My Version of A Perfect Wedding

Our wedding was perfect. Rolling your eyes? I get that people generally scoff when the words wedding and perfect are used in the same sentence. But it was completely a perfect wedding day for us. Why? Because at the end of the day we were married. That is it. We were so incredibly happy to be marrying each other and promising to spend our lives together as partners... and celebrating this new chapter with our families.

At one point during the reception it just hit me how amazing it felt... that Dan was now my husband... that everyone was there to celebrate with us... that they were have a great time. And the gorgeous weather, candlelight, good food, etc all did play its role.

I am not saying that everything went off without a hitch. There were things that did not go as planned... the bakery lost our cupcake order (they pulled it together but we lost setup time), the patisserie decided to close early before we picked up the macaroons (without calling us) so there were no macaroon, I forgot to have the birdcage cardholder decorated, my dress which fit like a glove at my final fitting was too big (the positive was that for the first time in my life I dropped a few pounds not even trying!), etc...

But honestly none of this mattered... my only agenda for the day was to exchange vows and rings with the man I love. And it was wonderful... perfect really.

At the beginning of our engagement we considered the option of eloping. I am so glad that we decided instead to have a small wedding where we were able to share so many tender and intimate moments not only with each other but with our family. And while at any point during wedding planning I may have been cursing all the DIY projects and all the decisions, I am also incredibly glad that we poured so much of ourselves into the day. It truly felt handcrafted and comfortable; exactly what we wanted.

Thank you all for following me along on this journey! Thank you for commenting with advice or words of encouragement and for sharing your ideas and inspiration on your own incredible blogs. I feel so fortunate to have found such an incredible community of supportive, creative, smart, and clever women.

Previous wedding day posts:

- A Stolen Moment During the Reception
- Eat Drink Be Merry
- The Garden Party Floral Decor
- The Garden Cocktail Reception
- The Ceremony
- The Time Before The Ceremony
- The Meeting
- Florals: The Personals
- Getting Ready: The Groom's Side of the Story
- Getting Ready: Dress and Accessories
- All About The Shoes
- Getting Ready: Hair & Makeup
- 300th Post A Wedding Photo
- Wedding Photos Are Arriving: Almost A Bride

Or all of the post on our wedding day can be found through the label My Wedding.

{Photography by Brian Kinyon}

A Stolen Moment During the Reception

During our cocktail hour we spent the first 30 minutes or so greeting guests and having a drink. Then we headed down the street with our photographer to take a few moments and just to soak in the we-just-did-it feelings. Some of these photos ended up being my favorites. We were so relaxed and just so happy. No more worrying about if my veil was going to catch on something and get ripped out (it almost did!) or about how dirty my dress was getting... and it did get filthy. We just whispered with each other and enjoyed the moment...

Dan really is whispering in my ear here... it is such an intimate moment... in an empty parking garage!

And then it was back to the reception!

And time for me to change into my JCrew reception dress... which I was glad I had as it was nice to change into something flowy and light after being in the gown for hours in the summer heat.

Wedding Recap Posts:

- My Version of a Perfect Wedding
- A Stolen Moment During the Reception
- Eat Drink Be Merry
- The Garden Party Floral Decor
- The Garden Cocktail Reception
- The Ceremony
- The Time Before The Ceremony
- The Meeting
- Florals: The Personals
- Getting Ready: The Groom's Side of the Story
- Getting Ready: Dress and Accessories
- All About The Shoes
- Getting Ready: Hair & Makeup
- 300th Post A Wedding Photo
- Wedding Photos Are Arriving: Almost A Bride

Or all of the post on our wedding day can be found through the label My Wedding.

{Photography by Brian Kinyon}

Eat, Drink, Be Merry

A key component to any reception is the drinks, food, and a little mood music. We agonized over the menu... for food and for the bar. Ultimate the idea of "free flowing" reception that encouraged lots of mingling won out and I loved the ability to incorporate so many flavors in the menu... so the cocktail style worked for us. However, we were worried that people would leave hungry so we opted to include a buffet, or as I like to call it a grazing station, with small plates so that we could include heavier/substantial foods.

We worked with our caterer to create a summery/seasonal menu that would transition throughout the evening. We started with passed hors d'ouevres, then moved to a buffet of seasonal flavors, the third course was filled with retro bites, and then finally dessert.

For the bar we decided to keep this fairly simple and work with what would have a summery, gardeny feel. We had a Lynchburg Lemonade, Rose Wine Spritzer, and a Cosmo inspired mocktail passed during the cocktail hour. The original names were modified so the drinks were named after streets we have lived on in Chicago. The wines were our favorites from our vacation to Sonoma County. The beer and root beer were from a local brewery with a Bud Light thrown in to round it out. We brought in the alcohol ourselves so were able to return what was left over... although I am not sure that it was an incredible saving.

Music is another area where you can really personalize the evening and of course, set the mood. We set up a folder in iTunes and started added songs every now and then... we ended up with a 7+ hour playlist of our favorites. We then broke it out by hour so that the music would transition with the menu course that was being served. Then the excel file was shipped off to our DJ. Control freak? Maybe. One of our friends came up to me later in the evening and said that when one of the Bon Jovi songs came on she remembered us picking out those songs on a juke box at a birthday party a few years ago... Music is such an easy way to add a touch of yourselves to the reception and to enhance the atmosphere that you are trying to create.

Up next I will post our "mini trash the dress" photos from when we stole a few moments during the reception.

Wedding Recap Posts:

- My Version of a Perfect Wedding
- A Stolen Moment During the Reception
- Eat Drink Be Merry
- The Garden Party Floral Decor
- The Garden Cocktail Reception
- The Ceremony
- The Time Before The Ceremony
- The Meeting
- Florals: The Personals
- Getting Ready: The Groom's Side of the Story
- Getting Ready: Dress and Accessories
- All About The Shoes
- Getting Ready: Hair & Makeup
- 300th Post A Wedding Photo
- Wedding Photos Are Arriving: Almost A Bride

Or all of the post on our wedding day can be found through the label My Wedding.

{Photography by Brian Kinyon}

The Garden Party Floral Decor

When you have your wedding at A New Leaf, you are required to use them for the floral decor. This was a positive for me as I love the flowers at A New Leaf, when Dan gets me flowers this is where he goes, and because they are working on site there is no delivery cost and a bit of flexibility with using the pieces they have on hand for decor. One of the challenges however is that you don't see a mock up and only talk to them about a month or so before your wedding... I could say that I wasn't nervous about how the flowers would turn out but that would be a lie. I could say that I don't care about floral decor but that would be a lie too... you can't grow up in my house without a love of flowers and gardening.

I was thrilled with the floral decor. It really fit the "from the garden" look I described to the florist. Birch became a common thread throughout; we had birch branches at the ceremony, birch vase wrappers, and birch poles... I loved the mossy accents, the bud vases surrounding the centerpieces, and the overall gardeny effect...

For additional touches, we reused the whirlyball roses from the ceremony for the highboys and used strings of bud vases...

Up next I will post the final pieces of our reception, including the summer garden party menu and our "mini trash the dress" photos.

Wedding Recap Posts:

- My Version of a Perfect Wedding
- A Stolen Moment During the Reception
- Eat Drink Be Merry
- The Garden Party Floral Decor
- The Garden Cocktail Reception
- The Ceremony
- The Time Before The Ceremony
- The Meeting
- Florals: The Personals
- Getting Ready: The Groom's Side of the Story
- Getting Ready: Dress and Accessories
- All About The Shoes
- Getting Ready: Hair & Makeup
- 300th Post A Wedding Photo
- Wedding Photos Are Arriving: Almost A Bride

Or all of the post on our wedding day can be found through the label My Wedding.

{Photography by Brian Kinyon}

The Garden Cocktail Reception

When we envisioned our wedding day, we saw an intimate day where we would celebrate our promise of forever with those closest to us. We wanted to share the city that had become our home with our family. We wanted to be able to talk, rather just say hello, to everyone that was there to celebrate with us. We wanted the day to be comfortable and for there to be a natural ease to the atmosphere. This is what guided all of "major" decisions during planning such as where, which vendor, what colors, etc. Our theme became an intimate, understated summer garden party.

The venue, A New Leaf, played a significant role by being the gorgeous background...

We decided on a cocktail reception as we wanted there to be an abundance of both mingling and of flavors on the menu... people flowed between the garden and the storefront chit chatting and nibbling...

The little details in these photos: dear husband and I tied the cocktail stirrers while watching a movie, the overlays were made by me and my mom, the mints were made with my family and on a stand that my brother and dad made, the pink and white balls were Martha Stewart from Michaels, the ribbon to tie the highboys was from Paper Source, the restroom signs where made by the groom...

For the guest book we wanted a way to remember everyone who came to celebrate with us; a polaroid album gave us more than just signatures to look back at yet was still centered on the guests as being part of the day...

For our entrance into the reception, Makes Me Happy by Drake Bell played...

As we cut the cake, Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen played in the background...

Towards the end of the evening, the chest that had been the guest book station transitioned to hold the favors. The boxes that I made were wrapped with a strip of the paper used on the programs/quiz books and topped with a ribbon that held on the DIY double sided tag. We filled them with Girl Scout cookies; incorporating both supporting a great organization locally by purchasing from a girl scout in the neighborhood (I was a Girl Scout growing up) and our love for cookies (thin mints were my pick and dear husband picked the shortbread designated by the color of the ribbon)...

Up next I will post the other pieces of our reception, including the floral decor and the summer garden party menu.

Wedding Recap Posts:

- My Version of a Perfect Wedding
- A Stolen Moment During the Reception
- Eat Drink Be Merry
- The Garden Party Floral Decor
- The Garden Cocktail Reception
- The Ceremony
- The Time Before The Ceremony
- The Meeting
- Florals: The Personals
- Getting Ready: The Groom's Side of the Story
- Getting Ready: Dress and Accessories
- All About The Shoes
- Getting Ready: Hair & Makeup
- 300th Post A Wedding Photo
- Wedding Photos Are Arriving: Almost A Bride

Or all of the post on our wedding day can be found through the label My Wedding.

{Photography by Brian Kinyon}