Mint

After making so many inspiration boards for our wedding (many of which I couldn’t share here because I did such a bad job remembering where I found the photos!), I thought I might as well make a couple out of our own wedding photos. I’m not quite sure why I wanted to do this, other than it was really kind of fun. And since inspiration boards were where the wedding planning all started, it seemed fitting that that’s how I should end it, too.

It is a little bittersweet to be done with our wedding planning. Despite all the tears (oh yes, there were tears) it was a lot of fun and was the biggest project we’ve pulled off yet!

As soon as I finish writing it, I’m going to have a “wedding graduate” post for A Practical Wedding. If there were two things that were most important about our wedding planning, it was that we only spent time and money on things we enjoyed, and practicality was a major priority. I’ll leave it at that for now, and I’ll let you know when my “two cents” are up on APW.

Have a great weekend!

[photos all taken by either harry taylor, amy jones, or myself]

Wedding quick links:

• Save the dates

• Invitations

• Rehearsal dinner invitations

• Bridal shower invitations

• Programs & direction cards

• Guest book

• Pew Cards (and here)

• Birdseed bags (with template)

• Flowers

• Dress, jewelry & veil

• Getting organized (with download)

• Paper & printing

• Tearing paper & gocco tips

• Our photographer

• All wedding posts

We’ve come to the end of the evening!

We ate cake…

We danced to motown and funk…

we took a few more photos outside…

and then it was time to go…

And we slept for about a week!

Thanks for reading Mint, and for all your nice comments and emails about our wedding! Harry Taylor took all these photos, and he would be great for your wedding, too : )

Tomorrow I’ll have one final wedding recap post (I’m excited about that one!), and then normal, mostly non-wedding posting will resume on Monday. Assuming I remember how… haha.

To see all of our wedding posts on one page, please visit here.

We were so lucky with our reception location! It was absolutely gorgeous, and like I mentioned before, required very little in the way of decoration. With the flowers, luminaries, lanterns, and ferns it was just right.

Our guests arrived at the reception around 6pm, so there was a couple hours of daylight to enjoy the beach view.

Our caterer was really attentive to Brendan and me. In other words, we actually got to eat! For the appetizers and dinner, they prepared plates for us so that we could sample a little bit of everything.

I am a big flower person, but we just couldn’t afford to have flowers all over the place! My mother-in-law bought ferns, blue hydrangeas, and white roses for the rehearsal dinner from Costco, and the next day we brought them to the reception. Our florist added colorful roses and tulips to make them fit in with her arrangements. It was a wonderful way to have more flowers without spending much more money!

You probably noticed that there were lots of rocking chairs… They were another big plus of our reception location. Having rocking chairs and benches meant that we didn’t need to have tables (which meant fewer rentals and centerpieces). Instead, people ate on their laps, sat with whomever they pleased, and mingled while they ate. Everyone loved it! I was worried that some of our guests (especially the older ones) might not be comfortable eating on their laps, so we set up and reserved a few tables (above).

We rented burlap runners for the reserved tables (which ended up being even cheaper than buying burlap fabric), and all of the flower arrangements from the florist were in mason jars that I bought at the grocery store. Our florist kept the gold rim around the edge and tied twine and ribbon around the top of the jars, which I thought was so cute.

We also had a few cocktail tables for people to eat and drink around. They had burlap sashes, tied in a bow at the middle.

A few more photos coming this afternoon!

(Photos are by Harry Taylor, unless otherwise noted. To see all the posts on our wedding, please visit this page.)

When we arrived at the reception, Brendan and I went straight down to the beach with our photographer. We did a quick photo session, and the pictures we got were some of my favorites from the whole day.

All photos by Harry Taylor.

(To see all the posts on our wedding, visit this page.)

Wedding dress shopping was lots of fun, but also hard! I felt like I was playing dress-up in many of the gorgeous bridal gowns I tried on. I didn’t want something over-the-top sexy, but I didn’t want to feel girlish either and it couldn’t be too fancy. I went for a Nicole Miller gown, and I absolutely loved it. The fact that it was a little untraditional suit me perfectly, and the off-white, greyish color looked better with my super-fair skin than most other wedding dresses. It was on the casual side, which went well with the feel of our reception. Above all, it was the most comfortable dress I tried on! You can find used versions of my dress for sale here.

I also loved my bouquet. I asked our florist to make something casual and slightly imperfect, that looked like it was picked from someone’s backyard. She chose lots of greenery, hydrangeas, white roses, and cottage flower.

The bracelet I wore was a birthday & wedding present from Brendan. Even though he hadn’t seen my dress, he managed to pick the perfect accessory. Once I had the bracelet, I shopped around for a necklace to match and found the perfect thing at Nordstrom. I wore my great-grandmother’s earrings.

I bought grey ballet flats from J.Crew but they ended up being really uncomfortable and I took them off immediately after the ceremony. This is strange, but I don’t remember what shoes I wore at the reception! (I guess some details just don’t matter in the end…)

I’ve already talked a little about my veil. It was a beautiful, long, lace-edged veil that has been in my family for generations. More photos coming this afternoon!

(Photos copyright Harry Taylor unless noted. To see all posts on our wedding, please visit this page.)

We decided to have a traditional ceremony, held in a beautiful old church my family has attended for a long time. Here are our programs:

The junior bridesmaid (above photo) and flower girl dresses were made by their grandmother, from the same blue silk as the groomsmen’s ties. Here are our direction cards in action:

Having a string quartet was sentimental for me and my mom. It was wonderful to listen to during the ceremony and as our guests found their seats.

And then we were married! The ceremony flew by… and we both had huge smiles the entire time.

Here is our wedding party, waiting outside for us after the ceremony for the birdseed toss:

The birdseed toss was so much fun, and this photo ended up being one of my favorites!

Above is our getaway car, “Ms. Molly,” waiting for us before the ceremony. You might remember our initial getaway car, but unfortunately that one had some repair problems at the last second! Poor Volvo! We were lucky to find Ms. Molly, who drove us from the church to the reception, and from the reception to the hotel, for a $100 donation to Canine Companions.

(Photos by Harry Taylor, unless otherwise noted. To see all the posts on our wedding, visit this page.)

Our wonderful photographer was Harry Taylor. He did a beautiful job, capturing the humor and happiness of our wedding day in photojournalistic style. He used digital cameras, holgas, and even did a tintype session with us the day after! Unless otherwise noted, all the photos are copyright Harry Taylor.

My bridesmaids and I got ready at the church. A friend did my hair, and my makeup and the bridesmaids’ hair and makeup was a DIY job. Here I am painting my nails at the last minute:

Our florist was a family friend, who did a beautiful job with all of the flowers at our wedding. The boutonnieres looked great with the groomsmen’s outfits, and the burlap tie around them fit in perfectly with our casual vibe. In choosing the groomsmen’s clothing, we knew we didn’t want tuxes (too formal) and the cost of renting suits was too expensive and the cuts weren’t flattering. We found grey suits from S&K Menswear for $120 and asked the guys to wear their own white shirts. The groomsmen were all happy to have something they could keep and wear again! I bought the silk fabric for the ties and had them made by a local tailor, which was completely affordable and made a nice gift. The ushers wore khakis, white shirts, and the pale aqua ties. We also used the silk fabric to make dresses for the flower girls.

Brendan wanted to buy a really nice suit for himself to wear, so he wore a darker, 3-piece grey suit from Banana Republic. Sharp!

I loved wearing my veil. I bucked the short veil and birdcage trends, and wore a cathedral-length, antique family veil. The combination of the antique, traditional veil with my more modern dress was just right.

Finding the bridesmaid dresses was one of the harder parts of planning, because I was so picky about price and trying to find a dress that would look good on many different people! It’s also hard to find spring dresses in the winter, which was when we were doing most of our planning. I hounded sites like Anthropologie, J.Crew, and Nordstrom. We ended up choosing grey dresses from J.Crew. They came in strapless and v-neck, so everyone chose their own style, shoes, and jewelry.

I loved the pinks, oranges, yellows and greens of the bouquets against the grey dresses! You can’t see it in this photo, but they all included a bright yellow tulip. My bouquet was all white, but more on that tomorrow.

And here are the groomsmen waiting in the church…

which brings us to the end of the pre-wedding photos. More this afternoon!

…………

(Photos by Harry Taylor, unless otherwise noted. To see all the posts on our wedding, please visit this page.)