If I said this wedding is filled with the kind of romance you can float on all afternoon, would you know what I meant? It’s the kind of romance that pours out of Chelsea Nicole Photography‘s images. Romance that smells like roses, that tastes like chocolate, and feels like the softest of cashmeres. Romance that is ever present in smiles, always dancing in the eyes of those who are in love. The romance that can fill a gallery with images worthy of an entire afternoon of perusing!
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Andy and I met 15 years ago at work where we eventually became friends, then best friends and finally we fell in love. In the beginning of becoming best friends we wrote 1000 emails to each other in 6 months. We discussed everything from mundane daily check-ins, recipes, to our dreams and hopes for the future. We also both love poetry and knowing the story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning who wrote each other prolifically we found the inspiration for our wedding. Elizabeth and Robert courted through many letters but finally through much turmoil were married and had a wonderful loving life. Years later, she died in his arms and her final word spoken was to his question “How do you feel” – she responded “Beautiful” and then took her last breath. I think no one can ask for a greater love than that. Sonnets from the Portuguese is considered Elizabeth’s finest work and she wrote those poems during their courting period. Robert Browning who was the lesser poet wrote his best work after falling in love with her. They brought out the best in each other and Andy and I feel that way about our relationship.
We wanted our wedding day to reflect the romance, the emotion and intimacy that existed in their work and the way we felt about each other. We wanted our special day to have an intimate feel, a touch of vintage elegance and still be fun! We thought we would never find what we needed until we wandered into the Four Seasons Las Vegas. Intimate, personal, classy without being stuffy and did not feel at all like you were in Vegas while still being convenient for our guests traveling in. Also, the Four Seasons is known for their fabulous afternoon High Tea – my favorite meal.
For the décor, we wanted something to reflect the easy afternoon feel we wanted. We had our fabulous florist incorporate our collection of mercury glass and silver serving ware with her beautiful creations. She understood our vision and was able to include all of my favorite flowers for a look that was from the garden but not rustic. She also had the fun idea of swaging the pearls on the back of the chairs to keep it whimsical.
I also knew I wanted to include lots of personal touches. From vintage handkerchiefs that we collected for the ceremony, handmade organza flower pins for the favors, the escort cards and board, assembling the lace drink parasols, and the 42 paper hydrangea pomanders (these were very time consuming) we worked on each project together. We kept the Browning theme going with quotes in our signage, each of the 60 menus having a different quote from their collected works and we picked our favorites from Sonnets from the Portuguese as our table numbers so that our guests could read them too. One of our guests’ favorite touches were the signs that we did for our photobooth. We sat down and came up with over 30 phrases, some sweet, some fun and some just plain stupid for our guests to play with.
On the Monday after our wedding we had an amazing honeymoon planned starting in Paris and then the Loire Valley. In one of the early emails years ago, we both expressed a strong desire to go to there someday. It seemed to bring it full circle to visit there for our honeymoon. We had some touches in our wedding with a nod to the trip to come, from the Madame and Monsieur signs (also a family joke since Catherine calls him Monsieur Andy), the le photomaton sign for our photobooth and the vintage reproduction postcards for our guests to write us notes on and finally the yummy French pastilles that are meant to be dissolved in tea but always end up as candy for me.
We had so much fun putting our hearts into every aspect of our wedding, and in the end, it was the perfect day. I always thought it was wrong to say that your wedding day was the best day of your life. Does it mean that it goes downhill from there? The answer is no! Our wedding day was truly a magical day – and yes, it seemed like the best day of our life. Until the day after our wedding day which was just a smidge better, and each day has added to that. I am so glad we took the time to make the day very meaningful and keep it special, intimate and full of love.
Photography: Chelsea Nicole Photography / Flowers: Las Vegas Event Flowers & Decor / Ceremony & Reception Location: Melanie Anderson, Four Seasons Las Vegas / Hair and Makeup: Makeup in the 702 / Shoes: Christian LaCroix + Menbur / Dress: Enzoani / Officiant: Dr. Kenneth Harper / Photobooth: Shutterbooth / Harpist: Kim Delibero