I’m a sucker for a great shoe and those boasting big red hearts a la Vivienne Westwood, make that adoration all the more head-over-heelsie. Straight from the camera of Angelica Glass comes this wedding filled with good shoes, great whimsical details at the hands of Stacie Shea Events and enough pretty blooms by Winston Flowers to tide you over until you get to the full gallery behind this Connecticut affair. Oh and a film by Danya Jimenez Cinemetography too. There’s so much to love about this one.
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From the Bride… Being that I am a wedding photographer, and I go to a million weddings every year, once it became my turn to be the bride I immediately went to work on planning how I wanted My day to be. All I knew for certain and and all we wanted is to have our wedding be totally, completely, 100% “us”, our favorite things in the world are music, food, eating great food and spending time with friends and family and that became the “theme” to our day. All I wanted was my wedding to feel like we took all our most favorite 130 people in the world out to dinner at our favorite restaurant and then to have drinks at our favorite dive bar and dance the night away to with cool music. Which is why we chose the DCA in Darien, CT as our wedding venue. It was a large, private estate that we were able to turn into our dream wedding, it had a homey, “have everyone over for dinner” feel to it, part, our favorite restaurant, part, fun, cool bar/lounge we love to hang out in, feel to it. It was so amazing being able to transform the venue to a mix of all things we love. To make an environment that was welcoming to our family and friends and most importantly made everyone invited feel important and welcome was the most important task.
Food, drinks, music and obviously being a photographer myself, photography, were all that mattered to me. I wanted to incorporate all these elements and share how important everyone was to us. My entire life Ive been obsessed with old family photos, so they had to be incorporated in the wedding, in place of traditional place settings, I collected tons of old photos of Jon and I as kids and assigned guests to tables according to our age as kids. We also had a polaroid camera available for guests and asked them to take a photo of themselves to leave for us as well. Table numbers were also the same, each table had a photo of both of us at that particular age. We had a photo slideshow going all night as well at our reception, that was a fun background to all our dancing, we choose to share old family photos from both mine and Jon’s childhood and it was also homage to a cool spot in New York City that we love that always has movies and music videos playing on a large screen in the background.
For our guestbook, we used different vinyl records for guests to sign instead of a traditional book, we had concert posters made with all our wedding details to incorporate our love of music. Our card box, was a vintage beer crate and we used vintage beer bottles as flowers vases. Our dessert table included our concert posters as a backdrop with a spray painted red heart as an ode to the dive bars we love so much, our wedding cake had the lyrics to the Beatles, “all you need is love”, which was also our ‘first dance” song. We also had a “surprise” dance during the reception, where we handed out confetti sticks, and had balloons drop all over the dance floor to make our wedding have a live concert feel to it. Our guests loved it and we had confetti flying around all night long! Our wedding favors were sugar cookies in the shape of a tattoo heart, and each cookie came with a matching temporary tattoo for our guests to wear, people really got into it and had our wedding tats all over!
I also wanted to incorporate some elements of my hispanic heritage into my wedding, so for our wedding vows we read, Sonnet 17, by the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, I read it in spanish, and Jon read the translation in English. The number 17 has really important meaning to us, as its the day we got engaged, the day we first met, its Jons birthday, and coincidently was our hotel suite number on our honeymoon. Creating an environment that captured all this in one night was quite a task, but with the help of my friend & event planner, Stacie Shea of Stacie Shea Events, it all miraculously, like in my wildest dreams, came together exactly as we wanted, every bit as fun, cool and kickass as I could of ever wanted. I wanted something beautiful, yet something that was very true to our personalities, it was the greatest day ever and I wish I could celebrate like that every weekend!
Wedding Photography: Angelica Glass Photography / Wedding Venue: DCA Meadowlands (Private Estate) in Darien, Connecticut / Wedding Planning: Stacie Shea Events / Floral Design: Winston Flowers / Wedding Cinematography: Danya Jimenez Cinemetography / Wedding Catering: Marcia Selden Catering / Wedding Cake: Melissa Jane Cakes / Favor Tattoo Cookies: Gabriela’s Sweets / Wedding Inviations: Jessica Haley Ink / Wedding Save-the-Dates, Place Cards + Table Numbers: DIY by the Bride (Natasha Montero Photography) / DJ: DJ Dhundee of 74 Events / Rentals: Vintage Rental Co. + Party Renal Ltd. / Dessert + Guestbook Table Linens: La Tavola Fine Linen Rental / Lighting: Shindig Lighting / Ring Bowl: Paloma’s Nest / Wedding Dress: Tara Keely via Lovely Bridal Shop / Bride’s Veil: White by Vera Wang / Bride’s Shoes: Vivienne Westwood / Bride’s Necklace: Tiffany & Co. / Bridesmaids’ Dress: David’s Bridal / Hair: Barlon / Makeup: Danielle Santagata / Groom’s Suit: J.Crew / Groom’s Shoes: Kenneth Cole / Best Man/Officiant’s Suit: H&M