Our Wedding Adventure: One Year

I had a plan to do a big photo heavy post with all my favorites that Jess took.  Then life happened.  I had a crazy week at work, the Bruins are in the play-offs and did I mention work is crazy.  I haven't had time to resize a bunch of photos but this is my absolute favorite.

June is going to be very busy for us so for the holiday weekend we opted to stay home and have a quiet weekend (I also had to run in to the lab both Saturday and Sunday.)  I made stock and caught up on laundry, Bruce cleaned the garage and worked on our cars; we watched the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indy 500 and then the Coke 600. Bruce's brother Tim came for very late dinner Sunday nightToday we worked outside around the yard and garden.  We ate wedding cake that my mom perfectly froze and my cousin Dan brought to us last weekend.

This photo shows our hard work today, no make-up, dirty, and a little paunchy from a few to many beers and burgers lately.  I picked a poorly lit spot, Bruce is anti-posing for photos, I had the ISO up to high so it's pixely and out of focus, and my remote battery was dead so I had to set the timer and run.  But it's us on our anniversary.  Bruce gave me a Pandora charm, a new cross necklace and a Wonder Woman apron.  I made a print for our bedroom with the lyrics from our wedding song.  And we're spending the weekend in Newport in a few weeks which will be awesome and I'll be less of a stress-ball.  Hopefully I'll be back later in the week with fun house/garden stuff!

Our Wedding Adventure: Details, Details and more Details

It is amazing how much time I put into arranging little details but they made our wedding ours so it was well worth it.  I spent so much time looking at flowers; bouquets, boutonnieres, centerpieces and on and on!

Top left clockwise: Bridesmaids bouquets, boutonnieres, altar pieces, and my bouquet.  I was able to give Ann (from Dedham Flower Shoppe) our colors and preferences and she did an amazing job putting it all together.

 I was able to pull up my Pinterest Wedding Board to show her things I liked and she transformed them to fit our style.  She designed these pew pieces to fit both the end of the pews and the railing at the reception.

This pin belonged to my great-aunt Kay, it was a great way to to remember her.  My Cape-Cod bracelet was a high school graduation from my aunt Betsy.  I've worn that claddagh ring since Nana gave it to me when I was 13; it's a little worse for wear but I love it.

I designed and printed our ceremony programs, the trifold programs were from Staples.  It was super easy, I downloaded a template and plugged in the details then ran them through my printer.

Tables, my mom specifically requested those chairs.  The 4x6 frames I picked up at Michaels with lots of coupons then printed the numbers on white card stock. I spent some serious time on Ebay hunting down hobnail milk-glass vases and after emailing with a seller he hunted more down for me and sold them to me at cost!  

I also bought the same frames as 8x10 for photos of my grandparents, my parents, Bruce's parents and my great-grandparents. (clockwise from top-left) Some of them were at the table with the guest book and some were on the fireplace mantel. 

I think my mom picked this up at Home Goods? Then Ann supplied the ribbon.

Thumbprint guest-book print from Tear Drop Weddings

Escort card holders were sail boats and fish to represent our lakeside location.  My mom's cousin John did the calligraphy.

Champagne flutes, I nursed that baby all the way through dinner!  

When we snuck out to take photos on the dock we had a very cute audience.

Simple, beautiful and delicious!

So many little things that made our wedding so special.  I have to give most of the credit away to my mom who organized it all and did so much work.  My mom's cousin John who came early (a week!) to help with all the details and the calligraphy. And last but not least Ann who designed all the beautiful flowers!

Photos by Jessica Doherty

Cake by The Bashful Baker

Flowers by Dedham Flower Shoppe

Our Wedding Adventure: Ceremony and Reception

These were supposed to be separate posts but I had a crazy week last week so it's a mega-post! Also the last wedding post was pretty text heavy, this one will be photo heavy. I'm sure no one will mind :-)

We were married at the (Catholic) parish that I grew up in; it is where I was baptized, made my first communion and my confirmation.  We were also married on the Holy Day of Pentecost. Getting married on Pentecost meant that I we were not able to choose our readings, there were a few extra parts to mass and we had to be a little bit more conservative with our music choices than I would have liked.

Our moms processed to Ave Maria and everyone else (me included) walked in to Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desire.  Our music choices were simple, a male and female vocalist with piano accompaniment   My good friend Barry Kingston sang during communion. The recessional was Clark's Trumpet Voluntary.

Our vows were traditional, I didn't cry.  I smiled all freaking day.  The matron of honor and the best man were on the altar with us, everybody else were in the pews.

Then dad handed over the keys to the corvette and off we went.  No getting drunk in the limo for us! Most of the bridesmaids took the limo all the groom's men drove.

Our reception was at Camp Bournedale and it was perfect!  Darin was great to work with and the location is beautiful.

After photos we made our way inside to Mothership Connection (P-Funk)  then danced to Forever (Ben Harper).  Tip: If you are going to take dance lessons, really do it, take more than three.  We took three and I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. One of the few not grinning moments of the day.

Grace by Fr.Charlie, then three speeches. That's right we had three speeches, Best Man, Matron of Honor and TapDan aka my cousin Daniel who is also one of Bruce's best friends, he introduced us.  He told us he was going to give a speech, so we went with it.

We snuck away with Jess after dinner and took some more photos, which ended up being my favorites.

Our cake was chocolate with raspberry filling, it was awesome so awesome that I ate it for breakfast. The song we used was Good Life (One Republic).

Then I danced with my Dad, to another of Barry Kingston's songs Run Wild Baby Child.  I love this photo, that's Barry and my mom in the back watching us dance.  Bruce and his mom danced to the Joan Baez version of Forever Young.  I watched some of their dance then snuck off to change out of my gown into . . .

My dancing dress! Because it was time to dance. And dance we did. What an amazing day. There are so many photos of crazy dancing, you will just have to take my word for it. I may or may not have danced so wild with my Uncle Chuck to Moves Like Jager that my garter fell off!


If you are getting married near Cape Cod we recommend:
Jess Doherty 
Mike's Music
The Bashful Baker
Camp Bournedale/Bournedale Function Facility
Dedham Flower Shoppe

Jess took the photos, Mike was an amazing DJ, Darin and the staff at Bournedale did an amazing job all around (food, bar and accommodations) and Sue baked an amazing cake!  I've known Ann from the Dedham Flower Shoppe my whole life and she did a beautiful job with the flowers everything was perfect!

Our Wedding Adventure: What Everyone Else Wore

This post was supposed to go live yesterday, but with everything that was going on at home (in Boston) it didn't feel right.  I still can't put all my feelings about this past week into words and I'm not sure that I want to try.  Now that we have breathed a collective sigh of relief here is some weekend reading.

It all started with a seersucker, one shoulder, knee length dress.  I saw it in one of the many magazines and it made its way into the binder.  I knew the seersucker dresses weren't quite right; but I liked the shape and the idea of a pattern was intriguing.  I pinned a bunch of ideas, the more I looked the more I liked the thought of incorporating our colors by using a patterned dress.  Sometime last fall I was introduced to Karen's work, long story short, there were almost custom-made dresses but it wan't ment to be.  I really, really liked that print.  I was getting desperate by February and I think the ladies were getting a little antsy.  Then one day I got an email from J.Crew about the summer wedding line. There was the dress! I mobilized the troops and two weeks later they had them.

My bridesmaid Laura, also my cousin, also Elizabeth the flower girls mom (Elizabeth is my GodDaughter), found the flower-girl dress at David's Bridal.  I'm pretty sure Laura drove around with the bridesmaid's dress in her car for a week between checking the cardigans and the dress.  The cardi's were from Old Navy.  I asked that they wear silver shoes and said it would be nice if they were strappy.

Laura's work proved very helpful when we went to Men's Warehouse to get the Tux's.  I was pretty set on gray with ties.  We tried both navy blue and clover green vests and ties and ultimately went with the navy.   Then about three weeks before the wedding I decided that Bruce's vest should be white.  I'm happy with that choice.

My mom found these Father of the Bride cufflinks, from Micky Chase Jewelry, on Etsy and I got them for my dad.  Then I ordered a custom pair for Bruce.  It is just one of the little things we say to each other.  I also got him a nice watch.

Jess took all these photos, except the cufflinks, that was me, I'm sure Jess would have done a better job.  I think we were a pretty spiffy bunch, I'm actually sad that I didn't get one of the bridesmaids dresses for myself.  I love that dress.

Our Wedding Adveenture: Something Old. . .

Something new, something borrowed, something blue.

I've decided to do a little Friday series about our wedding, leading up to our first anniversary.  Last week I shared with you how I organized my ideas. This week is all about what I wore, but really, it is the story of how I wore my Nana's wedding gown. But let's start at the beginning of the adventure, in my ideas binder, I loved this one gown by Priscilla of Boston.

I knew that I did not want anything strapless, I like to be a bit more modest in church (plus our wedding was on a holy day!) Onto the real story, about a month after we were engaged my Nana fell and broke her hip, while visiting her in rehab a few weeks later I asked her if I could wear her wedding gown, that my Aunt Betsy also wore.  She cried and said yes but stipulated that I had to try on other dresses. Auntie Betsy wasn't sure that it would be in any condition to wear, after a stop at Betsy's, I left with the dress, the matching Juliet cap and two veils.  I got to my parent's and tried on my mom's dress, not so much, my mom is so petite we would have never been able to make it fit!

Nana is also very petite, she says her waist was eighteen inches when they got married!  Auntie Betsy wore the dress when they were married and she so I have a very similar body type and when I put the dress on it pretty much fit.  I got a little teary, so did mom.  I then went home with the dress, three veils (Nana's, Betsy's and Mom's) and the Juliet cap.  A co-worker recommended "The dress lady" who saved her wedding dress. I looked her up the "dress lady" who was actually Sally of Orange Restoration Labs, I emailed her, then brought her the dress.  Hop over to Sally's website and look at the before and afters, she's a miracle worker.  Restoring vintage dresses is her passion! I'll wait. She was very optimistic about it.  I took it home that night, called my mom and Auntie Betsy and we decided to go for it.  The result was nothing short of a miracle and any remaining thoughts of other gowns dissapeared.  Sally was also recommended a gown maker near my parents that she trusted to do the necessary alterations on the vintage gown.  Michael did a great job with the alterations, making a slip with lace trim that matched the trim on the gown and adding a wrist strap for the train.  He removed the sleeves in a way that they could be reattached later if someone else wanted them.  He also swapped Nana's veil off of the headband it was on onto a comb so that it could be tucked under the Juliet cap.

    Nana                                                                    Auntie Betsy

One of many fittings

Once the gown was set I splurged on the shoes which matched the girls' dresses.  My parents gave me the pearl drop earrings to go with my Gramma's antique pearl necklace.  Kris of Just Hair, did a great job with the Juliette cap and achieved exactly what I was going for!

One of the things that made our wedding day so special was that both Nana and Auntie Betsy got a sneak peak of the dress in action!

I did try on that dress from Priscilla of Boston, on a tip to visit my matron of honor.  It was made for someone seven feet tall.  The dress I like the most that day was the most similar to Nana's dress.  I also got a short party dress (from J.Crew seen above), which was a great call.  I can't imagine dancing the night away, worried about spilling red wine on the gown!

Michael was able to tell me all about the dress.  Made during WWII era, they didn't have actual silk for dresses.  They were making parachutes with all the real silk.  This dress was made of Skinner satin, it feels like satin but it is actually made from woodchips.  The largest manufacturer was in Holyoke, MA; right near UMass Amherst (where we went to college)!  Auntie Betsy had material from the train made into panels to expand the waist, by a "little Italian lady in the North End" and wore a big puffy slip.  Also, apparently giant shoulder pads were cool in the 50's and the 80's.  Michael removed the sleeves and the shoulder pads and tailored the dress, he also added some vintage trim in the bottom front and made a slip with the same trim.  I'm not sure if I wore bigger heels or wore the dress longer but it was longer.

Planning It: Organize Yourself

I cannot bring myself to delete my Wedding Ideas pinterest board. I can scroll through it and see how our wedding planning and designing evolved.  Love. LoveLoveLove. Most of my design ideas didn't start by looking at wedding planning websites, they started in dozen or so bridal magazines people gave me when we were first engaged. True story: my mom mailed them to me the day after Bruce proposed. All these ideas from magazines were completely unorganized and floating around my brain, making me feel completely overwhelmed.  One Sunday afternoon I grabbed a binder I had put together for house ideas and got to work.  I went through every wedding magazine with a sharpie and and exacto knife. Everything I liked I made a note on the page, tore that page out and put it in a page protector.  I used the page protectors to reenforce the flimsy magazine pages and so that I could place pages back to back if I only needed to see one side of that page.  Once I started researching these ideas make them into one coherent event I started to employ Pinterest much more.  But as you can see so many of these original thoughts came through to our big day!

 My most significant wedding planning melt-down was about the car, it hadn't been road worthy since I was 16 my dad did all the work himself and it was ready with time to spare!

 Clockwise from top-left.  Summer camp wedding with fleece blankets for the bon-fire check, country cute direction sign check, actual wedding venue and color palates (I liked all four)

Not too styled flowers in milk glass centerpieces.  Pretty close.

All the wedding day photos by Jessica Doherty Photography , flowers by Dedham Flower Shoppe, Tux from Men's Warehouse  and our wedding was at the Bournedale Function Facility

So I Bought a Point and Shoot

It was 100% an impulse buy.  I didn't want to lug my Kodak around with me to my cousin Amy's wedding last weekend.  I missed it BUT I wouldn't have used it.  Moral of the story: the point and shoot may take half unfocused photos like this one.

But it's small enough to take places and not feel like the paparazzi. 

Aren't You Guys Getting Married?

Yes.  We are, in May.  With all these fall weddings we wanted some space before our own.

Save the dates went out over the summer.  Maid of honor Justine came down (with Miss Harley Puppy) and helped me letter press them.

All. Of. Them.

The humidity did not help with the ink drying.  I'm sorry if yours was smudged.

We also had a wicked bon-fire while they were drying.

The dogs hung out in the pool because it was wicked hot.