Here are some photos that Rochelle took of the entrances into the reception. Our bridal party entered to the Star Wars theme song, which all of the male guests seemed to enjoy…in fact, I think that was their favorite part!
We had a lot of fun with it – Tory and I wrote little bios for everyone that our DJ read, and Tory’s were hilarious, ridiculous, and had everyone cracking up.
Here are John and Jessica
Elizabeth and Isadore (my siblings)
Sean and Sandra
We had a little transition between the bridal party and us – the opening credit music from 20th Century Fox, which segued into the Imperial March (also from Star Wars).
I’m gathering the pics for my final post of wedding pics from the reception…it’s coming soon, I promise!
A Backyard Wedding is giving away a copy of The Offbeat Bride over on her blog. I wish I would have had this book when I was planning our wedding. Go on over and enter if you’re offbeat, too! And check out Katie and Paul’s beautiful and personal wedding while you’re there.
Here are a few more details from our wedding.
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 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
