Then what to my wondering eyes should appear! But the new Crate and Barrel Spring catalog.

I was flipping through the pages and stumbled upon this (and audibly gasped):

The same exact color palette that I am going to use for the office! Apparently I am ahead of the trends!

Love the fabric on that chair!!! Way out of the budget, though

In other office news, I picked up some paint swatches from the Home Depot tonight. They are now hanging on one of the office walls so I can check them out in different lighting situations. I also decided on a rug. I went with this one from Overstock (my go-to source for great quality, affordable rugs):

I am having a little case of buyer’s remorse. I’m slightly worried that it won’t be large enough, and I saw another rug on their site that I hadn’t seen before (and might like better)! I guess I will have to see how I feel about it when it arrives, which should be soon. That’s another great thing about Overstock – super cheap and fast shipping!

This is our Tears of Joy basket. The idea was to give everyone something to dry their tears and also keep as a memento of our wedding. I originally saw this on blog somewhere and have yet to be able to locate it since, but I thought it was the cutest idea. I purchased the basket at a thrift store for cheap and collected the hankies on eBay. After thoroughly washing and ironing each one, I displayed them in the basket with a sign that read: “As a memento of the day and for tears of joy (if any), you may take (and keep!) a vintage hankie.”

Instead of a traditional guest book, we decide to do ‘Recipes for Love’. I purchased a vintage recipe box along with vintage recipe dividers (in the original packaging!) on Etsy. I painted the box white and gave it a distressed treatment and added a blue knob to the lid from Anthropologie. I also added the silver label holder and slipped a little piece of paper in that said ‘recipes for love’.

The hand made sign next to the guest book read: “In lieu of a traditional guest book, we ask that you leave us a note, thought, drawing or recipe (for food or love) on an index card for us to file in our recipe box. Next to the guest book was a mason jar full of pencils that I covered in coordinating scrapbooking paper.

A copy of Edward Monkton’s A Lovely Love Story (which was read in the closing of our ceremony), was placed on a table inside the barn for people to look at if they chose to. It now has an honored place on our bookshelf. I just love this story – so simple and touching!

I cut the escort cards out of Kraft paper and glued the ivory nameplates on top. They were then attached to the frames I made (details here) using tiny clothespins. The cool thing about this project is that I am now using one of these in our bedroom as a decorative jewelry organizer, and it looks awesome!

Here are all three of the boards together in front of the barn, untouched.

For the card box, I borrowed my mother-in-law’s vintage milk crate from White’s Dairy Farm. I covered a piece of foamboard with leftover fabric from the escort boards to cover the wire milk compartments. I punched holes in the sign and attached it with grey satin ribbon.

I knew all along that I wanted table names instead of numbers, I just couldn’t decide on a theme. We went back and forth between classic Hollywood romance films and Beatles songs. Although we both (especially Tory) love movies, we settled on Beatles songs because in all honesty, we hadn’t actually seen many of the classic romances. I added a little info about each song for the guests to read if they chose.

I made little tents out of Kraft cardstock, and glued the names to both sides. I added some ribbon because, well, I just love ribbon. You can also see the votive holders in this photo – for those we used small jelly jars purchased at WalMart, added split peas in the bottom for some color, and tied some twine around the opening. p.s. Oh! Darling is my all-time favorite Beatles song

I made menus for the buffet (so everyone knew what they were getting) and the bar. The venue put them in frames that they had.

I wanted a variety of vases for our centerpieces, so my mom and I spent the months leading up to the wedding scouring flea markets, garage sales, thrift stores and our family’s storage spaces for unique and colorful vessels. We gave all of the vases to Martha and she made magic!

I cut the burlap runners to size from a few giant sheets that I purchased in Home Depot’s garden department for next to nothing. I had no idea you could even buy burlap at Home Depot, and this saved us a ton of money we would have spent at the fabric store. I love the juxtaposition of  rough fabric against the shimmery pewter linens. We had chocolate chip cookies from Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates as favors. We picked them up the day before to ensure freshness, and spent the evening before the wedding packaging them. Here’s a better look at the labels. This was the “Here, There And Everywhere” table.

This is a look into the reception area from the entrance of the barn. We covered a board with fabric that matched the escort boards and plastered it with photos of us throughout the course of our relationship, including our engagement pics taken by my friend Andrew Nixon.

All photos in this post by Rochelle Mort.

I started this blog to share my wedding ideas and inspiration, as well as photos and projects from my special day. Now the wedding fever has passed; and I’m on to obsess about other things in life! Don’t worry, I still have some wedding photos and projects to share. I am not abandoning blogging; I do enjoy the outlet of writing and sharing my inspiration and ideas. I hope that the few readers I have will hang in there, and who knows – maybe I’ll gain a few new ones in the process!

You may have noticed the name change in the header: Eksquisite Design Blog. Eksquisite Design is the name of my personal site and business. The word is spelled incorrectly because at the time, my initials were “EKS” which made that cool “x” sound I still like the name so I’m keeping it!

I anticipate sharing a collection of things on this blog that are inspiring me at any given moment (which could include wedding-related posts, as I am still very much inspired by weddings). Other, non-wedding related things that interest me are: interior design, graphic design (always), gardening, dogs, and cooking; so expect to see more posts on those topics.

I set a goal for myself this year to re-design my personal website and open an Etsy shop (a daunting task!), so look for updates on those. One of the  things I learned throughout wedding planning  was that I really enjoy designing wedding stationery and hope to extend that service to a larger audience through Etsy! I hope you stick around for changes in this wonderful ride that is life!

Technically, it’s a bedroom, since it does have a tiny closet, which we use to store our coats and my wedding dress, mainly. I have no IDEA why and it aggravates me to no end that the door opens to the left! Switching that is on the to-do list, for sure.

I’m not sure that I would want to sleep in this room, considering the fact that it can barely accommodate a twin-sized bed. It really is my space, though…I use it to do my design work, pay bills and read the thousand and two blogs I subscribe to (slight exaggeration, there).

The room also functions as our home gym – we have a fold-up treadmill and television in one corner, which needs to stay, due to the shortage of square footage in our house. I’m thinking of getting some sort of room divider for this area, since it is kind of an eyesore.

The office has gone unnoticed and neglected for too long – it really hasn’t gotten any love whatsoever since we moved in almost two years ago. So I figured it was time to give it the attention it deserves, and I’m excited at the possibility of working in a brighter, cheerful, more functional and vibrant room.

The things I love most about this room are the abundant light made possible by the two windows, the flooring (although it’s not hardwood, which I would prefer, it’s so much better than carpet), and the lovely french doors. The only problem with the doors is that they don’t offer much privacy, which makes it hard to get any real work done.

I have a couple of ideas for the door.

1. Cover the panels with beautiful paper. I’m thinking old maps or encyclopedia pages. This approach is fun, charming and potentially colorful.

Better Homes and Gardens via Centsational Girl

2. Use frosted window film. I could use it as-is, or add a design, similar to what you see below (but I think I would use the same pattern in each panel). This approach is modern, clean and maybe slightly more conventional.

Via Design*Sponge
Here’s my plan for the color palette. I wanted something that would flow with the rest of our house. I love bright, bold colors and I am not afraid to paint my walls this marigold color!

I like to re-use and re-purpose as much as possible (we’re on a budget, here!), so I’m keeping the furniture: the IKEA Vika desk, slipper chair from Target that our cats lovingly destroyed (I plan on reupholstering it, adding casters, and using it as my desk chair), and bookshelf that I bought at Target years ago. Hopefully I can find the other large items I need (rug, more storage) on the cheap. I think the major transformation will come with paint, a new light fixture and window treatments. I plan to DIY many things in the process, so stick around for the ride!

I believe that it’s the little details that bring everything together in a wedding, so for ours, nothing was overlooked. A lot of people will tell you to forget about small stuff – that no one will notice or remember. This may be true for some, but definitely not for me – I would notice! And I believe that, consciously or not, others will be affected by the overall design and cohesiveness of the event. So we made a point to infuse small, meaningful and personal touches throughout our wedding.

First up in the details is our Ceremony Programs (first blogged here), which I decided to make into a booklet. They were incredibly labor intensive, but definitely worth the trouble. The covers were cut from sheets of Kraft cardstock and hand stamped with our names and wedding date using a rotary letter stamp. The spines were sewn in a zig-zag pattern using contrasting thread colors. I love all of the little imperfections that the stamping and sewing brought to the design!

There were a total of 8 interior pages. Page one was a simple welcome. Pages 2-5 were meant to keep the guests entertained with a light-hearted idea I stole borrowed from the Martha. ‘What Tree Did You Fall From‘ is a Celtic version of astrology. I changed the size, colors and fonts to match our wedding stationery. I don’t have pro pics of this – so these will have to do:

The next two pages had our Ceremony and Wedding Party details:

And last, but certainly not least was the Memoriam and Thank You at the end. The Memoriam was especially important for us to include because we were married on the one year anniversary of the death of Tory’s Aunt Nancy.

Here’s the text we used:
In Memoriam
On this day of happiness, we would like to remember those who have gone before us. Although they are not here to share in our special day, they will be in our hearts today and always.

Thank You
Thank you for coming together, from near and far, to share in the joy of our marriage! Each one of you has touched our lives in some significant way, shaping us as individuals. As we celebrate the joining of our hearts and souls, we are grateful for your love, support, and friendship. A special thank you to our parents for giving us life, love, and opportunity, and for always supporting our dreams.

All photos unless otherwise specified by Rochelle Mort

Our invitations were featured on Oh So Beautiful Paper yesterday. Check out the post right here.

Holy crap, we’re married!!!

I love this one. It went on the cover of the albums I had made for our parents:

My beautiful velvet-ribbon wrapped bouquet by Martha Andrews of Blooms:

Sassy face!

I like this one because it’s quiet and intimate.

More pics from around the venue and detail shots coming soon!

Sandra, Sean, Jessica, John, Liz and Isadore:

FEETS!

All photos in this post by Rochelle Mort

Wouldn’t you just die to have one of her Drop Caps posters?

I think these Mommy Darling and Daddy Dearest prints would be so incredible for a nursery, don’t you?

Check out lots more on her site, shop and blog (note her use of cheeky urls).

Here we are walking to the barn:

I love this photo:

Another favorite:

After our outdoor session, we headed back to the bridal suite as guests arrived for the ceremony. Here’s Jocelyn playing with her pomander.

My mother:

Me waiting patiently:

My mom and sister:

Stay tuned – ceremony pics are coming soon!

Photos in the post by Rochelle Mort.