For a Bride who’s also the mega talent behind Tiny Pine Press, crafting her very own wedding day began not with the dress or the venue but with the paper. And from there a celebration was built that takes the cake in effortless elegance with a homespun flare. It’s a love story expressed through beautiful stationery, the prettiest layer of flowers by Clementine Floral Works and images by Gia Canali (who has a brand spanking new site by the way) that showcase a true coming together of friends and family.
And to go along with all those beautiful photographs by Gia is a film by Jeff Martin that truly captures the amazing spirit of this event. Have a look…
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From the Bride, Jennifer Parsons of Tiny Pine Press… When Ben and I first started thinking about our wedding, our vision was to be married outdoors. Because I am from the rural mountains of southwestern Virginia it was important to me that nature be incorporated into my urban Los Angeles wedding site. I didn’t want to have a tent so we started searching for indoor/outdoor locations. I knew Carondelet was perfect for us when I saw the tree growing in the center of the courtyard with it’s canopy shading the building. It was going to be tight but I would have my wedding under a while being indoors… I got to have my cake and eat it too.
Speaking of cake… Ben only had a couple of requests for the wedding. And the main one was that we had some good desserts. We had a “decorate your own cupcake” bar – a tradition in Ben’s family for birthdays. We also had Ben’s favorite chocolate chip cookies, fried apple pies, coconut macaroons and mini pecan pies. Ben’s sweet tooth was very fairly represented. (And mine too!)
If our wedding had a theme it was “Home”. I wasn’t going to ask all of our family and friends to travel to my very very rural hometown, so I wanted to bring that bit of my Appalachian heritage to Los Angeles. We wanted our reception to have a real sense of warmth like a living quilt or collage with a thread of homespun warmth throughout. In the end this all came together because I have such generous family and friends who all pitched in to make our wedding exactly like my vision. (almost everyone in the “vendor” list is a friend!) And my brother Oscar brought it full circle with a fully traditional hillbilly moonshine toast with folks passing the jar around until every guest got to have a sip of that good ole white lightnin’.
My first grade teacher sewed quilted table runners for the tables (they are now assembled into an amazing crazy quilt). My mom made the other table quilts, and my good friends at Clementine Floral Works gathered wooden objects for amazing florals. My younger brother Oscar made the leather guestbook and even sang at the ceremony. And my father, who passed away 13 years ago, was still able to be there as my mother and I walked down the aisle to a recording of his guitar version of the traditional English folk song “Greensleeves”.
To me this is the way a wedding should be – a gathering of community in celebration of love with everyone contributing what they can. Needless to say, I am one lucky girl.
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The Paper… So to start the wedding off right, I knew we needed a special save the date. I love delicate materials, like very thin drinking glasses and fragile dried flowers, which was the inspiration for our little booklet. All of the papers for the save the date were from my personal collection so I just looked through my flat file and picked out all the best pieces of thin, translucent and ethereal papers (only printable by letterpress) and I stitched together a sweet booklet with a mock orange flower on the cover… et voila.
Most girls dream of their wedding dress, but I have been dreaming of my wedding invitations since I started Tiny Pine Press nine years ago. I have always been inspired by the idea of “paper quilts.” I wanted to marry different colors and textures. I love neutrals – from tan and taupe to grey and blue.
My must have materials have always been handmade paper for the invitation, vintage onion skin paper (which I have been storing for years), and hand calligraphy for print. My calligrapher friend, Aleksey Shirokov, encouraged me to write the invitation in my (very unpracticed) hand. Then he mimicked my handwriting for our invitation. I also was taking quilt inspiration from the cathedral window pattern (which my mom created as table centerpieces for the wedding) and used those shapes throughout the stationery, from the pressed flowers to the escort cards.
The resulting invitation is a crazy quilt of monochromatics – everything is distinguishable and different but harmonious. Again we used a flower, this time a light yellow hydrangea punctuate the invitation at the bottom. And wrapped this up with cheesecloth and hand dyed silk.
One special piece of the wedding invitation was the “Groom’s Card”. Ben wanted a voice in the wedding stationer’s wedding invitation so he chose a double thick card, with laser cutting and a very clean typeface and a sea monster. I obliged. We gave him the website card since he would be in charge of keeping our guests up to date virtually.
We had full vintage stamps, even on our reply card – which may be extravagant but really fun. Many of our guests wanted their reply cards back or didn’t send them at all because they wanted to keep the full set. Our programs were a throw back to the save the date, and included a list of the “unofficial bridesmaids” who were all my helpers for the day… not just the two girls who walked down the aisle in front of me. Also, since my dad was there only in spirit, I included a little photo of him and a quote. Our thank you notes may be one of my very favorite pieces of all time. Ben and I designed it together. They sport a modern gradient printed rectangle, and then gently applied are these tiny iridescent pods we gathered from under a tree in Hawaii on our honeymoon.
Photography: Gia Canali Photography | Wedding Coordination: Ashley Scharf And Samantha Sias | Floral Design: Clementine Floral Works | Cupcakes: Frosted Cupcakery | Groom's Suit: Jason Ascher | Bride's Gown: Jenny Yoo | Bride's Headpiece: Sonia Boyajian | Bride's Necklace: Elephant Heart | Ceremony & Reception Venue: Carondelet House | Ceremony Cellist: Dale Henderson (New York) | Ceremony Guitar & Vocalist, Leather Coaster Wedding Favor: Oscar Parsons / FOAK | Ceremony Vocalist: Eleni Mandell | Escort Card Calligraphy: Laura Mendoza | Invitation Calligraphy: Aleksey Shirokov | Save The Date Calligraphy: Anne Jones | Stationery & Paper Goods: Tiny Pine Press | Wedding 16mm Film: Jeff Martin