A wedding to remember

My favorite wedding picture

 This week I celebrated my tenth wedding anniversary! As I reminisce of my wedding and the planning that went into it, I think fondly about the excitement I found in researching and sourcing the details.  I guess it was my first Celebration to plan, as it probably is for most young brides.  This was before every product you can imagine was on the internet, I actually had to buy books and magazines to find inspiration.  Most of mine came from Martha Stewart Weddings, which I still adore today.  Theknot.com had just launched and I was chosen to receive one of their planning kits in the mail.  I filled it with clippings, articles and brochures that I pulled or found at bridal shops.  I made a real scrapbook of things that I liked, as the digital inspiration boards that anyone can do today was only done by graphic designers in the magazines. I still have all of those scrapbooks and keepsakes but not in a location that I can pull them out and look through today. 

 So I thought it would be a fantastic idea to recreate my wedding dreams, ten years later, in the medium I would do today.  Some of the pictures I found online are similar to what I choose & some are the same item (thank goodness MS website has archives!) Overall this is the feeling of my wedding I created ten years ago at the tender age of twenty!

For my dress I was smitten with ballerinas and a favorite picture of Marilyn Monroe.  Mine had to be a tulle ball gown and the bigger the better!  Madonna had just worn this tiara to wed Guy and I sourced one nearly identical for myself.  Our color started as a dark purple but since it was a spring outdoor wedding I lightened it to lilac.  My bridesmaids wore a dress of organza overlay with a satin sash and carried my favorite flower, the hydrangea.  My hand tied bouquet was made of sweet peas, purple tulips and white roses.  Jacob and his groomsmen wore white stephanotis.  Many of our decorations were in a spherical shape such as the paper lanterns that hung from the trees over the reception tables, the vases filled with hydrangea and the topiaries that were scattered about. We were married in our home town, on the front steps of Elm Springs, an Antebellum home built in 1837 and our reception was also in the home and on the property.  For favors, we discovered candied violets to order from France in a MS Weddings issue, they were packaged in a gift box with a purple ribbon.  This is our invatation, it is square vellum with silver dots and silver envelope lining.  My cake was also out of a MS Weddings issue and the baker did a fabulous job!  It looked exactly like this!  We did a sparkler farewell and by luck a photo was captured that has been our most favorite from the start.  My wedding portrait was done a few days before the wedding, with a photographer that has been photographing Jacob’s family for more than 50 years!  This black and white proof is now a full oiled portrait on my wall and it is breathtakingly romantic! (you can see  the portrait on my living room gallery wall here).