We weren’t quite done with Geranium Lake Flowers after this mornings post. The work they do with flowers – it’s magical. So it’s a Geranium Lake Flowers kind of day on the LBB Blog. This Portland wedding, captured by Erica Ann Photography & Fine Arts, is filled with quirky little deets we love. Like those cheese grater luminaries – genius. The whole wedding is filled with so many unique touches that leave you with the feeling of really, really getting to know this great couple. Click here for the rest!
We met for the first time on a coffee date on my birthday at Pazzo. We hit it off immediately. I liked him so much I cancelled my own birthday party that night so that I could have dinner with him. When deciding on a venue for our wedding, we could only think of the having our wedding at the place we met. When Mark proposed, we drove through 8 hours of snow & traffic to Seattle, where he proposed to me on the morning of my birthday.
I found a picture in an old magazine I bought at a library sale that showed old rusted out cheese graters being used as luminaries, and I fell in love with the idea. I thought it would be a nice way to subtly incorporate my love for cheese and all things food without making our wedding look like a Star Trek wedding, but with food.
Since we were having the reception and dinner in a very intimate wine cellar, we wanted to have the ceremony in an opposite environment – an open air rooftop with the sounds and sights of the city. Nothing says festive like café lights, so we strung lights at both venues, and those tied the places together and were used as a motif in the invitations.
We are kinda bookish people, without being grossly annoying about it, but we did feel the need to pay homage to our first date at a bookstore. We collected some of our favorite books and my old Olivetti Typewriter to dress up our guest table. We kept it relaxed and earthy by using birch accents in the table décor and a birch limb as the anchor for the paper flower curtain altar piece which Kim designed, and my mother and I helped craft.
We didn’t include anything in this wedding that didn’t have personal meaning to us. We didn’t do anything because you are “supposed” to do it. I walked down the aisle to “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS. My bouquet was wrapped in the very same ribbon that I used to wrap a birthday gift I gave to Mark on our first date. We had pictures of our two cats, Loki and Applejack, in their tuxedos, along with a piece of lace the bride bought in Belgium in 1997 to use in her wedding, on our guest table. We used a reading from the Velveteen Rabbit that had special meaning to the bride, and a poem the groom wrote as the bulk of our ceremony, both read by the bride’s sisters. I wore a pearl necklace with an opal stone that was an heirloom from my paternal grandmother, and a diamond ring that belonged to my late maternal grandmother. We had a tree stump engraved with M+M inside a heart, which is how the bride signs her napkin letters she puts in the groom’s lunch.
We tied our wedding rings to a small brass bell with the aforementioned ribbon. Mark and I purchased this bell months before our wedding on a trip to Astoria. Leading up to the wedding, Mark and I would ring that bell if something good happened…if he solved a problem at work, or if I made a ridiculous peach cobbler or if we wanted to tell the other one we loved them from a different room. The bell’s ringing became a sound we associated with good and happy things, so we would both know, that when my youngest niece was walking down the aisle and ringing the heck out of that bell, that all good things were about to happen. He could hear the bell from the altar, and I could hear it from the stairwell to the rooftop and we would both know that we were about to be the happiest we’ve ever been.
Wedding Consultant: Kim Foren, Geranium Lake Flowers & Nadia Ly, Creations by Ly / Flowers: Geranium Lake Flowers / Reception Site: The Wine Cellar at Hotel Vintage Plaza | Pazzo Ristaurante / Ceremony: DeSoto Rooftop Terrace / Rings and Jewelry: Family heirlooms and Lucia Jewelers / Wedding Gown: David’s Bridal / Veil & Accessories: David’s Bridal / Shoes: David’s Bridal / Formal Wear: Men’s Wearhouse / Cake: Papa Haydn / Caterer: The Art of Catering & Pazzo Ristaurante / Photographer: Erica Ann Photography & Fine Art / Music & Entertainment: Baby Ketten Karaoke / Makeup: Janine Salzman / Officiant: Rev. Robert Griffin