special somethings

i'm a sentimental girl compounded by a love for antiques ( hence the draw to have our wedding in a barn filled with antiques) so choosing my something old and borrowed were not difficult tasks. we had many treasures with family history incorporated into our day.

the cake topper on our cake was the cake topper my great grandmother had on her wedding cake, it was passed down to my mother only a year or so ago and the family was thrilled to have one more wedding in the generation to reuse it.

my mom is also an antiquer. when i was little i used to love looking through her boxes of vintage broaches. when i was pondering what to do with my hair, add a flower? a little veil? i revisited her box of broaches and picked one that i thought could be used as a fascinator for flower or what have you. in the end it was used to secure my lace detail, i love how personal the embellishment was, how unique to me and special to my mom.

the bone rose earrings i wore were my moms, and i also used the same purse that she used on her wedding day AND my sister used on hers.

and my something blue? my shoes of course, from Nina, i loved them...

(all photos rise photography, please do not reproduce with out proper credit)

the smallest members of our party...

the little ones always steal the show don't they? they are just so cute everyone wants to be around them, they add joy to joy.

my niece is almost one and a half and she was such a good little "flower girl." she is my first and only niece, i watched her 4 days a week the first year of her life and i am just in love with her. i wasn't even sure if she'd be able to walk for our wedding but i wanted to put her in a little white dress and let her be a part of the party.

we were very lax about it. if she was in the mood and got down the aisle then fine - if not no biggie. we thought maybe my sister would carry her, we just wanted to play it by ear. we didnt waste money on flowers or petals or anything and decided that if anything she could carry icculus, our stuffed sock monkey with her or at least play with him.

well with her mom leading the way she strutted down the aisle like a champ with the monkey as a force field and the crowd LOVED it. i mean, how cute? she even stayed awake long enough to boogie with us, we were very very impressed.

ok, here is some monkey explanation. why the hell do mike and i have a sock monkey? and why do we love it enough to make him a bow tie and invite him to our wedding? i mean a wedding is a pretty grown up event right? and we seem kinda normal as far as you can tell?

well, a few years ago now mike was the victim of a random act of violence, he was attacked by two bikers with a ball peen hammer on our way home from a bar one night. it was horrible, one of the worst nights of our life, but it helped make us solid as a couple...(apparently he started to look for engagement rings the following week.) well, when i picked up his prescriptions the following morning i also picked up this sock monkey to be his "helper monkey" to help him get well, and make him smile. in the years that have followed the monkey has become a symbol of our love for each other, in times when we were living different schedules and mike was asleep before i got home from school i would come home to the monkey doing ridiculous things on my side of the bed - he became our device to say i was thinking about you while you weren't here - just look what this crazy monkey got into this time. silly i know, but it's us. all of our friends now know about him, he comes on vacation with us, friends ask if he can come out with them, and he even has a facebook page.

the florals

today i got to spend some time with our florist, keith of floral concepts, who is using an image from our wedding for a bridal show this weekend and thought it appropriate to show you guys what he did to bring our day to life.

what are those amazing dangling things around the center poles of the tent? it was a combination of birch trees and hops - yep hops. when our florist found out mike brewed his own beer he had the idea and it was just perfect. it was whimsical, unique, perfectly us, and even fragrant. our guests got a kick out of it.

these gorgeous wreaths were used as decorations on the windows of the restaurant at our out of town dinner the night before, and then worked perfectly on the barn doors. a combination of hops, hydrangea, persimmons ( they looked like green tomatoes) and pine cones. the wreaths, now dried out are still as beautiful and decorate the entry way and pub of mike's family's hotel.

i dont have any great photos of the girl's bouquets yet but i do have a story for you about mine. they were a combination of dahlias, mums, various pods, eucalyptus leaves, and the peach peony looking flowers are actually a type of rose - aren't they gorgeous?

anywho. someone took my bridal bouquet. we had used the bouquets to decorate the buffet table and forgot to take them with us in the craziness of the end of the evening. when we returned the next day to do some cleaning and pick up the remaining decorations and flowers the bridesmaids bouquets were both there but mine was nowhere to be seen. mom hadn't seen it. mike's uncle hadn't seen it. no one at the hotel had seen it. as i walked the place the tent stood the night before and tried to be reasonable..."it's only flowers, not a big deal, you weren't gonna keep them forever, you have a million mementos from the day, etc. etc." i remembered seeing a photo of one of my girlfriends (crazy girlfriends) on facebook with my bouquet earlier in the morning. feeling a little accusatory and bitchy i gave her a call just to see if she had seen it. what do you know? she took it. she thought it was part of the "you can feel free to take a centerpiece home" deal. i know, i know. luckily she had left it in her hotel room, in water and i was able to retrieve it, sans hankie sadly, but at least i was able to dry some of my flowers as a momento.

and for kicks here is what keith is using at the show, with a copy of an email i sent him after the wedding.

all photos rise photography, please do not reproduce without proper credit.

a magical place

(all photos rise photography, please no reproduction without permission)

mike's uncles' farm is beautiful, perfectly beautiful and on our wedding day it glowed with picturesque perfection. in the days leading up to the wedding mike's uncles pulled out all of the stops to get their home and grounds in order for our celebration, tending to landscaping and even replanting some of the garden that would be our altar so that it was at optimal beauty for the wedding. for the two of us who thought it was perfect as it was, we were completely touched by how hard everyone pulled together and went above an beyond to make sure we had a great day.

i loved watching guests arrive to the farm from my perch hidden away in the house. watching my friends and family take in the magic of the place for the first time was a treat, we worked hard to create a wonderful experience for our guests and the pay off was in their faces every step of the way.

pro pics are in!

our pro pics have started rolling in from rise photography and we are more than tickled...we have become crazy narcissistic animals that can't stop staring at the beautiful version of ourselves that the oh so talented sophie managed to capture.

here is a taste of some of the portraits before i finally jump into some real recaps.

getting ready

i had such a perfect quiet wedding morning.

my hairdresser came to the suite to pretty us up around 11 am so i had plenty of time to get myself up and ready for the day before she arrived. it was just my sister, my mother, my best friend andrea (also my make up artist) and myself. it was intimate, peaceful, and such fun girl time. i also love that my mom and sister got to spend some time with andrea, she is an LA friend and doesnt get a lot of exposure to my family so seeing the three of them chit chatting and playing with hair and makeup together made me such a happy girl.

andrea works in fashion, she brought me a piece of lace trim from her show room to add some bridal-ness to my hair and i used one of my mom's antique broaches with a clip on it as a fascinator. i love how it came out. it was soft and romantic without being over the top, just enough of something special to make me feel like a bride.

i love this last photo of us in my dad's car en route to the farm for the wedding. i love our matching robes, the three blondes squeezed in the back like kids, and the down to earthness of us all piled in the back of my dad's car. it kept the day real and me here on earth rather than in never never big production bride land.

rehearsal and out of town dinner

the party before the party was really almost fantastic as the wedding, it was over the top, full of love and FOOD.

as i mentioned before, we had a swarm of guests and family members flying in from out of town so for all extensive purposes this was a destination wedding. my family came in from wisconsin and we had friends from los angeles, dublin, seattle, new york and even new zealand converging on a small vacation town in southern maine.

friday morning a small group of us got up early and got to work setting up the farm. by the time i got back to the hotel for a bite to eat and a shower before the rehearsal the hotel pub was full of family i hadn't seen in years, my parents and siblings, and friends from around the globe. i remember being so pumped full of adrenaline i was buzzing like a telephone wire. i ordered a beer and a sandwich i couldn't eat ( and not only because i wanted to jump up and hug every person who came through the door) i think my body decided to stop digesting, it was too busy keeping tabs on all of the other physical phenomena occurring.

seeing peoples faces when they arrived at the farm was one of my favorite parts of the wedding. it's such a magical beautiful place that any preparation or description really didn't do it justice. and if i do say so myself the hodge podge of seating that we put together looked fantastic.

(ps. isn't my niece the cutest little girl you've ever seen?)

once we got the house keeping out of the way it was on to dinner which was literally a feast. mike's dad was our host, as he runs the hotel we all stayed at, and because he knew we had so many people flying in to maine from afar he decided he HAD to do a family style lobster dinner. it was decadent, over the top, and such a crowd pleaser. friends and family were laughing all over the room teaching each other to crack open lobsters, all in their bibs, it was amazing.

our florist also decorated the rehearsal dinner. the small bottles and vases with wild flowers were moved into the barn the following day to decorate the surfaces, and the 4 gorgeous wreathes that were in the windows were hung on the barn doors.

after everyone was pleasantly stuffed, a few cocktails in, and we had made our speeches and delivered our gifts, we headed to the hotel pub for a special treat from my sister. she made a slide show of mike and i's childhood photos and then photos of the two of us together. it may sound cheesy but it was a true tear jerker. not only is it overwhelming to see your life flash before you but i had never seen any of mike's baby photos. they are the subject of much grief due to divorce and it was just the sweetest thing i'd ever seen...he was so cute!!

(mike copping a feel, getting as much as he can before we retire to separate rooms)