WHAT???

Patti Smith by Lynn Goldsmith (an outtake from the cover shoot for Easter, 1978) via TIME

I really should have saved this photo for the day I finally retire the blog. Does it not perfectly sum up All That Is East Side Bride?

cool, now i'm sick of the flower crown

WHAT ABOUT FEATHERS?

I feel like maybe we haven't fully explored feathers.

Photo by Erik Wahlstrom via Catbird via Abigail Lorick

faux feather leather wedding earrings?

Just an idea.

Shop: Love Sexton

AWAY TO CAMP wedding invites

Hillary's wedding invites/sleepaway camp brochures are so gorg, they deserve their own separate post. 

When I asked her if she did em herself, she said, "Yeah, we made the invites. They are little booklets. MK took the photos and did a lot of the copy editing. I did the layout / design and wrapped the feathers."

(MK also took the photos. See a few more here.)

A Crown of Flowers, A Catbird Bride

This wedding is impossible to introduce. I will let Leigh, the poet, speak for herself.

I am trying to find a way in, a way to start telling you how you plan a wedding, a rebirth, when your first love, your great love, your mother is dying. I hope this falls on deaf ears, that none of you sail on this same wild ship with me, but I think that we all sail on it together, if not now, then. I hope that my profoundly bittersweet celebration finds a home in tender hearts.

My whole life, the only things I ever knew about my wedding is that the rabbi who married me would be the rabbi I grew up with, and that I would speak the words, “I am beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (I am, and he is). I did not know, that nearly 6 months after my wedding, I would remember virtually nothing our rabbi said as he spoke to us under the chuppah that I made with my best girl. Instead, my head echoes with the unbelievably beautiful words he spoke at my unbelievably beautiful mother’s funeral, 76 days after I was married. How hard we work for one day, our wedding day. We ought only to work so hard for every day that follows.

"Death, most presences of absences, had entered the garden, and from that moment on, absences multiplied. It was dusk, and the appointed hour had arrived, the warm scents of the banquet were rising from the kitchens, and in spite of the tragedy everything was ready to go on time..." -Shalimar the Clown, Salman Rushdie

Oh, but my mother was well at my wedding. Up she went, in the chair for the hora, with glee and joy radiating more than any diamond could. She gave me away that day, but I am always hers.

I knew that I wanted our wedding to be a celebration of all my mother taught me to treasure more than the gold I love so much: family, friends, community. I wanted her to see the people who would cradle me in her most present absence. Cradle me they have, none more so than the man I am lucky enough to call my husband. 

Leigh's Photo Captions:

1. Hallway – My friend and neighbor, Amy Merrick, made my flower crown. I asked for wild, and wild I got

2. Liz – My best girl, getting me ready. She painted us a huge portrait of John and Yoko on their wedding day. It hangs over our bed, the patron saints of love.

3. Nails – Naomi at Hello Beautiful covered my nails in pearls and mirrors that spelled out Kevin on one hand and Leigh on the other.

4. Shoes – My mom bought my shoes. When I wore them to her funeral, the confetti from the wedding was still stuck to the insides.

5. Swan girls – I’m sure the Metropolitan Building has since instituted a no-confetti policy. Eleanor, Carlos, I’m sorry.

6. Swan guests – The absolutely lovely Chad Merritt of Mon Petit Fantome provided the swan artwork. Seating was open, which meant some of our friends took to the floor. Some of our parents were not pleased.

7. My mom – We walked down the aisle to Mount Wittenberg Orca by The Dirty Projectors. Maryam Keyhani made my feather bouquet. Kevin’s suit is by Mr. Ned and his tie is Acne. And me? My parents made me.

8. Balloons – In lieu of flowers, I opted for more guests and a couple hundred balloons.

9. Married! – I sewed the chuppah from old lace and tassels with one of my best girls. She's a perfectionist, I am not. She is henceforth known as the tassle-master.

10. Me and Mom – My little, beautiful mom.

 

11. Friends – The gentleman in the suit is Andrew of Grand Street Suit Company wearing his pitch-perfect wares.

12. Us hora – We danced the hora, so up on the chairs we went.

13. Mom hora – The diamonds on her neck were dun next to the light of her smile. Nothing compared.

14. He plays – Kevin and our friends played covers of Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Ray Charles, Fleetwood Mac, Dylan and The Shirelles.

15. Dress – Our friend Ryan took this photo of my Vera Wang dress with one of the antique cameras he collects.

16. And then we went to the bar. 

Leigh adds: I did mean to mention my photographer, Fede, and Nackie who owns The Parlour who did my hair and makeup. They were both such dears to work with.

psssssst.

there's a new dear esb for you over on 100lc.

get over there, wouldja?

coco rocha by bruce weber for vogue paris november 2007 via

If I were to get married now...................

from Stephanie of even*cleveland

I was lucky when it came to my wedding - the weather was beautiful, everyone had fun (including me), and most importantly, it took. Nearly nine years later, I'm still crazy about the guy I married. 

It was an unconventional conventional wedding. Most of the usual elements were there - wedding party, reception and dancing, dress and veil - but slightly tweaked. I was young and stubborn and happy enough not to care what anyone thought, and it was a perfect moment. I've always liked that about weddings. They are ephemeral moments we want to so fill with love and beauty that they become permanent. That's a rare thing. When you think about it, there are very few days where you know in advance that you want to remember them forever, but a wedding is. Everyone responds to that in touching and funny ways. We pick out the things we think will make the memory and obsess over them - the right dress, the perfect flowers, charming invitations, fantastic photos - but the thing is that emotion wins in the end. It is either a happy day or it isn't. I am grateful mine was.

If I was getting married today, my wedding would be different because my life is different. It would be a much more private event - only the very nearest and dearest included, invited by handwritten note on starry cards. We'd be married somewhere in the city, very late on a winter's night. I'd wear an ivory velvet dress and blue for luck, like countless brides before, but it would be a dress I could wear year after year on anniversary fêtes (it is too sad to think of wearing something so lovely only once). I'd pair it with silvery shoes made for dancing and a fantastic coat encrusted with silver embroidery. There would be feathers in my hair and jewels in just the right amount. I would scout for the perfect perfume - something distinctive and evocative, to match the moment - and beautiful wine dark flowers.  After the ceremony, we'd sit down to a glamorous midnight supper, dance and drink champagne, and in the morning we'd jet off to St. Petersburg or Montreal or somewhere else cold and snowy, where we could have a hotel room with a fireplace and reason to stay inside. And I'd be looking forward. Weddings are only beginnings, after all. The good stuff is what comes after.

(Click here to view the product details on Polyvore.)

I'm kinda digging this feathery headpiece....

Though it would help to see a photo of someone actually wearing it.

Laura Kranitz via NOTCOUTURE

Sauvie Island Resort Wedding (who needs a disco ball?)

Okay, so I lovelovelove to feature weddings by near and dear blogfriends and of course people who have written in to ask for advice... But it is also pretty amazing to receive a zipfile out of the blue of wedding photos like this.

Holgas taken by talented family and friends. A wild vintage dress. Some serious motherf*cking groom style. And FEATHERED INVITATIONS? I think this lady might actually be more east side bride than I am. I mean, she does practically live my neighborhood.

Here's what Joanna had to say about her wedding:

I always imagined I'd have a Fall wedding. When we got engaged on a Friday in June, I accepted what would turn out to be a very demanding 50+ hour/week job the next week. But we decided it would be the same amount of stress whether we compressed it into a few months as it would if we dragged it out over a year, so we decided to go for it. My husband is a freelance commercial producer and I'm an art director, so we had confidence that our combined talents could make it work.

My dream was to get married outside on a farm, have a reception in a barn and have a giant bonfire. I got 2 out of 3. We live in Los Angeles and our family is the Bay Area and New England. LA was never an option, neither of us feel a very strong connection to the city, plus it would just be too expensive. Next we thought New England, but mid-Oct is already too cold. The Bay Area? Again too expensive and weather is iffy. My husband used to live in Portland and we go up there a lot for fun and work. He'd shot a commercial on this farm on Sauvie Island just north of Portland last Spring and we thought the location and the setting would be perfect, plus mid-October in Portland can be really nice.

We went to visit the farm in July and let's just say, one of us had a vision....and it wasn't me. It was all overgrown and there was a lot of random junk laying around, but my husband had confidence in the location, so I trusted him. There was a Black Locust tree with a dozen trunks that would be perfect for the ceremony and there was a giant Cottonwood that created a sprawling canopy, that he envisioned being lit with china lanterns where we would have the bar. The ceremony and reception would take place on a clearing that sat about 20 feet above the riverbank. The only problem was, how do we get the guests from the reception to the beach for the bonfire? My solution was to move the reception a little north, where it was flat and we could just walk onto the beach. My husband's solution was to build some permanent stairs on the slope. He was passionate about the Cottonwood being a key element (he was right) and he had confidence that he could build the stairs in a few days with the help of our fathers (both master craftsmen) and our brothers (five between the two of us). They ended up building the stairs out of massive timbers that had drifted up on the beach as well and the stone that was already on the site. My father finished it off with handrails on both sides that were straight out of Lord of the Rings. So, while the men were busy with that and other site related chores, so I took care of the details, like dress!, shoes, invites, flowers, food, drinks, etc.

Being a graphic designer, I'd had an idea in my head for invites before I was even close to getting engaged. I wanted a really pretty poster. What we ended up with was more beautiful than I could have imagined. The overall idea was to create something that felt hand-made and delicate, both natural and wedding-y. (Which was our concept for the wedding itself.) We had a friend give us a crash course on silk screening and we made all the invites/correspondence cards in one afternoon. The posters were printed on large pieces of tracing paper that I bought in pads, which made printing on such delicate material go a lot more smoothly. I work a lot with feathers in my art, there was no question about including them in some way. I wanted to complete the package with pretty calligraphy, so I scoured the internet for a calligrapher that I could afford until I found Robyn Love, who happened to be having a sale on one style of lettering. Perfect!

For the decor, I envisioned strings of lights everywhere, a la Chanel Resort 2010, and a disco ball hanging from a tree. But a few weeks before the wedding I realized, that there was a lot I would just have to let go. Because of rain, we needed tents and because of money/resources we opted for China Balls instead of strings of lights. The result was beautiful. It rained really hard the morning of the wedding but the clouds broke and the sun came out just in time for our guests to enjoy the dramatic setting as the arrived on Sauvie Island in the late afternoon.

I found my dress at The Way We Wore. It's a 1920's cotton gauze sheath dress with white opaque seed beading and it was the very first one I tried on. The silk slip was from Hidden Treasures in Topanga Canyon, also from the 20's. The shoes were a gift from my godmother, silver glitter Louboutins. I wore a strand of feathers I made around my neck. The dress has a drop waist and I wanted something that was more fitted, so I bought a couple yards of acid yellow silk that I tied around my waist to hide the seam. The acid yellow was apart of my multi-color palette that was loosely referenced throughout to tie everything together, but not overtly seen. I also sent the palette off to my close friends and family and suggested they dress within it if they felt like it.

(Editor's Note: Are you noting that the guests do in fact match the invitations? This is an advanced move. Unless your friends are stylists/art directors/costume designers, I don't recommend that you attempt it.)

Since my dress was so delicate, I decided to change into an 80's sequin and beaded dress and black oxford booties after the ceremony. My husband wore a black suit from J. Lindeberg, a custom shirt from Brooks Brothers, Rachel Comey canvas oxfords and his tie was a family heirloom. We both brought our ponchos to the farm for when it got chilly, but only he managed to wear his.

For the reception, we decided that the three key factors were hot food, lots of alcohol and a really great DJ. We'd heard that Cindy the Bar-B-Q queen was amazing, so we hired her. Even though she was a little unprepared for cooking in the woods, the food was so great, even some vegetarians indulged. For drinks, my brother's girlfriend is a bartender in San Francisco and offered to order the booze through her connections and they drove most of it up. She convinced her friends at House Spirits to donate some gin and vodka to use for cocktails that she created. One of the bartenders drank a few too many of them and was sent home after hitting on a some guests and face planting in the field.  For desert my husband's mother made about 300 miniature cream-puffs. As for the music, our friend Heather Thompson did an amazing job. We asked her to DJ for a few hours, and then we would switch to a play list. But everyone was having such  a good time, that she happily played all night (she literally DJ'd over 7 hours). The three of us were the last ones there at 3 in the morning.

(Photos by Danielle Levitt, Shaniqwa Jarvis and Kevan Bean)

too much?

I had a dream last night that one of my best ladies was getting married, and all I really cared about was what I was going to wear on my head. I am so not a headpiece person, people.

But. I'm kind of digging this feather flower spray by William Chambers Millinery. You think it's too much for a bridesmaid?

(Via Snippet & Ink)

Candace Ang

Shop here. (Srsly. Put down the Anthro catalogue.)

Via The Blah, Blah, Blahg...

Woodsy Chic New Brunswick Wedding

I'm thrilled to share these details from the wedding of Stephen Kopp & Monica Adair, a pair of badass architects based in Saint John. As Monica and I wrote back and forth over the past few months, I became convinced that we're kindred spirits.

We got married on the new moon, on August 30, 2008. I think we were on a wedding high for a full month after the wedding.

The theme of the wedding was ‘woods chic’ with our own familial twist. My mother, who was born in Mexico, is the oldest of 18 children and is used to entertaining large crowds. We embraced some of those traditions to really inspire the day. My mother and father were also married in the woods, on a volcano outside of Mexico City. I absolutely adore her photos and was inspired to create something as authentic as they had.





It was a wedding of embodied energy – the energy of friends and family coming together to build the day that we have been thinking about ever since. Everyone got involved. Some learned how to drive tractors to build the dance floor, some helped build altars, while others laid the hundred glow sticks that created the path in the dark woods to and from the dance floor. A local farmer provided the hay bales for the ceremony seating that found their way to insulating the cabins on the site after the wedding. My mother sewed yards of table runners made from two textured tweed fabrics tied together with a red silk ribbon, my father, who owns a furniture company, searched for the richly coloured fuchsia seats for the dinner, my uncle spent weeks splitting wood for the head table and altar.

The papel picado, personalized white streamers hand cut in Mexico, were an amazing gift from the family in Mexico. We just recently spent our honeymoon in Mexico City and connected with our distant family. The wedding really brought us closer together.

And no Mexican wedding is complete without piñatas. Forget coffee as a wake-me up after a long dinner and speeches, piñatas helped set the tone for a long night of dancing. A light rain drizzle set the mood and some blindfolded dangerous swinging was a great lead-in to a long night of dancing and late-night swimming. The piñatas were filled with Mexican treats, carefully chosen from markets around Mexico City by my aunt Margarita and cousin Laura.


Buffalo plaid & a feathered cap >> Over 10 years ago, I fell in love with a photo of a woman in a wooden canoe paddling in a plaid dress. It has stuck with me ever since. I spent a great deal of time in the trenches of the Garment District of NY looking for buffalo plaid in wool – surely one would think that the fabric store for ‘Project Runway’ would have buffalo plaid in red and black – sadly no. After another, literally 50 store visits, I returned to the first fabric store and a man in there suggested I try one more store – sure enough – buffalo plaid – the last 4 yards – my future dress.

Julie Culberson, a local seamstress who happened to have done design for a theatre company’s production of Caesar, seemed like a perfect person to execute my small fantasy. The plaid shawl was cinched together over a taffeta J. Crew dress with a belt I found in a great little store. I was torn between wearing a white dress and the plaid dress from my memory; this was a way to manage the pull in all directions. I also loved wearing cowboy boots on my wedding day – I love boots and dresses.


I spent the rest of the day trying to find the perfect feathers – only in new York would I be so lucky to find a place where they were making the hats for the fall collection of Ralph Lauren and the costumes for carnival – whose hats were absolutely incredible – I was in pheasant heaven as I spent the afternoon handpicking each feather that adorned the centerpieces, table settings and finally the spectacular hat that milliner and designer Frennel Morris from Still Life helped me create.



The food>> My brother and chef, Jose, put together a beautiful menu of local appetizers, and he and my mother, a natural born food lover and maker, put together a meal for 150 that people are still talking about today. The menu consisted of a mix of local and Mexican treats: Mole chicken, achiote pork, plantains, tortillas, and a feast of other Mexican-inspired foods. We had a vegetarian friend that night who couldn’t resist and tried the chicken and hasn’t looked back since.


3am brought scavengers back to the tent in search of those last licks of probably the best cake we have ever had. If you ever come east, head to the Happy Baker where you will find this prized Baker – Holger Mammen. When we told him we wanted to make a 42” cake he talked us down to something that would fit through a door, but he was willing to take on a challenge. He beautifully rendered our family crest in gold icing and it was a slice of heaven.


Flowers>> My bridesmaid Katie's mother Gillian Wallace was our florist, and we knew she hit the theme spot-on when she showed up with a car full of cat tails, pussy willows and wild flowers galore. I do think they were the most inspired arrangements I had ever seen and I loved the trailing bouquet that was put in my arms just hours before the wedding.

The lens>> While many of our friends have showered us with great photographs of the wedding week, we were pretty damn lucky to have friend and photographer Karl Redding as our official 'third wheel' for our wedding – he made it feel easy and kept it all quite real. His thoughtfulness carried past his photographs and into all his help from climbing trees to folding napkins in the wee hours of the morning.

The lodge & cabins >> I spent many a weekend at my aunt and uncle’s lodge and cabins on the Kingston Peninsula in New Brunswick. It was exactly the place that best fit our wedding. Adair’s Lodge & Cabins is a wonderful place for an escape into quiet rustic country along the Saint John River.



Our friends made it happen.

We tried our best to design as many things as we could for the wedding and when we could we wanted to showcase our friends' talents: Our wedding favors were beautiful fishing flies designed by our friend Rich Cassidy. Meghan Barton, a talented artist friend of ours silk-screened our crest for the floating candles. Darren Emineau’s (MNO) pottery housed the flowers and served the head table. The ring-bearing dog's plaid outfit was made by Darren’s partner Alex, and Sam delivered the ring with perfect timing and elegance, heading straight to the pond for a dip upon completion of his task in true dog style. As for ‘les bijoux,' we asked local jewelry designer Jeneca Klausen to design our bridesmaids’ jewelry for the wedding, a commission she was perfect for: asymmetrical antlers, lava rocks and twig-like silver branches are just some of the one-of-a-kind gems that she designed for the ladies. John Wallace cut our serving-trays out of an 18” tree trunk. My maid of honour Charlotte Macdonell was like a full time logistics coordinator for the hundreds of details that were being fabricated up to the last minute of the wedding; she also got stuck making floating lantern bases out of left over tile we ripped up from an old reno.

Our farewell party was at happinez wine bar, where stephen and I had designed the little wine patio ‘hapito’ for our friend and owner of the bar. It was fun to have a party in something we actually designed.


As if I haven’t gone on enough, a few of my favorite moments>>

My brother Manuel wadding in water with a post-ceremony canoe full of Moosehead Beer for our guests>>Stephen’s vows>>Pre-wedding swimming for the boys in the pond >>the skinny dip that ended the dance and the hours of laughing at the camp-fire>>realizing we had nowhere to sleep and ending up in our tent…no better way to end a night of stars and lights.

I absolutely loved, loved our wedding. I can’t thank everyone enough for making it so real.