More Vintage French Wedding Inspiration!

Happy Friday everyone! This past week Jessica Claire offered a workshop to help photographers practice capturing all those beautiful details shots. All those details you work so hard on - you want to make sure your photographer captures them! My friend Summer from Grey Likes Weddings was the stylist for the session and I'm totally loving the "fake wedding" she put together with the help of Megan with MAEMAE Paperie and Lauryl with Flora Organica Design. All photos below by the talented Brandon Kidd. And this is just a sneak peak to it! Check out Grey Likes Weddings in the upcoming days for more details into what went into the styling of the session.













Really beautiful everyone! The people that helped make this day possible:

Event & Photo Stylist: Grey Likes Weddings

Floral Design: Flora Organica

Hair & Makeup: Vivian Tran: All Made Up

Wedding Stationary, Favors, and Paper Suite: MaeMae Paperie More details of her work for this session on her blog here.

Printing of paper products: Czar Press

Fabric Rosettes, shoe clips, and “just married” banner over cake: B. Poetic

Cake: Cheryl Stewart of Cake My Day

Bridal Wardrobe: The White Dress

Rentals: Olde Good Things

Organizer of the day/ teacher: Jessica Claire

Check out more photos from behind the scenes and from the shoot on Brandon's Blog. Also, wanted to give a shout out to Jenna for sending me the link to Brandon's photos!

Real Wedding: Kelli + Toby's Vintage Parisian Wedding

The talented Brooke from Brookelyn Photography sent me this charming wedding to share with you guys today. The ceremony and reception took place at a beautiful location (just wait until you see the photos!) - Treehouse Point/Issaquah, in Washington. From Brooke, The event was a small party of the couple's family and friends. The wedding colors were light pink and gray. The couple wanted the event to have a simple,vintage, parisian feel. The venue was so beautiful without a lot of decor so the hints of light pink and gray were perfect accents. A lot of the items purchased for the wedding were either local or purchased from Etsy.





Love this beautiful ceremony site they created.









How amazing to have your reception in a treehouse??!! Love it.











How did you two meet? (from Brooke) Toby and Kelli met at a restaurant while Kelli was finishing her senior year at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. she was a server and he was working in the kitchen. Their first date was camping and a Bjork concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado! Kelli was accepted into the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California and Toby made the move with her. Following graduate school, the couple moved to the magnolia neighborhood of seattle, where they currently reside.

Vendors
Wedding Dress: Designed and made by Katie Nash, a local Seattle Designer
Suit: Prada from Mario's
Brides Shoes: LD Tuttle from Lambs Ear in Fremont
Bridesmaid Dresses: Made by Teresa Abrahamson, Mother of the bride
Flowers: Willow and Bloom
Macaroons: Bakery Nouveau in West Seattle
Mini Cupcakes: Trophy Cupcakes in Wallingford
Brides Rings: Engagement Ring: Jaimie Joseph from Essenza in Fremont/Wedding Band: Bloom Studios from Etsy
Grooms Ring: Zoe and Doyle from Etsy
Officiant: Lane Rosenberry, Friend of the couple

Thanks so much Brooke for sharing this beautiful wedding with us today! You can see more of this wedding on her blog.

Steph + Jarrett's Vintage Engagement Session

One of my favorite things about engagement sessions is it gives couples a chance to show their different personalities and styles. This session by the talented Clayton Austin is no exception. He loves photographing couples with a vintage look and this couple choose him for that reason. It's important to know what your photographer's style is before hiring them. Pick someone whose style fits yours and you will be much more happy with the results!

Steph found this amazing hat at an estate sale for just a few dollars. It had been collecting dust in her closet until they found Clayton. I LOVE how it looks on her!















Love the lighting in these last two!



Thanks again Clayton for sending me these! Check out the entire session and more on Clayton's Blog.

Real Wedding: Quyen + Jon's Vintage-Inspired Wedding

Carlie and Gabriel are the talented husband and wife team behind Gabriel Ryan Photography. Their photos are always beautiful and perfectly capture the details and emotions of the day. Carlie thought this wedding would be perfect to share and I couldn't agree more!

From Gabriel, Quyen & Jon's wedding was a delight to photograph. They had obviously taken a lot of time to think through many of the details of their big day to make sure it went off without a hitch and by planning the ceremony and reception in the same location (the muckenthaler mansion and cultural center in fullerton, ca), the day seemed to flow effortlessly. As a professional wedding photographer, I appreciate detail & simplicity, which can often be difficult to mix properly, but Jon & Quyen found the perfect combination.

Quyen describes her wedding inspiration as 1920-1930's era, antique flea market.



What a gorgeous bride! Love the long veil and beautiful Pronovias dress. The bridesmaids dresses are custom made Calvin Hiep from HYP Design.







Any do it yourself projects? LOTS! invitations were made from ordering from paperandmore.com and PSA Essential personalized monogrammed stamp which we used on our stationary and throughout the wedding with that monogram on our shot glasses that were given away as party favors along with the recipe of our favorite shot; all vases, tins, antique typewriters were hand picked and selected at thrift shops all throughout CA by myself and nicole (one of my bridesmaids).









Other Vendors:
bride's hair: lisa venanzi (email: LisaBird121@yahoo.com)
bride's makeup: tiffany patton
flowers: Megan Grey from Rainbows Flower (Long Beach, CA)
coordinator: Marcy Guevara
catering and cake: Collette's Catering
car: Vern & Melinda Moen's 1965 Plymouth Barracuda

Thanks Carlie and Gabriel for sharing this beautiful wedding with us today! Be sure to check their blog for more beautiful photos from this wedding!

Vintage Books as Wedding Invitations

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I took some time away from the computer to work on the house and enjoy my first anniversary - I can't believe it's been a year since my wedding! Anyways, I have some amazing real weddings lined up for this week, but first I had to share photographer Jessica Claire's Wedding Invitations. If you follow her blog, you know she is planning her October wedding and has been sharing some of the details. Her save the date's and invitations are quite amazing - how I would love to receive an invitation like this!

Jessica describes her wedding as "a vintage, 1920's London sort of vibe, but it will also have an upscale, elegant, sophisticated twist."

For the STD's, as they'll be known henceforth, came from the concept that I didn't want to send out something that was just paper and ink. I really wanted each one to be different in some way, and I wanted it to be a piece that people wouldn't want to throw away (although of course I know that people did!!) The invitation is in four pieces, and each one is handmade out of letterpressed tags or stitched muslin. Each one has an antique key attached to the ribbon--every key is different. As the wedding has locks and keys all throughout, we wanted to bring that in as early as the save the date. On the back of each STD, there is a page torn from the book Portrait of a Marriage--each page is different and was meticulously cut to match the size of the front. The overall effect was to create something that looked old but still colorful! This is what they look like:



Now, to the invitation. Each of our guests received a book. Okay, you probably guessed that they are not ordinary books. No, they are HOLLOWED OUT BOOKS! In keeping with our theme, our wedding invitation hides away, tucked safely inside a hollowed out book. Each one is completely different--each book was lovingly bought from an old bookstore and chosen for it's particular color cover, title, thickness, or inside pattern.

When you open the book, this is what you see:




The pocket on the left hand side is a very thick, copper paper from Kate's Paperie. On the right, a steel grey grosgrain ribbon holds the invitation in and is sealed with a copper wax seal with a photo of a lock. On the invitation itself which lays in the hollow, a single, antique button is affixed to each invitation. Every one is incredibly detailed and different and took many HOURS of scouring ebay:



Inside the front coppery library card pocket were four things: a map with all location details, a list of events for the day before the wedding, a response card, and an envelope:



Thanks so much Jessica for letting me share these with everyone. Also, I need to make sure to credit Kari Dyas who single-handedly spent WEEKS carving them, gluing them, sourcing the individual pieces, and creating the finished pieces. Check out Jessica's blog for even more photos of the invitations. All photos by Jessica Claire.

Vintage labels and more for your designs

I stumbled across this wonderful site - Paper Valise - this morning. They collect vintage labels, tickets, stamps and much more to purchase. I think these would make fun additions for your centerpieces or beverages. So many ideas for them and they update their site weekly with new discoveries. Happy Crafting!

Some vintage love at the train track

Totally loving these engagement photos Clayton Austin just sent me! So lovely...











Check out more from the session on his blog. Thanks for sending these Clayton!