Unless otherwise noted, all photos are by Simply Jessie.
On Friday I shared a bit of our wedding day with you and today I am going to share some of the details. Since we had a celebration with under 30 people, there really wasn't any nitty gritty details to deal with. (I was also trying not to have those in order to keep myself sane.) There are some aspects I thought you would be interested in, and perhaps even helpful for brides-to-be, like splitting it up into two parties or reusing decor/using things you already own.
This last bit really helped make the day more ours, since we used things that are part of our everyday life. It also helped get across the feeling we were trying to create of just having a bunch of people over at our house for a celebration. (Which, if our apartment was big enough, we would have definitely gone that route.)
Anywho, onto the details!
Donovan made a stamp garland to put on our Key Lime Wedding Pie that has our initials on it. Neither of us are a fond of cake, but adore pie, especially of the key lime variety. We got it from Twisted Baker in Old Town. (I brought that cake stand from home!)
Photo by Isabel Gonzalez
For our wedding party the following weekend, I made Mad Libs in lieu of a guest book. I got the idea from a design blog, unfortunately, I can't remember which (so don't think me unique or smart). For the ceremony, we had our guest sign a marriage certificate (Quaker Wedding style) instead of a guest book.
The wedding favors were custom hankies tucked into the program, which was left on the chairs in the ceremony room. For the hankies, I printed my design through Spoonflower (very good work) and had Elide do the cutting and sewing-up for me (thanks a million lady!). Instead of a veil I got millinery veiling, bunched it up, and pinned it into my hair-do. A little hint of vintage without being glaringly so.
We reused the bouquets as center pieces at the dinner in the restaurant. They were done by Cattails in Wicker Park. She did amazing work. I simply told her what color flowers I wanted and to use what was freshest that week.
Photo by me. More info on what went into this decoration here.
All the decorations from the ceremony were reused in the dinner and at the party the following week. Beyond the flowers, the main decorations were dried orchid blooms plopped on top of water beads that had one of those electric submersible candles inside of them. The ceremony spot didn't allow open flames or things attached to the wall, so this was the way I got around that.
The vases that held the beads and blooms are actually candle jars that have lids. I'm planning on reusing them for holiday gifts by filling them with homemade candy and the like. The lids also allowed for easy transport and re-usability through the different parties.
Invites design & photos by me. More shots here.
I designed all the paper items (invites, menus, escort cards). I based our design off of Louis Sullivan's ironwork, specifically a stairway rail he did for the Chicago Stock Exchange Building. He was a Chicago Prairie Style architect, and since we fell in love in Chicago (and love the city itself), I wanted to echo that in our invites. I always stop by and look at the Sullivan items at the Art Institute when ever I go.
For dinner music we brought our radio from home and plugged in an iPod (with a long long playlist) and had board/card games for entertainment. We also used an old post box I scored from Ebay for the cards/gifts, which I now use at LWA letter socials and at craft fairs (yay, double duty!).
Between our friends/family gifting us services and using things we already owned, we saved money on certain aspects of the day, which allowed us to splurge on other things that were more important to us. It was an interesting balance between the two, but I think it worked out to create a comfortable day that was very much us.
Whew, so there was a recap of our wedding! I hope you all enjoyed looking at the photos and reading my little narration. At the end of this post is a list of the vendors I used because we had some great vendors.
View more about our wedding here or check out the story on my dress here.
Ceremony/Dinner
Flowers from Cattails
Suit rental from Monitor Formal
Hair & Make-up by Morgan Blaul
Dress by Dame Couture.
Train design by Nicole Crock.
Pie from Twisted Baker
Photography by Simply Jessie.
Car rental from Classic Chassis
Day-of-Coordinator from Honey Bee Weddings*
Ceremony at Peninsula Hotel (Since we knew we couldn't do our honeymoon until next year, we had a micro one by splurging on a hotel room for the night and having our ceremony there!)
Space & Food at Bistrot Margot
Party
Hair bling (tiny starlette sparkler) by Giant Dwarf
Space & Food at Uncommon Ground at Devon
Music by Billy Kalb
Photos by Isabel Gonzalez
Dress from Anthropologie (bought it last year - it was the dress I was wearing when he proposed!)
*If you don't know thing one about wedding stuff and/or hate organizing things, get a day-of coordinator. They do a lot more than just plan on the actual day of the wedding, and it was such a help to have that person around while we planned. This is the one thing I was adamant about having, even with such a small party, because I didn't want to have to think or worry on that day. (I also fill both categories above of knowing crap-all about weddings and disliking organizing *events*.) I just wanted to say YES, drink, and hold on to my new husband. Mission accomplished.
