Intimate Backyard Wedding
I'm not really supposed to pick favorites, but since my love of this wedding is literally bursting out of my body, I am just going to go ahead and say it: this is my all-time favorite wedding. It's perfectly simple, perfectly elegant and filled to the brim with amazing details all planned by Sweet Emilia Jane and captured in stunning images by The Hearts Haven. In other words? It's awesome. See it all right here.
And a sweet film from Origami Productions? Yes, please.
From the Bride... We were over the moon all day on our wedding. In fact, the entire week leading up to our wedding was magical. It was a charmed time full of creative energy, love from our families and friends, and the eager anticipation of spending our lives together. I also remember an overwhelming sense of calm because I was about to marry the person I have been in love and grown up with for the last eight years.
Kicker's parents were gracious and generous enough to allow us to marry in their backyard (and Kicker's childhood home). What that meant in practice was that we completely took over their home in anticipation of our wedding. Our families were like a whirlwind in the week before, moving furniture, hosing down patios and doing everything we could to highlight the inherent beauty of the space.
Kicker's parent's home was the most special place we could have wed for many reasons. First, the house and garden are stunning every day of the year so it was guaranteed to be beautiful for the wedding. Foolproof pretty! Second, we were staying there so we spent lots of quality time there for the whole week (and many months before) the wedding and thus got to enjoy our hard work (and the pretty lights) for longer than a few hours. Finally, the coach house above the garage was the first place we ever lived together, six years ago. We used to spend many happy afternoons after work in the garden playing and dreaming about our future, the memories of those times made getting married there even more special.
We didn't have a theme, per se, but as we made decisions we found that we did things according to both protocol and tradition only as much as felt right to us. We incorporated the olive trees that shade the whole yard as the unifying image on our paper goods and the buttons we made for the guests. We felt that using olive trees and other natural things honored and highlighted the space where we were joining our lives together. We were also drawn to the idea that olive trees are a powerful symbol of love, wisdom and peace-all good things. The flowers on the tables were representative of Midwestern wildflowers (since we live in Chicago now and I am from there). They were also a nice way to add color to the neutral palate that we felt would best highlight the natural beauty of the yard. We were lucky enough to have our best friends and our siblings standing with us and participating in our wedding, including one of our best friends agreeing to officiate our "non-denominational with Jewish accents ceremony." Those things were part of what made our wedding so happy for us.
But really it was the overwhelming amount of love we felt from everyone that buoyed us and sent us off into our marriage just right. Looking back, so many moments and details that feel like favorites - the way the lights looked as the sun went down, saying our vows under a chuppah made of my great grandmother's tablecloth,the feel of the grass on my bare feet, the TRULY delicious food, the sounds of the piano played by my aunt as we walked down the aisle, the laughter, tears and warmth that flowed from every person who was there. But my favorite of the favorite parts is the different vignettes in my memory of Kicker's face throughout the day and how sublime it felt to reach out and touch hands as a newly married couple. At one point, I am told, a motorcycle drove up the neighbor's driveway directly behind us during our ceremony and I had no idea because it felt like it was just the two of us. Plus, afterward it was a kick-ass party.
We could not have done any of the day, week or year of the wedding without lots of loving help from our families and friends and the hard work of our amazing vendors who did almost everything over phone and email with us from Chicago. They killed it and we couldn't be happier.
Kicker's parents were gracious and generous enough to allow us to marry in their backyard (and Kicker's childhood home). What that meant in practice was that we completely took over their home in anticipation of our wedding. Our families were like a whirlwind in the week before, moving furniture, hosing down patios and doing everything we could to highlight the inherent beauty of the space.
Kicker's parent's home was the most special place we could have wed for many reasons. First, the house and garden are stunning every day of the year so it was guaranteed to be beautiful for the wedding. Foolproof pretty! Second, we were staying there so we spent lots of quality time there for the whole week (and many months before) the wedding and thus got to enjoy our hard work (and the pretty lights) for longer than a few hours. Finally, the coach house above the garage was the first place we ever lived together, six years ago. We used to spend many happy afternoons after work in the garden playing and dreaming about our future, the memories of those times made getting married there even more special.
We didn't have a theme, per se, but as we made decisions we found that we did things according to both protocol and tradition only as much as felt right to us. We incorporated the olive trees that shade the whole yard as the unifying image on our paper goods and the buttons we made for the guests. We felt that using olive trees and other natural things honored and highlighted the space where we were joining our lives together. We were also drawn to the idea that olive trees are a powerful symbol of love, wisdom and peace-all good things. The flowers on the tables were representative of Midwestern wildflowers (since we live in Chicago now and I am from there). They were also a nice way to add color to the neutral palate that we felt would best highlight the natural beauty of the yard. We were lucky enough to have our best friends and our siblings standing with us and participating in our wedding, including one of our best friends agreeing to officiate our "non-denominational with Jewish accents ceremony." Those things were part of what made our wedding so happy for us.
But really it was the overwhelming amount of love we felt from everyone that buoyed us and sent us off into our marriage just right. Looking back, so many moments and details that feel like favorites - the way the lights looked as the sun went down, saying our vows under a chuppah made of my great grandmother's tablecloth,the feel of the grass on my bare feet, the TRULY delicious food, the sounds of the piano played by my aunt as we walked down the aisle, the laughter, tears and warmth that flowed from every person who was there. But my favorite of the favorite parts is the different vignettes in my memory of Kicker's face throughout the day and how sublime it felt to reach out and touch hands as a newly married couple. At one point, I am told, a motorcycle drove up the neighbor's driveway directly behind us during our ceremony and I had no idea because it felt like it was just the two of us. Plus, afterward it was a kick-ass party.
We could not have done any of the day, week or year of the wedding without lots of loving help from our families and friends and the hard work of our amazing vendors who did almost everything over phone and email with us from Chicago. They killed it and we couldn't be happier.