Category — Color Scheme and Theme

A wedding is all about the little things. It’s these little things that seem so insignificant, but once you get an idea in your head about this “little thing,” it becomes a huge deal.  You start to obsess about it, brood over it, and ultimately drive everyone around you crazy until you figure it out! Now I feel it is important to remind you (and myself) that I am not a bridezilla and refuse to be one.  Having said that, I still believe that a bride and groom should know what they like, what they want, and how they want it; which is why my fiancé and I flew 3,350 miles for a “little thing”… the glass that will be broken at the end of our wedding ceremony!

Photo courtesy of Pacific Northwest Shop

Ok, before you think there is a picture of us in the dictionary next to the word crazy, let me explain. My fiancé was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington – 3,350 miles away from where I was raised in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  After years of being away from home (I think it was 3 years in case you were wondering) we planned a trip to the beautiful northwest to spend time with my future in-laws.  One day, while surfing the internet, I had an idea to use a glass ornament for the breaking of the glass in order to keep with my Winter Wonderland theme.  Plus, I figured if I could find a pretty one, I could always keep the shards of glass and have them made into a mezuzah for our first purchased house.

Well, I stumbled upon a website that had the most gorgeous glass ornaments (see caption above for the site) and I knew I had to have one.  After surfing the site, I learned that each ornament is handcrafted from the ash of the Mount St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980 (my birthday is May 18th) and sold in Washington.  I screamed and my fiancé came running into the living room with a frighten look on his face.  Once I explained what I had found (and his heartrate was normal again), I began asking him if he knew where the store was and sure enough, the store is in Tacoma!  We decided to check it out and buy the ornament during our trip.

So on a chilly, rainy day in April, we headed out to the store.  It was so quaint and the owner was a sweetheart.  When she asked me what I plan to do with the ornament I was hesitant to tell her but finally did.  “He’s gonna step on it and break it!.” “Are you kidding me?” she shouted at me.  Once the initial shock of my answer had passed, she began to understand my explanation and thought it was the sweetest gesture.  She said that buying something that is made in his home town from a volcano that erupted on my birthday (several years earlier than my birth) warmed her heart.

And so we bought a pretty ornament in Tacoma, Washington and traveled the 3,350 miles home with it… bubble-wrapped.

Our Monogram

Our wedding day is September 14th. On the Jewish calendar it’s the 25th of Elul. Five days before Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is, according to creation in the Torah in Genesis, the day man was created so in fact the 25th of Elul is the first day of creation: the birthday of the world.

Right after I got engaged, one of my friends offered to draw us a monogram to be used on the invitations and the benchers. She’s in art school in Manhattan and is quite talented, so needless to say I was pretty excited. Most people have flames, roses, candles or shofars (if they’re getting married in Elul), I wanted something unique but I really didn’t have any ideas. I mentioned it to Chanan, my fiancé, and he said “Hey why not a globe, since our wedding is on the birthday of the world?” I thought it was a brilliant idea.

My friend redrew it multiple times until it was perfect, and I absolutely love it. The land is all of our initials in Hebrew. Mine are alef and shin. Chanan’s are ches, tsadik and mem. I really love the stars and clouds and the whimsical touch they add. I can’t wait to see it printed on our invitations.

Who knew all the details that go in to planning a wedding?? A perfect example: My six gorgeous monograms, specially created to provide a consistent theme throughout the wedding. They turned out beautiful and will really add a great element – I plan on using all of them in one way or another.

The benefit of having an 18 month engagement is that our wallets don’t feel as huge of a pinch while purchasing small wedding items along the way. I have decided to space out my purchases, making it easier and happier for everyone involved. My latest acquisitions include a 50 foot white aisle runner (complete with our first names and wedding date) and a cake topper with the letter “E” in brown and pink crystals. Both of these items were purchased on Etsy.com, carry a small price tag, and add a great touch to our ceremony and reception.

While all of these little details seem silly and mundane to someone else, I take pride in them. I am delighted by all the little things that will bring our pending nuptials together to become an unforgettable night.

Wedding Theme Inspiration

The Peacock Skirt by Aubrey Beardsley

Time is drawing in nearer and nearer to my wedding this weekend, and I still need to figure out what the reception tables will look like! We are expecting around 250 guests and have 30 round tables that can each seat 8. In order to keep in line with my Jewish Reform Congregation’s eco-friendly guidelines, we cannot use disposable tablecloths. Unfortunately this regulation really put a damper on my early design ideas, which included black paper tablecloths…

In the end, my mother determined it would be significantly cheaper for us to make the tablecloths ourselves, using queen size sheets instead of renting tablecloths, which would come to about $18 each. However, we quickly discovered that individually sold queen size sheets are incredibly difficult to come across, especially when you need 30 of them! Between my mother in Chicago and me in St. Louis, and three Target stores later, I had 30 cream colored queen size sheets ($12 each). Sadly black was not an option :( Against the recommendations of most, we got black plates and napkins, so I think the tablecloths will fit in nicely with our white, ivory/cream, and black color scheme.

Centerpieces

Over the years my mother has acquired a huge number of vases from second hand stores. We’ve decided to use the vases to hold the flower arrangements I will be making with my bridesmaids the night before my wedding. We are planning to tie black satin ribbon around neck of the vases and place them in the center of the table on top of black doilies.

One of the many gifts I received at my wedding shower was a book on Jewish paper cuts. I have always loved Mexican paper cuts, so this particular gift felt very close to home. I started to think about how I could incorporate the design and imagery of paper cuts into my ketubah and wedding decorations.

Paper cuts by Mexican artist Margarita Fick

Making a Stencil

A few years ago, when I worked as the art director for Camp JRF, I created a stencil for the Illuminated Manuscript my campers made of Lecha Dodi. Using a sharpie, matt board, and surgical knife (which works much better than exacto) I made a floral stencil, which I used to produce the gold brocade design on each of the Lecha Dodi panels. I found this process to be incredibly time consuming but VERY rewarding!

Lecha Dodi Illuminated Manuscript 2007 Camp JRF.

Unfortunately my mother is rightfully concerned it is far to close to the wedding date to experiment with the tablecloths. So I am thinking that I will probably use a combination of found black and white decorative papers and black and white illustrations to create the centerpieces.

Gift for the Groom

Sterling Silver Guitar Pick I got for Loren (with letters LW) on Etsy

Gift for Bridesmaids

Along with having my bridesmaids wear black dresses, I also wanted to give them cool but sensible gifts. Because I have so many bridemaids, and am working on such a tight budget, that was a real mission! But I was able to find 2GB flash drives online for a price I can actually afford! These will be included in a little gift bag, with other contents that are still to be decided.

July 2007: Me in Israel, at the top of Masada

This past week my fiancé Josh and I decided on the phrase we’ll be engraving into our wedding bands. I initially sent Josh a list of twenty various engraving ideas ranging from the beautiful- “Amor Vincit Omnia” (Latin for “Love conquers all”) to funny like “You’re Stuck With Me.” He quickly dismissed all the of ideas until he got to the last one. “I like it!” he exclaimed, and just like that our wedding theme was born.

I first discovered my love for the phrase “Ani L’dodi V’ dodi Li” (Hebrew from the Song of Solomon: I am My Beloved’s and My Beloved is Mine) while in Israel. I feel like it embodies us so well as a couple. It’s beautiful, it’s precise, and it’s perfect. My ring will have the first half (Ani L’Dodi) and his will have the second half (V’Lodi Li) – all in Hebrew. The jeweler was extremely receptive to our idea and he is currently working on our bands.

Then I starting thinking…

Why stop with the wedding bands? If we love this saying, we should incorporate it throughout our day! I contacted a woman whose company came highly recommended (Pink Design Events) and she is working on creating a personalized monogram for us. I envision the design incorporating our first names and wedding date, as well as “I am My Beloved’s and My Beloved is Mine.” The woman I am working with completely understands my vision and I look forward to seeing the end result.

The plan is to use our monogram in a variety of ways. I am thinking we could place it on our menus, programs, and seating chart. I haven’t quite thought that far ahead, but I know it will be an ongoing motif throughout our wedding.  I couldn’t be happier to have a subtle theme, and Josh is thrilled we have one more thing checked off the wedding to-do list!

Thank you everyone for your help selecting an image for our invitations!  We decided to go with the image of Loren proposing to me. Here is what Loren and I came up with after merging our designs:

I asked my bridesmaids to wear black, because I figured everyone would have a black dress and that way they wouldn’t need to buy anything new. Each of them will have a different color flower in their hair (naturally in rainbow order). Loren is having his groomsmen wear black suits, white shirts- slightly open with no tie, and Converse All Stars. I wanted his groomsmen’s boutonnieres to match my bridesmaids flowers, but he wasn’t having it :)  He said his dudes weren’t going to wear anything floral!

I love things in rainbow order. These are some spools from my art studio.

As for my own dream off-white mermaid cut/ sevillana style wedding dress…  it still  has to wait another two weeks… My thesis exhibition opens May 8th, I graduate May 15th, then on May 16th I will FINALLY go wedding dress shopping!

I first fell in love with our color scheme after seeing this featured on a design blog:

Yes, our yellow and gray color scheme was born of a condom wrapper.
A fancy, exclusively available at W Hotels condom wrapper.

It was hard to find any inspiration in those colors for the longest time, so we decided to incorporate more black into our color scheme.  And right after my bridesmaids bought their black dresses, this happened:

J. Crew and Liz Claiborne were clearly stalking me and my wedding planning.

I can’t decide if this validates my off-beat color choice, or annoys me because I THOUGHT OF IT FIRST.

The color combination will mostly show up in our paper products – and the groom + groomsmen ties, thanks to the sudden popularity of yellow and gray apparel.

Our centerpieces and bouquets will consist of a variety of yellow flowers, just don’t ask me what kind because I know nothing about flowers – I’m leaving that up to the professionals!  I’m lucky enough to be friendly with a fabulous florist who not only is very creative and does beautiful work, but also is Jewish and knows what a chuppah is!

I google “yellow and gray” pretty much every day, but I’m curious: has anyone seen any yellow/grey inspiration out there that I might have missed?