Our Wedding Details

The backyard of the ocean front villa where the ceremony was held.


My two beautiful sisters in their J.Crew bridesmaid dresses.



All of our flower arrangements were a mix of daisies and white dendrobium orchids, I then had lemons submerged in the water to add that extra punch of yellow. Here is our lovely wedding cake with the most precious cake topper ever designed by Jennifer Murphy. The cake was vanilla rum with buttercream frosting under the fondant, it was so yummy!



I stamped each little favor pouch (thank you Lis!) that held our little ceramic tags by Paloma's Nest. The little birds were the ongoing theme throughout all of our stationery, so it was only fitting that the last song and dance of the night and one of my favorite moments was to Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds". Also included in the stationery suite was this lemon drop packaging. My advice to anyone getting letterpressed invites is to try and fit as much as you can on a plate!



The dinner and dancing set up.



Here is the gorgeous ring bearer pillow that Vané so kindly made for me. The Hable Construction fabric fit perfectly with our theme. My wedding band is from Ritani and Patrick's band is from Wedding Day Diamonds.




Jenna Hein's beautiful calligraphy adorned all of our place cards and lucky for us, Jenna and her boyfriend Jon were in Jamaica for our wedding.



What a perfect coincidence that the steel drums were painted yellow! These guys were awesome!



Here is the pool area of the villa where the cocktail reception was held and our lovely guitarist for the ceremony. He did an outstanding job playing Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion" while our mothers were escorted down the aisle and José González's "Heartbeats" when my dad and I walked down the aisle.

Whew! I have so many more photos to share of all of the events that we had while in Jamaica, I will be posting the rest next week. I never thought I would have this much fun planning our wedding. Don't get me wrong there were definitely some trying moments when planning but I completely fell in love with the process of designing and putting together all of the little elements that made up our wedding. It was so much fun!

{photos by Anna Wolf}

Getting Ready On Our Wedding Day

So here goes the first installment of photos, us getting ready and all of the fashion and accessories. Both Patrick and I started the day off with a massage, which I highly recommend. A nice little moment to yourself before all of the prep work begins. I was so lucky to have a "team" help me get ready, my niece Carlee and our good friend Matteo did my hair and then my good friend Libby helped with the rest; makeup, getting dressed, laughs, etc. To be honest, I was really relaxed that day, so relaxed that I was curling Libby's hair 20 minutes before the ceremony!


I just love this photo of Patrick's dad helping him with his tie. Such a sweet moment and so fun to see since I was a few villas down with my friends and family getting ready. If you can, try to have your photographer capture both his and her moments prior to the ceremony. My sister and her husband, Umit who owns Wedding Day Diamonds in Minneapolis gave me the perfect pair of diamond cluster earrings as a wedding gift, which I excitedly wore that day!


All of my accessories were part of the something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. My something old was my grandmother's handkerchief, which I had a friend embroider our initials and wedding date in blue. My something borrowed was my other grandmother's brooch given to my sister, which I then pinned to the handkerchief. I wrapped the handkerchief around my bouquet, which meant a lot to me since neither grandmother was in attendance. After the ceremony, my sister thoughtfully gave me the brooch my grandmother gave her.


My wedding dress is by Thread, it is actually a bridesmaid gown in their Anna collection. It was the first and only dress I tried on and was only $400!!!! I bought it at The Wedding Library in Manhattan. I didn't even need to get it altered, everything fit perfect! Saving soooo much money on my dress, I totally splurged on my shoes, a gorgeous pair of Christian Dior sandals. I can't wait to wear them again!

Patrick's suit is by Gucci, his shirt by Jil Sander, tie by Banana Republic Monogram, and shoes by Salvatore Ferragamo. He definitely splurged on his little get up, he even surprised me with his yellow socks! He looked so amazing and I can't wait for him to wear it all again!

{photos by Anna Wolf}

We Are MARRIED!!!!

Wow! Patrick and I are finally married! I just had to share a couple of sneak peaks from our wedding. Everything went perfect, we had the time of our lives! All of our closest friends and family were in Jamaica with us to celebrate, and boy was it a fun filled 4 day celebration! Our photographer and dear friend, Anna Wolf captured every magical moment of the weekend, we literally have thousands of photos to go through and I can't wait to share them with you in the upcoming days!

Mellow Yellow

Throughout this whole wedding planning process I've been completely inspired by so many of my favorite blogs, magazines and websites. There has never been a visual lull on the web when it comes to inspiration. Above are some of the images I have been collecting throughout the past year and some are actually part of our wedding decor. Please forgive me as I do not recall where I got some of the images, they were before my blogging days began, but I will try my best to give credit where credit is due. If you know where any of the images I don't have credits for came from, please let me know!

This past week has been a whirlwind and I am soooo looking forward to Wednesday when we leave for Jamaica. This is my last post before the wedding, I can't wait to share photos with you when we get back!

(first board - clockwise}
jen murphy bears "sunshine"
beautiful daisies - i forgot where i found this image
mokuba ribbons
martha stewart weddings
{second board - clockwise}
rebecca thuss - this was the image that helped me set our theme
swayspace invite via brooklyn bride
more mokuba ribbons
{third board - clockwise}
love jenna calligraphy
j.crew bridesmaid's dresses
the lovely michelle williams
gorgeous poolscape - once again, i've forgotten where i found this amazing image
{last board board - left to right}
our cake topper by jen murphy bears
martha stewart weddings

Our Venue

Last Fall Patrick, my parents and I visited Montego Bay, Jamaica to scope out our wedding venue, Half Moon. We fell in love with it. Everything felt right, from the wedding venue, the restaurants, resort activities and the villas. If you remember a couple of weeks back, I posted the plan of our wedding layout at our ocean villa. Above are photos of the villa and it's back drop, the Carribean Sea. We are so excited!

{photos from thoughtful day}

Our Ring Pillow

I just had to share our ring bearer pillow. Vané surprisingly made the pillow for me, literally less than a handful of days before her wedding! She used some of the leftover Hable Construction fabric she had for her vases. I then tufted it with one of my vintage buttons and some Mokuba ribbon. It was my first tufting job and it was so easy, took me less than 5 minutes!

I haven't been posting many details of our wedding because I want to surprise all of our guests, so this is it until after the wedding. I will be back a few more times throughout the next week and then I am off to Jamaica to get married! I can't believe it is finally happening!

Vané and Chad's Wedding

{clockwise - st. ann's armenian church, program, vané and her father, vané and chad married}


{view from cocktail hour, cocktail hour buffet station, me, vané and anne}


{guest book station with pin favors, detail of the cake with cake topper, me and patrick at the photo booth}


(the bride and groom's table, vané and her father dancing the tango, favors, flowers}

This weekend Patrick and I attended Vané and Chad's wedding, it was a gorgeous and extremely personal affair. There were so many personal (and amazing!) touches throughout the wedding, but at the end of the day, looking back at the event it was not just about these touches but more so about Chad and Vané as a cool and fun couple and their wedding totally reflected that. It was FUN!, from the start to the end of the reception, there was a fantastic energy and any given time the dance floor was packed. From Vané and Chad's first dance to her dance with her dad to the Tango! I do not recall her ever mentioning once she had an inner tango queen living inside of her, I really couldn't believe my eyes! She and her dad had moves that I swear they must have been practicing for months, but she made it quite clear she was total natural! Then with Vané being Armenian, many of her family and friends danced to traditional Armenian songs, which was so much fun to see. During dinner, we sat with another friend Anne and her fiancé Tom, which was so fun to talk about our upcoming nuptials ( At least Anne and I thought so :), ours in 12 days and theirs next Fall. I won't go into too many details about the reception as it is only fitting that Vané will. But I will say this, in the end it was such a personal event, Vané's blog throughout the past year has proven to be such a great reference and inspiration tool for all of us brides and she truly pulled off a wedding that reflected all of her energy towards the blog. Lucky for me I have made great friends out of this wedding blog world, and it has been so much fun to experience all of our planning inspiration, advice and "problem solving" together!

Be sure to check out Anne's blog for more photos of Vané and Chad's wedding.

{images from thoughtful day}

Charms

I am almost finished with all of the gifts for our wedding party, and last night I picked up one of these charms from Tiffany for my niece who is going to be my personal attendant. She just got the charm bracelet so I think she will love her new charm, what 13 year old wouldn't love a charm like this?

{images from Tiffany}

Embroidered Beach Towels

I am in the finishing stages of filling our welcome totes I just picked up these beach towels from Pottery Barn Kids for my niece and nephew with their names embroidered on them. I am sure they will be used plenty throughout the weekend in Jamaica.

{images from PB Kids}

Anna Wolf

I am excited to share with you the work of Anna Wolf, our good friend and the photographer of our wedding. Anna and her boyfriend Mike Perry, whom we've known for years after meeting him in art school, have become close friends and fellow Brooklynites. While Anna mostly shoots fashion and documentary photography, we're really excited that she is taking the time to capture this cherished moment in our lives.

We met with Mike and Anna the other night and they are both so enthusiastic about shooting our wedding and have so many great ideas. Having the ability to sit down and really exchange ideas on the look and feel of the photos was a great opportunity. We can hardly wait 17 more days!!!

{images from Anna Wolf}