DIY Wedding in New York

I couldn’t believe my luck when this little gem of a wedding popped into my inbox. It’s kind a Style Me Pretty dream come true, actually. Gorgeous, super chic bride and groom. Flowers by the beloved Saipua design studio in Brooklyn. An eclectic, adorable group of bridesmaids. And a style that I can’t seem to get enough of. We have fallen madly in love with this bride and her wedding and can’t wait to hear what you guys think!

Andrew and I live together in Queens, NY, we work in Manhattan, and we were married in Brooklyn. What can I say – we are New Yorker’s through and through! We fell in love in this city, so it only seemed right to be married here. Our wedding reception was actually held about 50 feet from where we were engaged, at a restaurant called Bubby’s. It is nestled amongst old cobblestone streets, and between the Brooklyn & Manhattan Bridges, with a panoramic view of Manhattan. Our ceremony was held in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, inside a Grecian Structure (aka. the Peristyle), which was built in 1904. It was a special place for us, because we had enjoyed many runs together in this park and had often marveled at the beauty of this structure.

Andrew was laid off from his job last January, so our already tight budget became even tighter. We kept our wedding small and intimate, but we really were able to keep our budget low while still creating our perfect wedding by making a LOT of wedding details ourselves. The company I work for, Kay Unger NY, was so gracious to make the bridesmaid dresses for our wedding. I chose different shades of mauve’s, pale pinks, peaches, and plums for the girls’ dresses – all the dresses were the same body, but different color combos.

I made all the paper details for our wedding myself – the save-the-dates, wedding invitations, table numbers, place cards, menus, and the signs around the reception. I also DIY-ed our table runners using copper colored burlap fabric. I cut the burlap in strips and stitched around its edges with copper metallic thread, which I then frayed. I made fabric boutonnieres for Andrew and the wedding party from different fabrics that I layered and stitched together. I then rolled up twine and glued it as the center of each boutonniere. I made a shrug for myself, out of appliqued lace fabric I purchased from Mood Fabrics in NYC. The idea of the different applique details contained in my dress, hair piece, shrug and clutch was that they would all work together to create a textural, unified look..even though they were different patterns. This idea of eclecticism was carried throughout our wedding style and decor.

As wedding favors, Andrew and I collected tea cups all year, mostly from the clearance room in Fish’s Eddy in Manhattan. All of the tea cups were mismatched, which was an overall theme of the wedding. We wanted everything to be mismatched, but still go well together and create a vintage vibe. I wrote every guest’s name on a tea cup with metallic gold pen, and the tea cups were part of the table decor.

Our photographer was Natalia Russo, of Natalia Russo Photography. She came down from Syracuse, NY to capture our special day. She was so wonderful, and she really captured our day perfectly. All flowers (ceremony bouquets & reception flowers) were done by Saipua of Brooklyn, NY. The flowers were so textural and seasonal – I was absolutely in love with them.