Guestbook

I have seen so many brilliant and beautiful ideas for a wedding guestbook over the past year. For such a small details it's amazing to see the creativity of various brides in order to have unique keepsake from the wedding.

I knew a few things from the beginning; I have a hard time at weddings knowing what to write to the happy couple. Especially before I was married, it felt strange to be giving a couple marriage advice. Cliches like "Don't go to sleep angry" are used over and over again, and I always want to write something that will make them smile.

My personal solution was to give our guests prompts. The cards all had questions printed on them, from the generic (give us your advice for a happy home...) to the silly (draw a picture of us on our wedding day). I figured that prompts would help spur creative and entertaining responses.

The results? A decent amount of responses. Some that made us laugh, others that made us smile. All were thoughtfully written and such fun mememtos to look through in the days following the wedding.

The blog post

I had originally planned on submitting my wedding photos to the wedding blogs since I was so besotted with my photos, but I realized that I could tell a similar story on my own terms (and without our day being made super public). So here is my wedding blog-style post, with some of my favorite shots of the day. I grouped images by theme and color, so after all that painstaking work selecting them out, I think I'll just let the images do all the talking!

All photos by TooMuchAwesomeness:[http://www.toomuchawesomeness.com/danaandjohn copyright 2011 Kenneth Clunk]

 

A Wedding Story

My wedding was over a year ago now (hooray!), but I still cannot stop looking through the photos. They're absolutely breathtaking. One of the first albums I compiled consisted of detail shots taken throughout the day. I love how the stunning photos of these objects tell a certain story of the process of planning the wedding, so I wanted to share that story in photos with you.

I collected several vintage books to use for various things. Our officiant tucked the service into this book and read from it during the ceremony.

My shoes. I searched and searched for the perfect vintage-style teal shoes to use as my something blue, but eventually fell for this Seychelles pair. I thought they went beautifully with my dress and had some vintage-inspired details, from the peep toe to the teardrop cutouts and the gold trim.

My dress was by Jim Hjelm. It has a layer of champagne-silk underneath a soft, vintage-inspired all-over cotton lace from the bodice to the small train.

A close up of the incredibly detailed lace that was the apple of my eye.

Stunning at any angle. I love my dress.

My something old on one of our ceremony programs. The necklace was the same one my mother wore on her wedding day, and she believes it may have belonged to my Great Aunt originally. It has beautiful ivory pearls and crystals on a delicate silver chain.

I made earrings to match the necklace. I originally found those earring backs in a vintage store, but with gaudy pink crystals hanging from them. I replaced the pink ones with beveled swarovski crystals and now they look like a complete set with the necklace.

The earrings on. The bottom of the crystal was beveled and caught the light beautifully.

Our wedding bands in their "ring pillow;" a hollowed-out vintage book with a ring box placed inside that had a teal ribbon to tie the rings on to.

The ring-bearer book was called "Their Wedding Journey." I tried reading it before destroying it, but found it to be exceptionally boring. So I didn't mind cutting into it.

Our wedding rings. John's ring is sterling silver and mine is 18k white gold.

John's wedding band read "We will sail pathless and wild seas," which is a quote from Song of the Open Road, which we used for our vows and for the ring-exchange during the ceremony.

I carried my grandparents with me down the aisle in vintage lockets wrapped around my bouquet, since none of them could be with me on my wedding day.

John and his groomsmen all wore teal bow ties.

...and suspenders!

In lieu of writing our own vows to be read during the ceremony (since we used the Walt Whitman poem), we wrote letters to each other instead. We intended to read them aloud at the rehearsal dinner, but were so caught up in the fun that we forgot. So we sent them to each other the morning of the wedding as we were getting ready.

Our letters to each other.

The garter, handmade by my mother-in-law and I. We gathered champagne colored tulle onto elastic, then tea stained the applique, tinted it with watercolors and hand-sewed swarovski crystal bicones and champagne seed beeds onto it before attaching it to the rest of the garter.

It had such a nice sparkle.

My bouquet all dressed up with a swatch of lace from my Grandmother's collection and two vintage lockets that held photos of my grandparents.

The bouquet consisted of astilbe, peach cabbage roses, dahlias, and cream roses. Not only was it beautiful, it smelled wonderful; delicate and sweet.

The bouquet.

The lockets around my bouquet and the vintage lace.

The bridesmaids' bouquets consisted of purple alstroemeria with variegated pitt, wrapped in champagne floral lace.

The programs, whose design was taken from a vintage perfume label. I collected these antique images for months, taught myself photoshop, and spent hours on the invitations, the RSVP cards, the seating cards, and all the other paper goods for the wedding.

I was so in love with that Ceremony graphic, found on an antique page of wedding announcements. 

A program, nestled in a vintage handkerchief.

The program basket was a vintage suitcase, filled with vintage handkerchiefs.

I fell in love with my green and white striped twine and miniature clothespins, and tried to find all sorts of uses for them throughout the decor. 

The seating chart at the reception was similar to the program basket; a vintage suitcase filled with handkerchiefs and the seating cards hanging from green and white twine.

The dessert table was decorated with vintage cake toppers. This one was from John's parents!

The world's most perfect wedding cake from a local bakery. A grand total of $16.75 for one of the best cakes I've ever eaten! The rest of the dessert table was filled with homemade cookies for guests to snack on throughout the night.

The dessert table label (with a bride and groom cutting a cake, of course).

Our mini-collection of vintage cake toppers collected from family members and vintage shops.

My favorite cake topper, found in a vintage shop. I loved the real lace on her veil and the detailing on the boutonniere and bouquet.