Today while drinking a cup of Intelligentsia coffee, Chicago’s own, my mind wandered into musings about our wedding and how much I LOVED it! Since I have shared some reflections here on the spiritual journey of my new marriage, and because I didn’t want to indulge in shameless self-publicism about my aesthetic choices immediately after the fact, I’ve not shared many details about it. But today I’m in the mood to shamelessly share. I think back to the hard work and the things that worked out just how I wanted them to in the midst of a lot of loose ends and stress. That thought leads me straight to all the family and friends who also did so much work and were committed to a festive, stress free celebration of our marriage… So on to some details that I loved!
– Finding Intelligentsia coffee IN Santa Barbara AT Crushcakes, the cupcake place we planned to have provide dessert anyway. They even had these coffee cups in keeping with our yellow, gray and bright colors themed palette.
– Doing flowers myself (aka with bridesmaids) in the garage of friends’ house. We ordered white and yellow ranunculus, white, orange and red gerber daises and hypericum berries from online wholesale distributors. I was warned that the ranunculus would be finicky, and indeed they were- hardly any of the yellow ones were usable by the time we did the arrangements. Some white ones opened and I tried to make the best of them, but we still called upon some last minute back up grocery store roses. We even used the flowers that broke in the arranging process as part of the cake topper along with monogrammed letters from Michaels that I painted myself. So cheap and simple! My best guess is that we saved close to 70% on flowers.
– For the favors, a candy buffet. Ordered lots of candy online in bulk and used many pieces from my mom’s china cabinet for display. We found these awesome plastic display stands at a department store in Bakersfield that was liquidating all their stuff in the weeks before the wedding- I believe they came out to 20 cents a pieces or something. People seemed to love the candy buffet- everyone got to scoop their own variety into small organza bags to take home. Joel and I almost forgot to get some for ourselves! I’ll always remember driving to LA the night of the wedding, enjoying sour peaches in the first happy hours of marriage 🙂– We didn’t do seating assignments, as we wanted a more mingle friendly environment, so I typed out and formatted quotes about love from many of our favorite authors to serves as ‘table names’. Backed with color coordinating paper from Michaels (are you noticing a theme?… I made about 50 trips to the Michaels in Bakersfield!), propped against glass containers filled with lemons and oranges, we had great centerpieces!
– My good friend Katie Pensak made us AWESOME professionally designed covers for DIY programs to match our invitations, also watercolored and designed by her. I had them printed and folded at Staples and we spent an evening tying ribbon for the binding. Katie also transformed an engagement photo of us into a coloring sheet for the kids. I refused to believe that DIY print materials would have to look cheap, but to give credit where credit is due, I had some amazingly talented help!
– I made my hair pieces myself with a flower headband from Forever 21 ($3.50) that had a ivory flower with sequins on it, just like my dress. I spent $20 on my veil at Davids Bridal by getting the most basic one. Then I bought a variety of beads and feathers and some glue and went to work. This might be the one detail I am most proud of! I was dying for a custom hairpiece and got very close to spending $150 to have one made.
– A delicious rehearsal dinner outside on the patio at La Playa Azul set the stage with delicious Mexican food in a very ‘Santa Barbara’ atmosphere. It was awesome!
– A gorgeous day for an outside wedding in a gorgeous place that I love so much. There are so many more small things that made the day just what I imagined. Joel and I are still so overwhelmed, 8 months later, when thinking about how family and friends made the day SO special. We are blessed.