Posts Tagged ‘Inspiration’

Jun 2011

* Alison, Comedian, Taxidermy Church * Nick, Editor * Photographer Rich Prugh Photography * Soundtrack for reading, The Penguins’ “Earth Angel“

The Info—The Venues: Ceremony, The Campus Theatre, Lewisburg PA, where Alison’s grandparents had their first date, Reception, Private Home/Converted Church owned by a antiques dealer… nicknamed Taxidermy Church by Alison and Nick; Dress: Mikaella 1239; Ceremony Headwear: Twigs & Honey, Reception Headwear: Ella Gajewska Millinery, Suits: Express; Paper goods including posters: Erica Miller at Thoughtful Day Photographer: Rich Prugh Photography (Hollywood, CA)

One sentence sum up of the wedding vibe: If all your favorite people schemed a very relaxed and good-humored takeover of a flea market and turned up the jams.

Other cool stuff we should know about: Before the ceremony started, we played a silent film about how we met at Syracuse University. One of our extremely talented friends, Ramsey Ess, shot and edited the video. We filmed in a Denny’s in New Jersey. On the way there, we got a flat tire and had to have our car serviced while we were in complete 1930s get-ups. Nick’s fake mustache was falling off the whole time we were talking to the mechanic (the mechanic pretended not to notice).

Favorite thing about the wedding: Our officiant had Nick and I write “secret” letters to each other and then he read them out loud at the ceremony. Best part of the day. We also laughed A LOT on our wedding day. I laughed the moment I woke up (I was staying in my sister’s hotel room and she was talking in her sleep) to the ceremony (lots of laughs, including the sound of 100+ 80-year-old metal chairs springing up at the same time) to the reception (accidentally peeing on my dress — I’ll admit it, whatevs). Most importantly, it served as a great kickoff to our fun and loving marriage. Marrying Nick? Best decision I’ve ever made.

PS: You can read about Alison’s Great Grandmother’s Ceremony in the APW archives. That girl has a historical lock on quirky weddings.

Posted in: Wedding Graduates, Wordless Weddings | 41 Comments »

Jun 2011

Wordless Wedding: Lyn & Chad

* Lyn of Another Damn Life * photographs by Christina Richards Weddings * Soundtrack for reading, Magnetic Fields “Love is Like a Bottle of Gin” *

indie wedding photo

The Info—Venue: Santa Barbara Historical Museum, Santa Barbara, CA. Dress: Saja Wedding, Necklace: Button Soup Jewelry, Shrug & Shawl: Sweet Knitting, Hair Fascinator: Sweet Grass Mill Suit: A no-brand number from a suit outlet in downtown Los Angeles. Photographer: Christina Richards Weddings (APW Sponsor).

Other cool stuff we should know about: Our peanut butter dessert cookies were stamped with the words “KICK ASS” and “HELL YEAH.” Our grand entrance was to Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” and we heightened the effect by wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses.

One sentence sum up of the wedding vibe: An outdoor celebration of love and community underscored by food, friends, family, fun, and booze.

Favorite thing about the wedding: I was going through these questions on the phone with my husband and when I got to this one, he immediately answered “Marrying the person I love.” Which is an entirely awww-inducing, APW-appropriate response. And here I was trying to think of details. Anyway, my answer: the moment I looked down during the ceremony and saw that our officiant-friend had accessorized his suit with bare feet. That’s the moment when I finally let everything go and thought, okay. Okay. Let’s just sit back and see what happens from here.

Posted in: The Day Itself, Wedding Graduates, Wordless Weddings | 44 Comments »

Mar 2011

How To: Plan An At Home Wedding

Recently, we started a new part of our How-To series: posts on how to throw specific kinds of laid-back weddings (our first was the Beach Wedding). Because, weirdly, it seems like there are not very clear instructions on how you actually go about throwing simple weddings. So today, I’m beyond delighted that I was able to bribe Kathleen, of Jeremy & Kathleen, invitation designer, traveler, entrepreneur, and stylish lady extraordinaire to talk about how she threw her At Home Wedding, what she learned, and what advice she has to give (And PS! After we scheduled this post, I found out that today is Jeremy & Kathleen’s two year anniversary. Fate, huh? Congrats you guys!). Now, let’s do this thing!

{Yes, it was 2009 and yes I had a yellow balloon bouquet. I still love it.}

First, l was so flattered and thrilled when Meg asked me to write up a home wedding How To. I’m excited to share Jeremy and my wedding with you all. Here is what worked for us and what I would’ve done differently, and some funny stories while we’re at it.

But before I get started, a disclaimer. This was a second wedding / marriage for both Jeremy and me. I had already had the big white wedding in the backyard of a mansion surrounded by twinkle lights and white cake. I was kind of embarrassed about making a big to-do about my second time to say “I do.” I asked Jeremy if we could elope at the courthouse and from there live happily ever after, but he felt strongly about making this commitment to each other in front of our nearest and dearest. He felt like our love deserved a celebration. And he was right.

Jeremy and I had spent the summer prior to our wedding remodeling a historical house built in 1929. Together we made our place our home. When we decided to go through with a wedding, getting married in our home seemed like the obvious venue.

So on to the details (and I think lots of this advice can be applied to a more traditional wedding as well):

{Our modest home and the location for our wedding}

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION:

If you want to get married in your home consider the space. Our home is only 1,500 square feet so we made almost every single room open and available for guests to mingle and sit in. We had about 30 people at the ceremony and then opened up the home for a reception in the evening where guests could pop in and out as they pleased. I think at most we had 60 people in our house at once and at times it felt like a tight squeeze.

You might also consider using the fabulous home of a close friend or family member (if they’re open to the idea). I have some friends that got married in their parent’s gorgeous backyard. But as always, have an indoor alternative in case weather gets crazy.

The great thing about getting married in your own home is the flexibility you have to get things ready in advance. However, that didn’t keep me from procrastinating down to the very last minute. Learn from my mistakes, people! Continue reading How To: Plan An At Home Wedding

Posted in: How To | 54 Comments »

Mar 2011

On Snippet & Ink: Loving Without Envy

Have I mentioned to you guys that I share an office with Kathryn of Snippet & Ink? Well, I do. And yesterday I walked into the office and she said, “Meg, the wedding I’m posting tomorrow has you written all over it.” And she could not have been more right. When I flipped out over this picture she pointed out that it was basically the same picture taken of me at our wedding. Maybe the bride and I are soul sisters, a little.

The wedding between two London theatre people…. and get this, it took place in an abandoned mansion on North Wales with no electricity, that hadn’t been lived in for 60 years. Because that’s the kind of parties this couple throws. And Kathryn said, wisely (I’m paraphrasing), “The trouble is, we see a wedding like this and we think that we need to throw a wedding in an abandoned mansion. And we don’t. That’s not us. But it is them. So we just need to appreciate what it is.” Which is so exactly it.

That, and the 30-foot wedding cake was a fireworks bonfire. I’m just saying.

So anyway, go see it all, right this second. You’re welcome.

Photographs: Nick Tucker, layouts by Snippet & Ink

Posted in: Manifestos, Meg's Thoughts, Style, Weddings | 26 Comments »

Mar 2011

Wedding Graduate: Verhext, A Letter To My Wedding

** Please do not Pin, re-post or otherwise share images of this wedding in any form. The images are copyrighted, and not available for distribution.**

Long time readers will remember when Tamera (aka Verhext) wrote a wedding undergraduate post about the importance of faith in the face of a wedding. She was freaking out about her wedding, and remembering that as a Vermonter, she’d personally helped to pull together her sister-in-laws wedding from scratch. Well, she’s back, with a letter to her (beautiful, beautiful) wedding. She’s also on 100 Layer Cake today, being stunning. Besides me wanting to put her whole wedding in my mouth because I love it that much, I’m beyond honored to get to share Tamera’s wedding on APW. Since we first met at the APW/OBB meetup, Tamera has become a friend, a brunch lady, and someone whose brain I want to hack open to release all of the butterflies, so I can understand what goes on in there. Tamera and Sean threw their wedding with very little money. She made her dress, they self-catered, they made their invitations, they got married on their own property in Vermont (Tamera owns a wee cabin there, sigh). And somehow it ended up being everything a wedding can be… and a little bit of a pain in the ass. (Oh, and she wants me to mention her amazing, affordable, NYC Photographer Jeremy Harris… who once shot photos of her band!) Here is Tamera with the full scoop:

Dear Wedding,

You were really difficult, just admit it. I think you secretly liked being so difficult. Everyone knew about you and thought you were great, but I know the truth, wedding. You held us to a level of perfection we just couldn’t achieve, and made us feel like no matter how hard we worked we couldn’t live up to you. On the surface, everyone loved you. Oh, I know your sneaky ways. I didn’t even want a wedding. But you’re so flashy flashy, and so “everyone else is doing it” and the next thing we knew, we were sending out invitations. And then there was no turning back, and you just kept luring us deeper and deeper with your promises of happy families and cake. The cake was a clever ploy. Oh, you’re good, wedding.

And you know what wedding, you were really, really hard work. So much work that when you were over, I didn’t know what to do with my weekends. So much work that I thought my head would explode from making invitations and dresses and finding plates and utensils and tablecloths and buying food and agonizing over finding a suit and making sure everyone got there and planning the ceremony and realizing last minute I wanted flowers and making bouquets and feeling guilty about wanting to arrange them myself and making signs and cards and decorations and basically asking everyone I know to show me their love through sheer hard labor.

That kind of sucked, wedding, and you had the audacity to make me feel like it was pretty amazing while I was doing it, but you know what? It was exhausting.

You also made my husband and I fight so much that we almost didn’t get married. In fact, if the fight hadn’t been in front of the liquor store, we may have not gotten married. But as it was, I ended up buying 6 bottles of Perrier Jouet because the labels were so, so pretty and I wasn’t thinking logically. So maybe I needed a good reason to crack them all open. So I guess that worked out. THIS TIME, wedding. But watch your back. Continue reading Wedding Graduate: Verhext, A Letter To My Wedding

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 53 Comments »

Oct 2010

On *Owning* Inspiration

Last week, the imitable Rebecca Woolf of Girls Gone Child wrote a piece about fashion where she noted the huge difference between inspiration and aspiration (You guys may not know her, since she’s a blogger-who’s-also-a-mother and sometimes those bloggers get less airplay on our corner of the web? Anyway you’ll love her. Done.) She wrote about how aspiration is those spreads in Vogue magazine with $50,000 dresses, inspiration is your favorite fashion blogger who blogs about how she put together an outfit with a $50 dress she found on sale at Macy’s. Or Teen Vogue. She loves Teen Vogue.

For some reason, all week I kept thinking about this inspiration/aspiration dichotomy. I’m a huge lady mag and lady blog reader, and trust me, there is room in my life for both -ations. I like aspirational design blogs, and wedding porn, and fashion magazines. But at the end of the day, I’m an inspiration girl. I want you to break it down for me in ways that make sense. How can I make a super chic, ragingly fun wedding reception in my parents church social hall? How can I use what’s already in my closet to create really editorial outfits, that say something about who I am? How can I re-finish and re-arrange the furniture I have to make my living room work for me?

I think in a lot of ways we’re in a very inspirational cultural moment. We all have less money and fewer choices, and after years of excess, we’re all trying to figure out how to make the most with what we’ve got. And the blog-o-shere has really rushed into the gap left by print media. We’re all writing for each other about how we can do this, how we can improve our lives, how we can do more with less.

But then there is the trap. The trap of mistaking inspiration for aspiration.

I’ve wanted to meet Rebecca Woolf for a long time, because, I don’t know, she’s a young mom who’s really rocking motherhood and selfhood and a writing career at the same time. So, at Mighty Summit I started asking around to see if anyone knew her, and was up for introducing me. Heather Sphor was like, “Oh, h*ll yeah, of course I will.” But before I asked Heather, five people must have told me Rebecca was, “A glamazon”. I’d look puzzled, and ask, “Ok, but what is she like?” and people would say, “intimidating.” And I’d think, ‘Huh. Weird. That’s clearly not her personality, that’s a reaction. Why are women so easily scared of each other?” (And I’m super guilty of this, by the way, which is why I’m talking about it).

Rebecca and I got into a four hour gab fest this weekend (We got along? We can’t shut up?), and at the end we were talking about fashion. She was saying that one of her personal missions was to get women (especially moms) to feel empowered to be stylish, just because they wanted to be. Or in her words, “How much longer does it take to put on pants than sweats? I rest my case.” And that’s when I mentioned the “glamazon” thing. And she shook her head at me in this really baffled way, and was like, “I don’t get it. I’m trying to say that style is NOT exclusive, and instead people think, ‘well, she’s stylish and I can never hope to live up to it.’” Which is exactly it. Continue reading On *Owning* Inspiration

Posted in: Life, Manifestos, Personal Thoughts, Style, Weddings | 130 Comments »