Wedding!
Recaps
Wedding Recap 1: Getting Ready + First Look
Wedding Recap 4: Family + Wedding Party Photos
Details
My dress was from Priscilla of Boston.
Our bridesmaid dresses were also from Priscilla of Boston. I asked our bridesmaids to choose a knee-length dress in a shade of blue. They all ended up with different styles, but they looked fantastic together in the end! Our officiant chose a dress in a deep purple so that she would be set apart but still coordinate with the bridesmaids.
Our officiant was our friend, Cordelia, who got ordained in order to conduct our ceremony.
Both the ceremony and reception were held in the rooftop sculpture garden (and Fresco restaurant) at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Since the location was so gorgeous, we did very little decorating!
We served hors d’oeuvres and made-to-order small plates.
Our photographer was Blue Dandelion Photography. We LOVED both our engagement and wedding pictures…highly recommend them!
I made our Save-the-Dates out of one of our engagement pictures.
We ordered our invitations from Paper Source
I designed and printed our guest book through blurb.com using our engagement pictures.
The day before the wedding, my parents and I went to the Dane County Farmer’s Market to pick out flowers. Rather than planning out exactly what I wanted beforehand, I chose to buy whatever was in season and looked good. We ended up with ranunculus for the bridesmaids and flower girl, and lilies (my favorite!) for me. They looked great, we saved a lot of money, and we supported local businesses.
Something Old….
Pins on my headband are actually clip-on earrings that originally belonged to my great-grandmother (mom’s side).
Something New…
My dress was new, as were my shoes!
Something Borrowed…
The pearls I wore were left by my late grandmother (dad’s side) to my little sister. She allowed me to wear them for my big day!
Something Blue…
I wrapped up my bouquet with a blue ribbon.
Our Wedding Philosophy
Several aspects of our wedding were not “traditional.” We liked it this way. We wanted the wedding to reflect us and our relationship.
The “wedding industry” often says that you should spend x% of your budget on invitations, y% on the flowers, etc.
Dan and I didn’t.
We had a relatively “small” wedding budget. It really isn’t small, but when compared to the average cost of a wedding today (almost $30,000!!), it isn’t large.
So we didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on flowers that would wilt, or invitations that most people wouldn’t keep.
We spent money on our location and the food, because this is what people will remember. (And as a foodie, I couldn’t have sub-par food at my own wedding!) We spent money on the things that are important to us.
I am not judging people who do want a more traditional wedding, or who do pay for pricey invitations, flowers, etc. It just isn’t my own, personal style.
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It’s so great to read about other brides planning their weddings!! I am in the process of starting my own wedding planning blog and would like any input. If you want you can check out my blog at
http://loveisyouloveisus.wordpress.com/
I’m obsessed with weddings! I don’t plan on getting married anytime soon (aka I tell the lovely fella he can’t even think about it for a few more years), but I read wedding blogs all the time! My favorite is http://www.thebridescafe.com/ so many pretty pictures and good ideas!
I’m seriously obsessed… I’ve planned my non-existent wedding on a word document complete with everything from pictures, venues, chairs and invitations i want… I’m ridiculous!
Congratulations!
Love how you are organizing this to fit your needs. Look forward to seeing a wedding recap!
can you try to gchat me? as in…if i am online, and you start the convo, i may be able to use keyshort cuts to talk (this is seriously ridiculous. i am now communicating with you via comments on your blog. ha.)
you are getting married NEXT WEEKEND.
ok. that is all. xoxo
YOU ARE MARRIED.
this is a just a reminder.
in case you forgot.
you are a Mrs.
you have a husband.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the updates to this page! you were a stunning bride in person, and the camera REALLY captured your gorgeousness, as well! xo
Catching up. I realized that I wanted to know about your wedding and I am so glad I am reading the posts! Such a gorgeous dress. I love that it is shorter and it suites you so well! I like the idea of a non traditional wedding and the emphasis on great food. I get annoyed by the subpar food at weddings. Really, who wants mediocre pasta and soggy bread? Not me! Those little tomato soups look awesome )that’s what they are, right?)
Thank you for all your sweet compliments! And yes, that was tomato soup
Oops, I mean it was a tomato-based corn chowder!
i am so in love with your dress. to me, that is perfect!
Thank you so much! It was exactly what I was looking for in a dress
Your wedding decisions are absolutely genius! I wish more people went about this the way you and Dan did.
I love reading these wedding recaps!!
Julie (A Case of the Runs) recently posted..Roasted
Also let the photographer know of any pictures that you do not want him or her to take. Letting your photographer know this before the wedding will give him or her time to plan and schedule a set of pictures so the wedding day photo shoot goes quickly and smoothly.
hey julie! thanks for pointing me here to look at your wedding flowers! unfortunately, we’re not getting married in madison, – we’re getting married in our tiny hometown. so no farmers’ market flowers.
my mom was originally planning on growing my flowers, but she did a test run last summer, starting flowers at several different times to see what was blooming near our wedding weekend, but our wedding is at the very end of august – too late for the flowers we wanted. 
BUT, i would like more info on how you did your guest book? what was the layout? i would love using our engagement photos and designing our own like you did… it sounds like a great idea – and i honestly really didn’t want to buy a traditional guestbook, so this would be perfect!
We used blurb.com for our guestbook. We got the rights to our engagement photos from our photographer, and downloaded blurb’s free Blurb BookSmart program. In the program, you choose the size of book you’d like and a template (or you can do a photo book from scratch). It’s pretty straightforward, just drag and drop your photos into the designated boxes! Super easy and a lot more fun than the guestbooks where people simply sign their names.
oh great, thanks! i’ve made photo books before. how did you format it? like, did you put lines on the pages for people to sign? and the put photos around the lines? or when the book was open, did the left page have photos and the right page have lines? is there a guestbook template? lol, sorry for the questions! i could just wing it, but it sounds like yours turned out really nice!
sarah (sarah learns) recently posted..he loves me- he loves me not…
I just left a lot of white space around the photos, no lines. Then I put out a sign and some pens asking people to sign it.
I can send you some photos of the interior pages if you want!
i would appreciate that so much, julie!
thank you thank you!
sarah (sarah learns) recently posted..a night to remember!
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