Check out Chicago Style Unveiled to see the awesome “real Chicago wedding” featuring Dan & Laura, their kick-ass wedding and me!
Congrats on the awesome feature guys and thanks to Chicago Style Unveiled for the hoopla!
Check out Chicago Style Unveiled to see the awesome “real Chicago wedding” featuring Dan & Laura, their kick-ass wedding and me!
Laura & Dan were married at Architectural Artifacts in November of 2009. If you’ve never been to Architectural Artifacts, you should definitely go over and get lost for a little while. Literally. I’ve been there three or four times now and every time I go I find a nook and then a cranny I have never seen before. Also, mannequins. Love the mannequins.
Their cake was lovely and in the background you can see their video playing. I’m going to go ahead and make a bold statement: best wedding video I’ve ever seen. Think I’m lying? Check it out here.
Dan & Laura put so many personal details into the day. A family friend and florist, Kim and her team did a magnificent job transforming the space (and were a pleasure to work with, to boot!) Their sweetheart table looked amazing and please also take note of the fountain behind it. Kim put tons of flowers and candles all over it. It was a fantastic focal point and looked insanely gorgeous. AA brides take note.
The aisle was lined with a few dozen of these vases filled with flowers. It looked gorgeous when they were all lit up! Speaking of the aisle, Laura bought a plain white aisle runner and painted their monogram on it. I swear I get the craftiest brides. And I love it.
Looks like Dan sent Laura a sweet note to read before the ceremony. Good work Dan, look at that smile!
Saying “I do!” (Check out the trellis that Kim decked out. It looked a-mah-zing.
Lighting the unity candle:
I mentioned the nooks and crannies that I find each time I go to Architectural Artifacts. There are three giant floors, each a feast for the eyes and (I’m guessing) a photographer’s paradise. So many props to use, so little time.
And lastly, when Laura sent me these pictures she included a little note saying she picked out a few good detail shots of things I did and a few of her personal favorites. Of course you want all the great moments and special details captured!
*All photos in this post, courtesy of the uuber-talented: Misty Winter
Laura + Dan’s Vendors:
Ceremony & Reception: Architectural Artifacts
Catering: Blue Plate Catering
Photography: Misty Winter
Photo Booth: Chicagoland Photo Booth
Videography: Blink of an Eye Productions
Florist: Kimberose
Video: Simply Unique Video
DJ: Backthird Events
Transportation: Empire Limo
Media Delivery & Rental: Trailing Edge Media
Day-of Coordination: Anticipation Events
Happy Monday! I hope this cake-spiration will ease your Monday-blues. A few of my very favorites from my archives.
This one is so intricate and beautiful without being over the top. Black and white is always classy:
*I collected these images pre-blog. Please let me know if they are yours so I can credit you!
This sweet, sweet baby shower took place in Omaha, Nebraska at a private residence in November of 2009. The parents-to-be were waiting until their little one arrived to find out if it was a girl or a boy so the color palette was orange, yellow and green so it would be fantastically gender neutral. They decided to use animals for the nursery so I jumped on board with that for the invitations!
I got craft paper cards and envelopes and a big pack of animal-themed scrapbook paper along with a giraffe stamp and some ribbon to create these. I just used some green, orange and yellow paper that was part of the paper pack to stamp and emboss the giraffe on, rounded the corners and used colorful brads to attach them to the front of the invite so it would have some motion. When it was all done, I tied a variety of yellow, green and orange striped and polka-dotted ribbons to close it at the side.
I also created a little mini-envelope for the inside that had information on a “Letters to the Little One” book that was going to be put together for Amy as a surprise. I used scraps of the green, orange and yellow paper and little buttons I had already.
I really loved making these and I think everyone liked receiving them in the mail. Isn’t snail mail such a wonderful thing?
I used more of the paper pack to make the sign for the front door to reference the invitation so people would know that they had found the right place! (Don’t worry I put it up looking nicer and evened out the letters before guests showed up. I was so worried I would forget to get a picture of everything!)
As a last minute thing, I whipped up some name tags because I had just gotten a xyron machine that I wanted to try out and used some giraffe printed paper from the same pack to back them. Easy peasy.
Flowers are expensive right? So I made some paper flowers, used mason jars and ribbon to create candle holders, put dried peas in the bottom, found a few cheap frames at the thrift store which I painted and framed some of the scrapbook paper in (seriously, i used this one pack of paper for almost every single project.)
A friend of Amy’s (mom-to-be) carved this stroller out of a watermelon and I made skewers for fruit kabobs that had little animal flags on top. This actually turned out to be the biggest pain of any of my projects. I originally wanted circles, but didn’t have a circle punch, so that failed quickly. Then I realized that it was really hard to get them to match up exactly (my type-A personality shining through). So I redid them a third time, flipping the image in InDesign so that I cut two out together, folded them over the skewer and they looked perfect! Third time is the charm, (or maybe it was three strikes and skewer flags would be out.)
I wanted to make sure there wasn’t 1,000 glasses to wash at the end of the party. You know how you set your glass down and then you walk away and when you get thirsty again you cannot for the life of you figure out what you did with it? Well champagne deserves champagne flutes and everyone was getting one chance. I made these tags for each glass so guests would be able to keep tabs on it. If you have an RSVP list beforehand it’s easy to do, otherwise I would forget it–if you miss someone and they don’t get an adorable bird tag they might cry. I would.
We had lots of drinks to choose from. Champagne was the only alcoholic choice, because it was 10:00 am, and it was Sunday and the guest of honor was with child and therefore not drinking. But pairing it with carafes of juice: orange, mango and peach make it a perfect Sunday morning drink. Amy does LOVE lemonades and fruit juices of all kinds so we had sparkling lemonade, citrus water (it looks so pretty!) and blueberry limeade as well. Behold:
Blueberry Limeade – serves 6 (or me)
Ingredients
• 1/2-3/4 cup sugar (i like it tart, add more for sweet)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated lime peel
• 1 cup fresh lime juice (MUST be fresh, please.)
• 1 liter (or whatever will fit in the rest of the pitcher) chilled water
• Ice cubes
• 1 bag frozen blueberries, no sugar added please, just the fruit!(or your favorite berry)
• Lime slices & fresh blueberries to garnish
Preparation
Combine blueberries, sugar, and 1/2 cup water in medium saucepan. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and berries thaw. Increase heat and boil 3 minutes. Strain blueberry mixture into bowl, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids in strainer. Mix lime peel into blueberry syrup in bowl. Chill until cold.(Do this ahead of time, it’ll keep for a few days at least.)
Stir blueberry syrup, lime juice, and water in large pitcher to blend. Pour over glasses with ice cubes and add garnish with fresh blueberries and lemon wheels. Devour. Thank me later.
When guests left they all received a bag of vanilla animal cookies to take with them! I bought a giant container of animal cookies at Costco and put them individual zip-top bags (if you do this you can make them weeks ahead of time and they’ll still be fresh). The white bags were from Party City and I used the giraffe stamp that I used on the invitations to stamp each bag. I painted each one with thinned out paint so it wouldn’t totally cover the stamp (watercolor would be great but I didn’t have any at the time) and then, because I am completely insane and was annoyed that the paint faded the stamp ink, I traced each stamp with colored pencil to make it stand out more. I cut green tag shapes from leftover paper in the invitation paper pack, stamped and embossed each one with a “thanks” stamp and then strung it on a ribbon that I tied in bows on top of each bag. Boo-ya.
UPDATE: Julia Diane arrived on January 1st, 2010. Welcome to the world, baby girl!
Laura + Dan’s wedding at Salvage One in Chicago was beyond gorgeous. If you have never been there before, you should check it out. They describe themselves best, so I’m not going to mess it up: “We save architectural elements from the wrecking ball. We work to preserve and pass on our history. We have been helping our customers breathe new life into salvaged materials for nearly 30 years. We aim to take salvage further by working with you to add creativity and style to your space. Our store is over 60,000 square feet full of materials and design ideas on four floors. We have a full work shop to do custom work, and a yard full of garden and landscaping ideas.” But it’s also a wicked-cool place to have your wedding, but you better have a little bad-ass in you.
Like I said, pretty awesome, right?
Laura and Dan met through Laura’s sister via Beloit College in Wisconsin (random side note: this was random because I lived in Beloit when I was a wee little one. I went to Happy Face Preschool. Most people have never heard of Beloit- which is my point.)
Another thing that is really cool about Salvage One is that dinner is served on the second floor and the tables and chairs used are all items that are for sale at the store. It means that each table is different, some seat four and some seat 12 people, and each table has a unique set of chairs at it. It makes seating a little more complicated because if they sell one of the tables the day before your wedding, you have to re-work the seating, but you get all the chairs and tables with the rental fee and they don’t need linens as they are beautiful on their own. Check out their tables:
I love how unique their wedding was. Amazing French food, a tango for their first dance, a completely unique setting, Christmas decorations that were totally re-purposed for a wedding and a Dairy Queen ice cream cake surprise for the groom. Go Team Zeewagen!
*I like to give credit where credit is due: all pictures courtesy of Lizz via Orange 2 Photography
Laura + Dan’s Vendors
Ceremony & Reception: Salvage One
Reception decor: Laura, with help from Pier One
Catering: Cook au Vin
Photography: Orange2Photo
Videography: Loudbyte Cinematography
Cake: Sweet P Sweets
Groom’s Cake: Dairy Queen
DJ: Style Matters
Ceremony & Cocktail Music: Basically Bluegrass
Day-of Coordination: Anticipation Events