothes-pinned to some string and guests could choose one they liked and fill it out. They said things like “One thing I’ll always remember about 10/10/10 is… ” and “My advice for married life is:…” and so on.

[images from Todd France Photography]

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