Our Wedding: Hair + Make-Up
Whoa, it's been a minute since my last wedding post. I guess life got real busy... but I want to finish this series, so next up is hair and make-up.
I chose to invest the majority of the beauty budget to make-up... It's one of those things that I really don't have a clue about as I don't wear much on the daily. When it came down to it, I knew that I'd be hiring Chelsey Matley. I'd seen her work with so many previous brides and my photographer sang praises about her as well. We have tons of mutual friends and I knew she'd be awesome. Most of my bridesmaids would probably say the same and I wanted them to feel beautiful on the big day as well. Chelsey not only did my make-up but all five of my bridesmaids and each one of them looked incredible.
This is one of my favorite frames. So good.
Next up is hair... because make-up was an investment, I went on the good ol' Facebook and asked around if I had any good friends who did hair as more of a hobby... and being the awesome lady that she is, a friend from college (Deandra Hamer) stepped up to the plate. I didn't want to do anything crazy with the hair; I just knew that I wanted it down. We did a few trial runs and I'm really happy with the work she did for me! And for an amazing price ;) She also helped out with everyone else's hair too. Thanks girl!
My advice when it comes to this... I really don't have much, truthfully. I am not a make-up/hair guru AT ALL. I can't even curl my own hair and for the most part, my hair holds curls pretty well. #fail. So, I had to hire out or ask for help because these areas were not my forte. If you've got room in the budget, I'd say hire pros... and if not, and you're great at this stuff, then save some dolla bills and do it yourself! :)
Our Wedding: Event & Floral Design
I've been looking forward to this post because there's much to share/ much I can say... I'll attempt to keep this short. When it came to our event design we wanted it to be sophisticated, but not stuffy. (I may have already stated this somewhere else... ha!) We still wanted it to say Aaron and Dorothy. And so the main colors for our wedding were black and white- with accents of green, plum, burgundy. Below is the vision board I put together:
the FLOWERS.
A year before my wedding I had photographed my friend Hannah's wedding (featured on 100 Layer Cake!) and at the time her and her sister were starting a wedding design and event planning business. I had been dating Aaron for about a year at that point and I didn't know quite when we would be getting be married but I knew it was going to happen... haha, so we decided to do a trade! This was a huge deal for us as florals can get very expensive. But out of all the Pinterest ideas and DIY projects you could do for decor and table settings, my number one priority was flowers. All the trends you see out there will go in and out of style, but flowers never will... so this is where we invested the majority of our money when it came to decor. I am so so grateful to Hannah and Elsa of Juliet & Lou. They did a beautiful job on our limited budget. We had them create so much for us:
a bridal bouquet,
a bridal floral crown,
5 bridesmaid bouquets,
9 boutonnieres (groom, groomsmen, dads)
2 wrist corsages (moms)
4 flower girl floral crowns
2 large floral arrangements for the ceremony
the altar
18-25 table arrangements
the PLACE SETTINGS.
Originally we were just going to have a menu and a napkin at each spot, but the closer we got to the wedding, the more I realized that it was going to look pretty empty at each table so last minute, we decided to do plates and utensils. Hannah found some sweet black plastic cups to fill in at each seat too! Of course they were all the plastic plates that looked real and faux gold utensils we bought off of Amazon. I'm really glad we decided to do this even though it was another $300 or so... but for 225 people? Not bad.
At each setting we had mini-taco flags handmade and screenprinted by my friend Megan Spurgeon. (These were also peoples' favors!) Megan is a wizard and bought all the felt we needed for 250 mini-flags sand 2 large donut/cupcake flags for like $80, handcut and glued these together. Here are some photos she sent me during her process:
I quickly designed a small menu to put at each setting as well, using the same font we had used in our invitations to make it all look cohesive. I used this to make table numbers as well.
We had our friend Ellen Mauro, who also addressed our invitations, handletter marble tiles we purchased from Lowes' for placecards. Guests were also welcomed and encouraged to take these home as well!
other ELEMENTS.
Some other things we added on each table were black taper candles- I loved these so much! Megan also made some triangular placecard holders for us with black modeling clay. I made the table numbers with floral elements illustrated by Eleni Hannula.
Instead of doing communion during our ceremony, we decided to do it at together with everyone prior to commencing dinner. This was how it was done when Jesus did it and we loved the family dinner feeling of all being in the same room, breaking bread and drinking together. We bought bread loaves from QFC and wrapped them up with some floral paper.
We cut up the same floral paper into square sheets for the kiddos to color and also bought some small packs of crayons for them. During cocktail hour, we also had a small temporary tattoo station set up with tattoos purchased from Tattly and some handmade with our logo by one of my bridesmaids, Yvonne.
the SIGNAGE.
We had purchased this letterboard from threepotatofour with the intention of using it for Save the Date, decor for the wedding and later for our home. They're pricey but we liked the white border that we hadn't seen anywhere else. At the wedding we used it as a bar menu. J+L had a few as well and they used it for the ceremony site, which we didn't even see until we got our photos back! Ha. Just for fun (and because this blog post doesn't have enough photos already...) here was the gif of our Save the Date we sent to everyone:
I hired my friend Libby Tipton to do our seating chart. Ellen had just had a baby! and I wanted to be able to use as many of my friends' talents as possible. She did an amazing job for having 225 names! Aaron bought some plywood and stained it black for us to place the chart on.
the DESSERT TABLE.
Hannah and Elsa rented the black dresser from Vintage Ambiance. We borrowed cake stands from them and friends. Our donut pegboard was made and stained by Aaron himself. Our flags of course, by Megan.
There you have it! It all turned out so beautifully and better than I could have imagined. I cannot thank Hannah and Elsa enough for seeing our vision come through and making it even better! It was so fun to walk in the room and see how it came together. Thank you to my SPU friends for coming out early and helping set up- you guys know who you are!
My advice? I already mentioned it above to be honest... pick elements that will stand the test of time, if possible. Clearly the geometric aspect of our design is super trendy right now but it's definitely very me... I mean, I've got a permanent triangle tattoo on my body ha! But seriously, invest in flowers! They will always be beautiful. And if your budget doesn't allow too much wiggle room for decor, that's okay! Invest it in things that will serve your community because a wedding is not only a celebration of two people coming together but a celebration and a thank-you to the friends and family that have brought them to that point in their lives.
And I'll leave you with some more of my favorite photos because Kristen nailed it.
Read our past wedding blog posts:
*all photos posted by Kristen Marie Parker
A Weekend in San Diego
This past weekend, we got the chance to head down to San Diego! I'm currently still here until the end of the week working on the next volume of the Nations journal but I thought it would be great if A could come down with me for the beginning or tail end. He was only here for a day and a half, but we squeezed in as much as we could. Here are some iPhone photos from our time together. He loved it and we loved being away from Seattle. I adore hanging out with this guy; he makes my heart flutter. Life with your best friend is pretty swell, guys! Cannot thank our friend Brianna for hosting us enough!
SATURDAY //
A really wanted me to take a photo of this sweet car and I just liked the surfboard mailbox.
Saturday morning brunch
We headed into San Diego after a tasty brunch with B at Le Papagayo
Currently Aaron's reading this book and I'm reading a classic, The Grapes of Wrath.
We walked around at Balboa Park and laid in the grassy shade. Ah, it was nice.
Of course, we had to grab some ice cream! Hammond's was recommended to us; of course we had to get the infamous ice cream flights. We tried Vietnamese Coffee, Banana Cream Pie, Thai Iced Tea, Lychee Cream and Mango Sorbet.
That night, we met up with Joel's family and Brianna at Stone Brewing. Super rad place and the food was so good! We tried this awesome beer that was in a wine bottle (see photo below). It was a great night and we had some good chats with them. I was happy Aaron finally got to meet 'em!
another car A wanted me to take a pic of...
SUNDAY //
We headed to Steady State for some coffee in Carlsbad before meeting up with B for church at North Coast. Coffee was on point. Good rec!
For lunch, we headed to the Taco Stand... because duh.
We had some time to kill so we attempted to drive to La Jolla so I could show Aaron but traffic was pretty bad; we managed to get there but then had to leave right away.
Saxon, Joe and his parents happened to be in town the same weekend so we met up with them at Bottlecraft in Little Italy. Lots of beers and talks about beers later, A had to leave to make his flight! We had such a great time though and am thankful we were able to see some friends.
I have a feeling all of our future travel blog posts will be lots of food photos. Sorry, not sorry. Already missing you, babe!
Our Wedding: The Venue
In the six/seven years that I have photographed weddings, I have always thought to myself what kind of venue I'd want to be married in. The answer changed several times, of course. Would it be a church? That is something mom would've wanted for sure. There was actually a church that I thought would've been so beautiful to be married in (see here), however there wasn't a reception area near that I loved quite as much as Dairyland. Aaron and I spent some time looking through venues for a couple of weeks. There were several factors we had to compute for:
Cost
Location- we would be having family fly in, as well as drive up from Olympia and Seattle.
Size- we needed to house 200-250 people
Amenities- what's included? how many hours of rental for cost?
Look/Light- a very large factor for me as a photographer... the light. would it photograph well? on bright weather and/or rainy weather?
We looked at many and I'm sure we missed a good amount too because I am still hearing of new venues to this day. Regardless, when I found Dairyland, I knew that was it. The thing that sold me was the all-white reception barn. The second thing that sold me is the fact that all their farm tables and chairs were included. We knew for a fact that we wanted long tables versus round tables for the reception space. I've been to too many weddings with round tables and to me, there is a feeling of high school cliques to them. We wanted our wedding to feel like family, dining together.
When I showed my parents initially, it was a definite no. It was too far away, it was on the pricier end and my mom just didn't understand the aesthetic we were going for. It took awhile of convincing before they finally caved. To be honest though, the cost to rent this venue isn't as bad as some of the ones we found that were closer to the city. Of course, the price has increased a bit since last year.
A complete bridal suite- I loved the upstairs of this room- it was so beautiful!
We were lucky that the other barn was open to our use; we had the boys get ready in this area!
My favorite part of the whole venue was of course the reception barn. It also provided a Plan B, in case it rained on us. I actually did expect it to rain to be honest, but I'm so glad it didn't!
Another thing I thought about was weird lighting/flashes causing different color casts if and when a flash would need to be used, so having white walls would prevent that from happening.
A great spot for family and bridal portraits. We also did our First Look here.
Our outdoor ceremony space. The weather was perfect on our wedding day! Thanks Jesus :)
Cocktail area
A small area for lawn games
One thing that Dairyland in and of itself didn't offer was a variety of areas for portraits. We really wanted pictures in nature as well. Good thing we were out in Snohomish! Dairyland is super close to Lord Hill Park, which is where we headed to for our photos after our First Look.
The venue itself is also really close to a lot of cornstalks and farms and provided lots of scenery surrounding. We drove down the road and snuck in some sunset portraits during the reception as well!
Other cons: though it says a prep kitchen is provided, it's just really room where you can store food and prep it. I wish there was some sort of refrigeration and more of a sink/wash area. You also have to get insurance for your event through another source that Dairyland uses (I'm not sure if all venues require you to do this?).
All in all, we were very happy with Dairyland. It provided an amazing backdrop for our ceremony and a fun outdoor space for mingling and photos. There is plenty of space to get ready in. One of our favorite memories from the wedding was coming back into the cocktail area and looking around, seeing all of our friends and family mingling. Advice when it comes to venue? Pick one that feels like you as a couple. Dairyland was beautiful, but it wasn't stuffy. We weren't having an upscale wedding, by any means. I mean, we had a taco truck! Consider how the environment will make your guests feel. Pick one, if applicable, that offers variety in case of situations that may come up (such as weather). And if you're like me, consider what you want your photos to look like. For instance, if you want light/airy wedding photos, don't pick a dark venue with random knick-knacks everywhere. Anyway, there you have it! Stay tuned for my post about decorations and flowers, coming up next!
Read our past wedding blog posts:
*all photos posted by Kristen Marie Parker