a colorful, modern wedding
Let me tell you a tale of the greatest party ever. The fact that it was the best party ever is practically a miracle because let me tell you - wedding planning was not my forte. So all of the credit goes to the people who helped put it together - namely my mom. She made decisions when I didn’t want to and organized most everything. We also had AMAZING vendors. I mean LOOK AT THOSE FLOWERS! Here’s a little bit about our day and how everything came together.
When we got engaged, I didn’t have a strong sense of what I wanted for a wedding except that I wanted it to be really fun! While our marriage is about our commitment to each other, I wanted our wedding to be a celebration of that! Our first hurdle was finding a venue. I wanted to get married in a more modern venue preferably in Raleigh and we knew we wanted to be able to bring in our own catering + bar. That proved to be a challenge and it was only out of desperation that we contacted Artspace (an art gallery + artist studio space in downtown) to see what their options looked like. It was one of the best decisions we made because I LOVE the space. It used to be a car dealership and the wide-plank floors were original to the space. Also, there are two rotating galleries and the halls are lined with artists studios. We had our ceremony in the gallery upstairs and had cocktail hour in the lobby while the upstairs was flipped for the reception. It was the most beautiful/creative/different place and perfect for my personality (any other enneagram 4s out there?).
Because we selected Artspace as the venue, the ‘theme’ took care of itself. We decided to embrace the color + art instead of fighting against it. We used a base of navy + gold with pink, magenta, light blue, red, and some green as accents. We used a brushstroke theme for the cake + our invitations. I painted pieces of acrylic to top our bars, tables, and to use for our signs which was one of my favorite accents for the wedding. We also decided to create little seating areas with some of our own furniture. We brought up my mom’s blue velvet couch, my blue velvet couch, and a bunch of cute chairs + tables. My mom also figured out how to make these adorable tall Edison bulb lamps for lighting. The acrylic, furniture, + flowers really set the tone for a colorful + fun wedding!
I wanted something different but classic for bridesmaids dresses. I saw an inspiration image with girls in silk midi skirts and d’orsay heels and immediately fell in love. We looked all over for the right skirts, but ended up having them made to get the color variety we wanted and had the girls mix the colors of their heels as well. We found these boat neck tops from Boden and they were the perfect neutral for the rest of the crazy colors! The boys did navy suits with blue ties and Seb asked our friend Erica to be his grooms-maid, we put her in a neutral skirt to work with their suits. I also asked my MOH to do all navy which I LOVED and worked nicely with the boys suits as well as making her stand out a little. It’s a little funny because this style is probably not what any of them would’ve picked for themselves, but it came out so perfectly and they all look so good!
We had some really delicious food too - tomato soup shooters, crudite, meatballs, pasta, chicken milano, ceasar salad cups. The best part was we got to come home to leftovers in our freezer when we got home from the honeymoon! Our cake was SO BEAUTIFUL but also one of my favorites I’ve ever had (and I don’t even love cake) from Dewey’s bakery in Winston Salem. And then there was the ice cream bar and the late night tacos from El Rodeo as a nod to our favorite Friday date nights :)
I was so happy to get back our images (see them all in the gallery below) from The Smiths. We LOVED working with them and I am so glad we picked them to document our day. Seb loved Critty which I think helped him feel more comfortable in front of the camera (which does not come naturally for him) and it was so nice to really enjoy spending time with the people who were there for every part of the day! I’m so thankful we found them!
A few other fun things we did:
One of our family friends did the most bomb two-tiered cheese table that everyone raved about
I wore red heels for the ceremony and switch to solid white Converse high tops for the reception.
Probably the thing we got the best reviews on was that we allowed guests to grab a drink from the bar before heading into the ceremony
We had our favorite Mexican restaurant (conveniently located right next to Artspace) pass tacos around at 10pm.
Seb’s only requirement for the whole wedding was that we needed ice cream so we bought a cute outdoor beer cooler and brought in ice cream from a place in my hometown (Yarborough’s).
The biggest hiccup of the day was that the Uhaul wasn’t available to be picked up when it was supposed to be. This caused the furniture + flowers to be delivered late when we were already on a really tight turnaround. They spared me and didn’t tell me until it was all resolved, but Eddie worked so hard to make everything perfect and I’m so grateful for all his hard work!
We did our first look at the Court of Carolinas on NC State’s campus which was so fun!
I almost ran smack dab into Seb in the lobby of the hotel on the morning of the wedding. Oops!
Our programs had a little map of the venue + where to find the different food stations on the back.
We forgot to buy my dad a tie so one of my friends saved the day and brought him one to wear for the wedding!
Our favors were my mom’s homemade jam with a little tag that said “love is sweet".
The gallery floors were dirty and the bottom of my dress + converses ended up being completely grey by the end of the night but it all came out!
We did ribbon wands for our exit and they were so cute! I have a few of them sprinkled around my house. Also, everyone carried them through downtown when we went to the bar afterwards and it was hilarious.
Vendors:
Venue: Artspace
Photography: The Smiths
Flowers: Floral Designs by Eddie
DJ: Joe Bunn
Dress: Fabulous Frocks Charleston
Hair: Parlor Blow Dry Bar
I’m so thankful for everyone who made it to celebrate with us. I had the most fun and it really was a dream. An awesome party to kick off an awesome marriage!
