George + Lysa's Rad San Diego wedding

If you look closely, this whole shebang is PERFECTLY COLOR COORDINATED. And yet it's totally Brooklyn-meets-San-Diego cool and supremely unfussy....

George and I been together for 10 years and when we finally decided to make it official, we knew that we wanted 3 things: Mexican food, to have it be a fun & casual affair and for it to take place in San Diego, California (where I grew up and where we met).

With that said, the important things for this bride were:

Wedding Photography

Luckily, it was through a recommendation that we found Rad + In Love. I loved Jamie and Michelle’s photojournalistic approach and the command they had of the medium. They were on the ball in getting our "must have" photos as well as sneaking us away to snap us in the perfect light.

Wedding Invitations

My talented friend, Shiva King is the one who is responsible for these insanely beautiful invites. Since our venue had elements of mid century architecture, Shiva used Illustrator to impart a clean look that is characteristic of mid century design while adding a feminine touch with the bold florals and/or color. She designed the map, flowers, our caricatures and screen printed our cat Gustave Minda onto tote bags.

[Ahem, please note how beautifully Lysa's bouquet matches the save-the-dates.]

Wedding Dress + Shoes

I saw an image of a 1930s Nina Ricci dress and automatically knew that was going to be my wedding dress if I could help it. I scoured ebay, etsy, all the vintage stores in SD, LA and NY for similar styles if not the exact one but to no avail. So with the help of a friend, I decided to design my own dress, using design elements from the vintage one and giving it a modern spin.

I design shoes as a profession and am starting my own line called Aralêzano (stay tuned!) so it’s a no brainer to design my own pair. I collaborated with my friend Juniper Rose on the embellishment, and one of the factories I worked with was kind enough to make my wedding shoes.

And so after our must-haves were squared away, everything else fell into place. We got married at the San Diego Rowing Club on a summer solstice evening. It overlooked Mission Bay, which made for an interesting backdrop with bikini-clad kayakers, a John Mayer blaring boater and a jet packer aerialist.

I walked down the aisle to Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks and we walked out as a couple to Tusk by Fleetwood Mac, all performed instrumentally by Red Pony Clock. After the ceremony, the band continued playing during cocktail hour and we recorded the entire set list as a keepsake. The recording is our most favorite thing from the wedding. This party friendly 8-piece band is awesome and if you are getting married in the LA/SD area, book them!!

After cocktails, the wedding party gave their toasts and this was also another great memory. It was funny, sweet and emotional. No matter how many times I told myself not to cry, I did. Dinner was catered by Ortega’s -- delicious vegetarian enchiladas, fish tacos, chicken tacos, beans, rice, etc; and to cut down on costs, we ditched the wedding cake and bought Julian apple pies instead for dessert.

And from the dance floor, here are three of my favorite moments:

1st dance to The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen. We were opposed to first dances, but my mother insisted and she knows best. My uncle was kind enough to choreograph and teach us the moves the day before.

The same uncle surprised us with a flash mob Gangnam Style dance, which had my cousins, my mom and George’s parents on the dance floor.

And thanks to Red Pony Clock, they got me on a chair to do the hora and I’m not even Jewish. I told you RPC is party friendly!!

Some advice: the day will go by fast, you will be pulled for every free moment you have for photo ops, you will not get to spend enough time with everyone at the wedding, and you will suffer some sort of post-wedding depression after all is said and done.

Planning a California wedding from Brooklyn wouldn’t have been possible without help and advice from our friends. Everything came recommended to us and every recommendation was perfect.

Especially, thank you to our friend Chris Wojdak, who was our coordinator & florist. She made sure we were on budget, DIYed a few things to do so, and created the most beautiful bouquet I have ever seen. She is truly Wonder Woman (It’s true! She planned the wedding while pregnant and on the day of the wedding, was running around with little Jack strapped to her).

So it’s really our friends that made this wedding all the more awesome, besides marrying my best friend.

Xx
Lysa

Your uncle is RAD.

So is that dress.

And the shoes!!! look even better on.

Basically you killed it, lady.

(Photos by Rad + In Love. Go see more over on their blog!)

Why bother sending printed invitations? &c.

Good Sunday to you ESB,

I really enjoy the vendor-perspective articles (the DJs, the caterers, other sponsored posts) and I'd love to hear the definitive statements made for or against printed invitations and other wedding ephemera. "Do I need printed invites, why the f* do they cost so much?"etc. That would be cool. 

I've looked through the blog, but maybe not hard enough...

*****

I have not taken a stand on this. Though I did once go on a tear about save-the-date postcards.

Here's a little perspective from my friend Joanna, who worked for three years as the custom and production manager at Sugar Paper (and continues to do freelance lettering design for them, even as she embarks on a badass career as a costume designer):*

Why should we bother sending traditional paper invitations?

Let's start by considering the alternative, which is most likely sending an online invitation to your guests. It's pretty tragic for someone to spot your wedding invitation between an emailed ad from Target and a daily Garfield comic strip. We spend most of our time on the computer, working or communicating with our friends and family electronically, so it's important to separate the gesture of inviting a loved one to one of the most important events of your life from, say, TPS reports and cat videos. Also: "I didn't see your invitation because it went to my spam folder"? Lame, yet totally a possibility if you email a digital wedding invitation to everyone.  

You have to remember that receiving a non-junk, non-bill item in the mail is a really lovely thing. When you're planning your wedding it's easy to justify axing paper invitations by saying "everyone is just going to throw our invitation in the trash anyway, so why waste the money?" First of all, no, not everyone is going to just throw your invitation in the trash - sentimental pack rats still exist, and I assure you there are some in your life. Second of all, while it's true that invitations are a limited-use item, so are a lot of things about your wedding, and you're probably not going to poll your guests about whether they think you should spend money on a dress you'll wear once or flowers that will be dead in 2 days. It's not really your problem whether or not your guests will cherish your invitations forever, nor is that the point of sending them out in the first place.

The bottom line: you are asking your friends and family to join you on an incredibly important day, and since they love you they will put in time and money to be there with you. Sending each of your loved ones a physical invitation for your wedding is a special gesture, especially when you consider the returned gesture of traveling thousands of miles to see you get married. Or, look at it this way: you're throwing a big party where you and your partner are the theme and a bunch of awesome people (who also think you're awesome) are joining you to celebrate. For once in your life let your communication wear an amazing outfit too, alright?


So…why is it that wedding invitations are so %$#*ing expensive?

It just depends on what you want. You can order invitations online for $1 or less, though you can expect the print and paper quality (as well as design limitations) to reflect that price. Options for invitations range from plain old digital printing to thermography to traditional letterpress with the price range to match. It may sound ridiculous to spend $15 per invitation, but once you consider what goes into your wedding paper it starts to make a lot of sense:

1. Whether you work with an invitation company or a single artisan, a lot of time is put into your invitations doing skilled work. From my experience working at an established letterpress studio, I can tell you that a handful of very talented people who are really good at specific parts of the process spend way more time than you would imagine producing your invitations. To you it seems like you simply send someone an email with wording, see a customized proof, and a few weeks later you've got your goods. In reality, there was typesetting, editing, plate-making, cutting, hand-feeding, measuring, inspecting, trimming, counting, lining, and packaging - and that's for each piece of the invitation suite.

2. There are super high quality materials available and good invitation companies use them on a regular basis. The options are limitless when it comes to paper - 100% cotton archival quality museum board, sheets with soft deckled edges made in Italy, even paper containing wool fibers for deep letterpress impressions - and the most luxurious kinds have much higher costs because of the craftsmanship and care that go into producing them.  

3.  Added details and assembly take time and skill. One of my first big projects at Sugar Paper was completing production on a 300-invitation wedding order that required carefully measured and stitched satin ribbon sleeves with an additional thick silk bow tied around the entire package. The assembly took me a week to complete, but taking the time to do precise and clean work meant the client received a beautiful product that I was very proud to have worked on. That is what you pay for when you hire someone to take care of the details for you - sharp eyes, careful fingers, and the treatment of your invitations as their own.  


Do what you will, but just remember that your wedding is one of the best excuses you'll ever have to create fancy and custom paper goods for yourself.  

Also: I hear the U.S. Postal Service could use the work.


Lettering by Joanna Reynolds
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*This is NOT a sponsored post. It's just Joanna being rad.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN my baby's not invited?

Dear ESB,

I am an avid reader of your blog (well, both blogs) and I'm currently engaged, set to be married in the fall.  I never thought I would have a reason to write to you, until I received the below email today. 

A bit of background: We have had a relatively painless wedding process, but had to make difficult decisions just like everyone else in the world who's planning a wedding. We love children and plan to have our own in a few years when the time is right. Despite our love for children, we decided to have a kid-free wedding, reasons for which I will not get into here. Earlier this year we addressed the Save the Dates (and will soon address the invitations) to include our adult friends and family. Recently, a friend with a toddler realized/understood that we would be having a child-free wedding and wrote this email to us below, which I thought you and your readers would enjoy:

Hey Future Husband and Wife,

Let me preface this email with saying that I know nothing can change at this point, nor am I asking it to. Also, my wife thinks this email is unnecessary. Nevertheless, I thought that you needed to know that I was very surprised to hear that you are having a child-free wedding. Since neither of you are parents (yet hint-hint) and since any ambiguity about the guest list could cause confusion, frustration, and embarrassment for family and friends on the big day, I felt it was necessary to encourage you to be MUCH more explicit about this decision in your invites or you may end up with lots of unexpected little ones. Not only would this confuse your caterer, but it would lead to lots of hurt and/or embarrassed parents.

To put things in to perspective for you, as a parent, just as I would expect my wife to join me at a wedding, I would expect that my child would be included in an invite. I have never heard of, nor dreamed of a child-free wedding, so when I read your save-the-date, I assumed that it included children. I believe this is a very common assumption among parents. Moreover, for some parents, it is not possible to leave a child, so prohibiting a child is effectively prohibiting that parent from joining you; these parents may assume that you know this and cannot possibly mean to exclude their child, since it would mean excluding them and you chose to send the invite. Also, there are some parents for whom excluding a child is simply insulting (for some, even more so than not being invited themselves); they will assume that you are not acting in a way that is insulting to them and assume that children are included.

Since few parents will approach the task of parsing of the invites with as much scrutiny as you have planned, I really suggest you make this policy much more explicit on the invites. People are already making plans to travel to your wedding location to join you on this special day, so they need to know this now – not whenever it reaches them through the grapevine. There is no need to inject additional ambiguity into the big day.  If you are not explicit, people will misunderstand, like we did, and you will have babies at the wedding. This will upset every other person who had to leave their child behind (and work through all of the logistics involved with that, which are not insignificant). On such a special day, there is no need to create a risk of sowing hate and discontent by soft selling a rather unique limitation on offspring.

Although I will not be able to celebrate with you because of this limitation, I really do hope you have a wonderful wedding. My wife is still planning to attend. Of course, we also miss seeing you at our regular dinners and hope you can make another appearance soon.

Best,

Your "Friend"

Jemima Kirke + Rafaella via The Glow

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.

(Bummer. I guess I have to pay for the font to get the B.)

Someone should really use Botanica Caps for a wedding invitation, no?

A much-needed rant regarding beer budgets, snooty fiancés and bullshit calligraphy

First, I love your blog, and I love the stories, advice, and oh la la the fashion.

I have to rant.

In an effort to have a champagne wedding on my beer budget, many corners, albeit ones that I was comfortable with cutting, needed to be cut. As a practical bride, I eliminated the need for fancy "Save the Dates" and DIY-ed mine, hello business card magnets, a copy machine, and self stick laminate! Another budget buster, invitations, foregoing the letterpress that I love, I decided to go the minted.com route, and find invitations at a fraction of the price knowing that only a few people would actually give a shit about my invitations outside of myself and hey, for the price, they are pretty cool.

So in another effort to cut cost, and make my life easier, I thought online RSVP on a custom site that would enable guest inventory, food options, table seating, etc. was a no brainer, especially for a techie like me. Insert bomb number 1, the fiance finds online RSVP to be tacky. Yet he is in the software industry... touche. I think it's a great way to organize, keep myself from creating a Xanax habit, and hey, be Green too!

So then, I have pretty cool handwriting, and I planned on addressing each envelope in my handwriting but a little more stylish.. Insert Bomb number 2, the fiance finds it necessary to hire an expensive Calligrapher to write on the fucking envelopes of our minted.com invitations and claims that the "Calligraphy sets the tone of your event." I call bullshit.

If people are so concerned with the fucking scribe on the front of their envelope as opposed to just being thrilled to share in our day with us, then they have major problems, not us for not using an expensive Calligrapher! The way my mind works is that that money could go towards extra food or booze for our guests... or should I pay the Calligrapher to write on the envelope, "because of this fancy writing that you will look at for 5 seconds, throw in the trash and not care, an appetizer has been removed from the party, please eat this envelope in lieu of that appetizer." haha.

What are your thoughts?

*****

Please tell your fiancé to remove the stick from his ass.

You already "set the tone" of the wedding with your DIY Save the Date's. Hiring a calligrapher to address your minted.com invitations sounds like some serious bullshit to me.

Also, if you want people to actually RSVP, you'd better at least offer an online option.

YOU: 2
FIANCÉ: 0

Natalia Zakharova by Michael Donovan via Rowena Murillo + FASHIONOGRAPHY

chilly reception

Dear ESB:

I got married in April and loved every minute of it -- from walking down the aisle to Tears for Fears to bucking tradition and having whoopie pies instead of cake. Sure, things went wrong (it not just rained, it POURED! I had SHINGLES! My wedding photos are of me with a paralyzed right side of my face [thanks shingles]) but I had a blast regardless and was glad to put the stress of planning behind me and become a normal person again.

When I got engaged, I had just started a new job, so I decided to invite my boss and my office mate only since we were trying to keep our numbers down since my family is huge and we were stretching our budget. My husband invited no one from work b/c there simply wasn't room. I have many friends at work who were incredibly supportive and receptive to my message that i love them and I wish I could have invited everyone but financially wasn't able to.

My one friend in particular was incredibly supportive throughout the planning process and checked up on me daily during my be-shingled, painful week before the wedding. Once i return to work post-honeymoon -- POOF! He REFUSES to speak to me. I came back and he ignores me. Like, if i walk into a room, he walks out. It is making things awkward because he's on my immediate team and even my boss has been like "um, what did YOU do?"

I've tried talking to him and he shuts the conversation down immediately and continues to ignore me. I think he's basically waiting for me to come graveling and apologize. On one hand, i feel badly i hurt his feelings and value our friendship so I'd like to apologize for his feelings being hurt. On the other, i am not apologizing for my decision and am disappointed in his attitude. i just want to put this behind me-- much like the shingles!

WWESBD?

*****

Ha. That's such a MALE apology, right? "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings."

But that's exactly what you should say. You don't owe this friend an apology for not inviting him, but you do need things between the two of you to be civil.

Who knows? Maybe something else is going on. Maybe his boyfriend dumped him while you were on your honeymoon but you never found out because you didn't bother to ask "How are you?"

How to Become a Millionaire in 100 Days by Jen Stark via cevd

Make me droll.

Um.

There has got to be a place for these hand-carved rubber stamp sets somewhere in the wedding world. If you defaced your engagement photos before you sent them to me, for example, I might even put them on my refrigerator.

By Patricia of Memi The Rainbow. (See more photos on Memi The Rainbow's blog, and don't miss the donut + macaron stamps.)

Via Creature Comforts

Here's something new: AN STD DILEMMA

Dear ESB,

I think I might be an asshole. Here's my predicament: Our wedding is in October and being an overanxious bride I sent out our save the dates in January. Great, now it's off my to-do list. I'm an asshole though, because now I want to cut our guest list. We've recently taken a closer look at our list and there are people on there that I'm now thinking, 'why did we want to invite them?' It's not that we've had a falling out with anyone it's just that they're not so important to us that I really want them at our wedding...when we first made the guest list it was more about inviting "fun people" to make it a great party. But now in hindsight, I'd rather it be smaller and more intimate with just our really close family and dearest "fun people." 

Would I be a total ass to not send an invitation to a few people that I sent save the dates too?

Thanks for the brutal honesty!
Overly Eager Bride

*****

Dear OEB,

You fucked up. But don't let it ruin your wedding.

Let word get out (NOT by mail or email or facebook or any of that bullsh*t, but via word-of-mouth) that your plans have changed and you're doing an intimate thing with just your nearest + dearest.

If you piss a few people off, who cares? You don't want em there anyway.

xoxo,
ESB

Tanya Dziahileva* by Carlotta Manaigo, Mixte Magazine March 2009 via Charles Cherney via IAMHAUTECOUTURE.
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*Are you paying attention to the hair? This will be on the final exam.

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

from Martha B. of Nibs

Hindsight is a tricky thing. It can make you appreciate some of the decisions you've made. But it can also make you regret the paths not taken. When I look back at our wedding day I made lots of choices...some good...some not so good.

The good ones- I kept within a tight budget which dictated a lot. Yet I can honestly say I never felt cheated. I skipped the big sitdown dinner in favor of light hors d'oeuvres and a three-tiered cake. Decorations were left to our best man who happened to be a talented graphic designer. What he did with 300 balloons was absolutely amazing! I nixed tuxes and had the guys wear navy blue suits. My satin dress and my two bridesmaids' taffeta skirts were sewn by my mother. An old high school friend took pictures. My husband and I then drove off in his vintage V.W. Beetle and spent our honeymoon in Vermont.

The not so good ones aren't really bad. I just wish I hadn't done them. One in particular stands out that has to do with my husband. When we discussed his wedding attire I suggested that he and the guys wear suits. He was more than happy with this arrangement. I also suggested he wear black shoes. My husband looked at me like I was crazy and shook his head no. He hates black shoes. Instead he planned to wear brown ones. Well...I hit the roof. I argued that they wouldn't look right for the photographs and used a number of other excuses I could think of. In the end he relinquished and wore the dreaded shoes. I cringe when I think about it now. Because, in hindsight, it really didn't matter. My advice...pick your battles carefully.

We've been married over XX years. Our wedding has faded into the background of everyday life that makes up our marriage. We've had our share of disappointments and sadness. But we've also had a lot of joy and laughter. Each anniversary together reminds me that I married my best friend.

If we were to get married now...what would I choose?

1. I got married in January between college semesters. What was I thinking? Not to mention it was bitterly cold and we had a terrible blizzard the day of the wedding. Give me a warm day in spring or summer.

2. Skip the formal invitations for handwritten ones. Or have Christine design invitations like she did for our anniversary.

3. No big wedding with half the people I don't even know. I'd plan a small, intimate wedding & reception at home with just family and close friends. I'd serve our favorite foods like my mom's 'Chicken and rice.' Instead of the usual cake I'd have something unexpected.

4. I'd wear only one ring- a vintage band with diamonds c. 1930.

5. My new dress wouldn't be white but a soft blush color accented in black. I love classic ballet flats but with a twist. I'd wear this fun headband. For the romantic in me,  nothing beats a bouquet of fresh roses.

6. Lastly, my husband and I would jump in our old V.W. Beetle and the two of us would take a honeymoon road trip to...anywhere! :)

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Catch up with the rest of the series here.