Broccoli House!

Broccoli House! So cute!

Brock Davis, check out his Flickr

Love it! I always wanted a tree house growing up.

Perfection.

This image sums up a vision of what I want my wedding to feel like:

On Style Me Pretty, photo by
Tyler Metcalfe Photography and Greenleaf Images

I love the woodsy feel, mixed with the vintage photographs in gorgeous old frames.

I am currently rounding up old photos of all our sets of grandparents to display somewhere at the reception (possibly at the table with all the escort cards.

Gorgeous!!!

Adorable Detail

A quick little detail, that made me smile. A couple designs an adorable wedding logo consisting of two raccoons, and has it screenprinted on the inside of the groom's and groomsmen's vests, and engraved into the groom's wedding ring:

Spotted on Green Wedding Shoes, photography by Jodi Miller Photography.

Photo Love

A singular photo. I love the saturated colors in this photo from her hair and her red lips. Plus, their skintone looks amazing and peachy and glowy. So adorable!

Spotted on 100LayerCake, photo by WScottChester.

Superhero Themed Wedding

I friggin' love this wedding. I spotted it a few weeks ago, but have been a bad blogger and haven't yet shared it.

I spotted the wedding on Green Wedding Shoes (which I've really been digging lately), with photography by Jagger Photography.

Things I love about this wedding:

1) The clever cereal bar and names for the cereals (Cocoa Kryptonite, Mr. Freeze Frosted Flakes)

2) The wonderfully bright, cheerful colors.

3) All of the backdrops for their photos. Amazing!!!

Wedding Readings

Lack of posts does not translate to lack of wedding work. Things have really gotten busy around here as we head into the final month before the wedding. I had my first minor wedding freak out (a lot more no's on the RSVP cards than we were anticipating), a frustrating shoe search, and the harried realization that I had nothing to wear for my engagement photos that culminated in a lucky break at a thrift shop with a $12 dress!

Currently on the docket: figuring out the ceremony (readings, vows, etc), figuring out flowers (eeek!).

I am a lover of poetry, but I also wanted wedding readings that weren't cookie cutter. This stems from a long line of wedding gigs in my past. There's only so many times you can hear the Irish blessing (May the road rise to meet you...) and Corinthians (Love is Patient, love is kind...). I personally adore Corinthians, but I don't think of it as a wedding reading. It reminds me more of my grandparents and their commitment to family and loving them.

So I wanted to search around for things that weren't too flowery. I wanted readings that reflected our views on marriage and our commitment to really working hard to maintain our relationship to keep it strong and healthy. Poetry of the "how do I love thee, let me count the ways" variety wasn't really as deep as I wanted. I can make a list all day long about what I love about John.

I don't want to reveal the readings, but I thought I might include some of the gems I found in my search, in case anybody else is in the same boat and looking for some good options. For more, check out this forum post here.

An excerpt from "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway 

At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. 

Love Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda (gotta love Neruda!)

I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER

--Tom Robbins

The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?

i love you much(most beautiful darling) ee cummings

i love you much(most beautiful darling)

more than anyone on the earth and i

like you better than everything in the sky

-sunlight and singing welcome your coming

although winter may be everywhere

with such a silence and such a darkness

noone can quite begin to guess

(except my life)the true time of year-

and if what calls itself a world should have

the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such

sunlight as will leap higher than high

through gayer than gayest someone’s heart at your each

nearerness)everyone certainly would(my

most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love

Untitled (from a book of Ancient Egyptian poetry)

My love is back, let me shout the news!

My arms swing wide to embrace her,

And heart pirouettes in its dark chamber

glad as a fish when the night shades the pool.

You are mine, my love, mine to eternity,

mine from the day you first whispered my name!

Pathways (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Understand, I’ll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when I see the pale
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.

I’ll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream:
You come too.

Confucius trans. Cary F. Baynes

Life leads the thoughtful man on a path of many windings.

Now the course is checked, now it runs straight again.

Here winged thoughts may pour freely forth in words,

There the heavy burden of knowledge must be shut away in silence.

But when two people are at one in their inmost hearts,

They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze.

And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts,

Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids.

To keep your marriage brimming (Ogden Nash)

To keep your marriage brimming,

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong admit it;

Whenever you’re right shut up.

Photo Love

I am so so in love with this photograph that I spotted recently on Green Wedding Shoes:

Photography by Melissa Munding

I love everything about the two photos; the sense of motion, the brightly colored confetti, the soft focus that gently blurs the bride. Gorgeous! Totally steal-worthy.

Want.

This shirt from C.L.E. Clothing Co.

!!!

You should check out the C.L.E. They're pretty awesome. It's nice to see a company that celebrates the city. I love it here, and it always made my heart sink when friends would put Cleveland down, no matter what their reasons were.

So buy a shirt and wear your love of Cleveland on your sleeve!

The Best Proposal Ever

My friend Tyler posted this to my facebook, with the caption "I think John missed a real opportunity here."

...this is the best thing ever.

On Geeksaresexy, via Obvious Winner

Make it so.

Boutonniere Love

I don't know if we will do any boutonnieres, since the groomsmen don't have jackets (it's August, after all). Maybe we'll just do one for John. Regardless, I love this boutonniere, mixing real flowers in with an awesome rose made from vintage sheet-music.

Also, it's simple, thin, and uncomplicated, unlike most boutonnieres I've ever encountered (think back to prom, and how you had to have your mom run inside and find more pins because the giant white rose didn't want to stay put on his jacket lapel).

Spotted on the Logan Cole blog.

O. Em. Gee.

Whaaaaaaaat this is seriously awesome.

I love this. I'm all about cute shots of the wedding rings, but this one really beats all. Since we're planning on S'mores the night before our wedding, I feel like a similar shot might be cool.

Spotted on StyleMePretty, photography by Jennefer Wilson. Kudos!

Sprinkler Engagement Session

Spotted on OnceWed, Photography by Nancy Neil.

So adorable! I hope my own engagement photos are as awesome and full of love.

Formal Invitations Part 3: RSVP Cards

I mentioned RSVPs already in a previous post (and had my French corrected before I made a fool of myself). So I won't rehash it too much. But I did have a second kind of RSVP card, for the jam session. We didn't send one with every invite, just to some of the key players. Hopefully we'll get a good group together and others will let us know if they have some interest in playing with us!

I made two different jam session RSVPs because I just couldn't decide between the two record players. They were both so pretty!

This is what I started with. I initially wanted to just edit out the text and use the book/roses for something in the invite suite, but I couldn't get it to look good.

I also designed two versions of the RSVP; one for single invitees and one for couples. Some people aren't aware of the convention that the names listed on the envelope are all that are invited. If your name is listed singly, than they aren't allowing you to bring a guest. I mentioned this to John, and he said he wasn't aware of that distinction. While some people know this from going to other weddings, others may be like John and unaware that they shouldn't tack on a +1 to their RSVP.

As I mentioned in the invite post, we have a super strict guest limit imposed by our venue. For a friend to bring a guest, an aunt or uncle would have to get axed, so we opted to include only engaged couples and those living together. Basically, we went with examples where we knew both people in the couple well, which in most cases meant they were living together/engaged/had been together for several years so we had gotten to know them anyway. 

Hopefully this won't cause too many issues. It really was an attempt at inclusion, not exclusion: trying to bring together those that know us well and mean the most to us. If we don't know your girlfriend or boyfriend, chances are they won't know many of the other guests either.

I still have doubts. Should I have had a place to put a number on the multiple invites? How will people let me know if only one of them is coming? I know it will be fine and I can always just call somebody if I am confused, but I suppose a little stress about the RSVPs is normal, right? I just want to get a clear sense of who will be there!

Formal Invitations Part 2: Directions to Mohican

My dad is the one who suggested we include directions to Mohican in the invitation. I figured most people have GPS in their cars now and can punch in the address, but I also know that some of the roads are a little confusing right as you get close to the park, so I decided to go for it.

I wanted something that was a similar shape and would pair well with my unusual-shaped invites:

Perfect! But the pink had to go. Ugh.

I ultimately went with the peach/mint combo. From there the directions cards came together much more easily than the invites. Since I didn't have a ton of room to put turn-by-turn directions, I uploaded a more thorough version to the website for further reference. Or, people can input the address into their GPS and use our directions more as a guide.

Formal Invitations Part 1

I wasn't blogging much in the last two weeks, because I was in crunch time to get my invites finished and sent. Round 1 is out, and I'm already receiving enthusiastic responses back (hooray!). Round 2 will go out if/when we get some people declining. There were so many people we loved and wanted to include, but we have really strict limitations on space for our venue, and are held fast to exactly 150 invitees. I hope they understand that they aren't necessarily second-fiddle in our eyes, we just have giant families!

Enough explanation, on to the main event!

As you may or may not know from my other posts, I started with vintage soap and perfume labels, edited out text, messed with color, and added my own text back in. They were a labor of love. For the invite itself, I was drawn to this label in particular:

From there, I tweaked the heck out of the colors, until I achieved something like this:

But then, of course, was the issue of wording. I knew I wanted the top to say "Together with our Families" since this is a family effort, and I knew I didn't want proper titles or middle names to imply our casual setting. From there, I came up with the following wording:

For the curious, I alternated Jugend WF and Lullaby. The fancy type for our names and the Shakespeare quote are KellyAnn Gothic. 

The quote is from Henry VI (Act 4, Scene 6) by Shakespeare. I enjoy how the quote seems to imply a wedding ceremony if you take it out of context (it's about politics and the fate of the government). So then the tough part was trying to place it all in the invites to create a pleasing aesthetic.

Looked too sparse in the orange middle section.

Better, but I missed having the Shakespeare in there.

It ended up coming down to the two above, I went with the second one, because I decided we needed to have the address for Mohican on there and not just on the directions card. I had to cut the line "Dinner, a jam session, and merriment to follow." But oh well. You win some, you lose some. I could have spent many more hours tweaking everything, but I'm quite happy with how they turned out.

Just so you know...

This picture is how I envision our Friday night prewedding S'mores fest to feel:

Seen on Ruffled, photography by Erica Ann

Jeans, marshmallows, wood fire. I also adore her fabulous oxford heels. I am a sucker for cute oxfords. They have such an old school academic/librarian look to them.

John and I need to figure out what we're going to be doing for our engagement shoot...what to wear, where to go. I'm so uncertain because I've seen so many shoots that are lame (too many random props). I'll have to dig through the files and see what inspires us.

Bourbon Tasting

I saw this wonderfully styled small batch bourbon bar here, and was instantly smitten with the pretty crystal decanters and vintage glassware.

Not exactly something I'd do for a wedding, but would be fun for a more informal, cocktail-style party with a few bourbon-aficionado friends. 

All photos from here, photography by A Bryan Photo.

Ceremony vs. Reception Dresses

I don't typically believe in the idea of two dresses. I think it's extravagant to spend so lavishly on two gowns. And, I personally want to stay in my wedding dress as long as possible. As in, I would wear it 24/7 if I could. That's the kind of dress love you don't cheat on by bringing another dress into the picture.

That said, I love this bride's reception dress, a mint green, embroidered Roberto Cavalli. It's stunning!

Seen on StyleMePretty, Photography by John & Joseph Photography

I would just get married in that! Wow!

Photo Love

Joshua Behan photography, spotted on StyleMePretty

I love this shot. I've seen a few great pics of a bride on a couch, looking off to the side. I love this pose, and I love this particular photo for the greens and blues coming from the window.

Lovely Photo of the Day

Love the dress, the action shot, the smiling faces all around. What a great shot!

Spotted on Snippet & Ink, by R. Wagner Photography