Support Gay Marriage!

If you support gay marriage...

Governor Patterson has said that NY will recognize legal same-sex marriages
from other states and countries. He's doing a poll on whether people support
it. If you're interested in taking 15 seconds to lodge your support, just
call 1-518-474-8390 and say "I support the Governor's directive on
marriage," then give them your 5 digit (New York) zip code.

Send this to all your friends and progressive coworkers in New York ASAP!

Back next week!

This week has been incredibly busy for me, so I will be back next week to share more of our wedding photos. I am not done yet!

If I were to give advice to a bride...

1) Get a good photographer. Make sure you get to know them, take them out to dinner, out for a drink, whatever, just make sure they know you as a couple and it is really important to know what you want from them. We were lucky with Anna, we know her well and vice versa, but my advice to all brides, go with a good photographer, sacrifice other parts of your wedding just to ensure you have a good one!
2) Don't spend a stupid amount of money on your dress, but do splurge on your shoes.
3) Envision and plan YOUR wedding. Know what you want. Luckily no one interfered with my vision, my parent's were extremely supportive and Patrick trusted me. Except when it came to the bar, more on that later.


4) Pick your colors. Then pick your inspiration. I knew my color story before I knew anything else, it helped set the tone and feel of what I wanted our wedding to be. Light, fun, and whimsical. Above is the cover of a vintage American folk art book and to the right is our save the date artwork, it set the tone for the rest of the stationery suite.


5) Let me preface this next one with the fact that I am a product designer, then maybe you won't think I am crazy. CHAIRS - Think about them. The chairs that came with the resort (and free) were your sub standard banquet chairs draped with slip covers. NO WAY! So we had to rent the silver chivari chairs for the reception and the white folding chairs for the ceremony. I didn't want there to be a sea of white fabric, the landscape and natural setting was just too beautiful to be overwhelmed with more white than what was already on the tables.
6) Let your groom have what he wants (here and there). For Patrick, it was the bar, it had to be premium, top shelf liquor.
7) Music - If you have a DJ, like we did for the reception, make sure you go over what kind of music you like with him. Patrick and I are bit fanatic when it comes to music, so the control freaks we are, sent down multiple dvds full of music, labeled with dinner music, dancing music, etc. The DJ played everything we loved, with one exception, "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond, one of Patrick's least favorite songs.


8) Table settings and flowers. Pick out your inspiration and go with it. Go with your gut, your first instinct is always right. I loved this Rebecca Thuss image so much that I had to have lemons somehow be a part of our floral arrangements. Going with the lemon theme, I had lemon drops as the candy favors. Chargers - The chargers the resort used for weddings were black and white, I happened to see the silver chargers at one of the restaurants and asked to have those instead.
9) Make sure you and your groom are on the dance floor for the last song of the night. It was probably one of my favorite moments of the night, most people had already left, and it was just Patrick and I dancing, a nice little moment after all that we worked so hard towards was (for him, finally / for me, sadly) over.
10) Don't waste paper! In our welcome totes we refrained from printing out activity booklets. There would have been about 20 pages of stuff to do in and around the resort, so we made a pdf of everything and sent it out to our guests a few weeks prior to the wedding. It worked out great.


11) Last but not least, every cake needs a cake topper!

Daytime Activities

Here is my last post of our wedding photos for a while, some will definitely pop up in the future, (okay near future! maybe some dance floor action?) I can't help it! These are just some random photos throughout the weekend, I can't begin to tell you how awesome it has been to go through all of these. Anna, the rock star that she is, somehow documented what all of our guests did throughout the long weekend! People rode bikes, drove golf carts, the resort is huge (which we loved, it never felt crowded) so this type of transportation was necessary to get around. We went swimming with dolphins, played golf, chess, you name it, there was a little something for everyone. Patrick and I had the time of our lives, our closest friends and family, down in paradise, for our wedding. It meant the world to us, it was truly a dream come true.

Have a wonderful weekend!

{all photos by Anna Wolf}

Hair Accessories

Taking a break from my own wedding today, I will post more photos tomorrow, mostly celebratory, dancing, fun photos Anna took randomly throughout the weekend.

In the mean time, check out New York Mag's hair accessory round up, prices starting at $40 up to $14,500 (!?!).

{images from new york magazine}

Welcome Reception Photo Booth

Here are a few photos from the welcome reception night. Anna and Mike put together a little makeshift photo booth and all of our guests got to let out their inner superstar! This is a great and creative solution to the standard photo booth and seems to be a trend, Vané even had one at her wedding. What better way to make your guests feel like stars for the night? So many fun photos came out of this shoot that Patrick and I are planning to put together a book!

{photos by Anna Wolf}

More Wedding Details

Last week I posted photos of the reception details and here are some more of the design elements from our wedding. In the first set of photos are the welcome totes I designed for each couple, with Jenna Hein's calligraphy gracing each welcome tag. Below are the custom made ceramic tags by Paloma's Nest that were enclosed in each little hand stamped pouch. I had a couple of stamps made for the wedding; they are such an easy and cost efficient way to carry your theme throughout all of your wedding details, a no brainer if you ask me! The following photos are part of the stationery suite I designed, I had so much fun designing my own invites that I started helping and designing other bride's stationery. Thanks Vané for the shout out last week!

Over the next two days I will be posting more of our wedding pics, then that is it. I PROMISE!

Art On The Tate

So not really wedding related but sort of because my husband and his partner just painted the front of the Tate Modern in London!!! Less than 24 hours after we got back from our honeymoon, they left to put their work up on the Tate. If any of you are there over the next three months, please go check it out!!! I hope to make it out there sometime in July. May has been a very exciting month for us to say the least!

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}