Weddingbee bios

My dress was a Casablanca 1827 in Ivory purchased at Amrhein's Brides and Formals in Roanoke.  Everyone at Amrhein's was wonderfully helpful to work with.  I had several "I would never wear a..." lines in my head going into dress hunting, and this dress broke all of my rules.  Strapless.  Ivory.  Lace.  But it was perfect and inspired the vintage theme of my wedding.

 

My mom helping me get ready on my wedding day.

 

All photos by Lesley Wray

My inspiration for my wedding day makeup was Katy Perry in her "Firework" video.  Most of the products I used were Mary Kay- I met with a consultant a few months before my wedding and she taught me to do a smoky eye.  The main colors I used on my eyes were purple and gold.  It made me feel more like myself to do my own makeup on my wedding day.  My manicure was shellac and lasted almost 2 weeks!

My favorite color is purple and our wedding colors were purple and blue.  I thought about making my shoes my something blue, but I think I knew all along I'd end up with purple shoes.

 

 

This is one of my favorite pictures from the wedding!

Photos by Lesley Wray

I

I made my own bouquet with flowers purchased online.  I used blue hydrangeas and Vendela roses along with purple lisianthus.

 

If you are considering doing your own flowers I would recommend practicing a few months in advance with flowers similar to what you will be using.  I did two trial runs in advance and they made me feel confident about arranging flowers.  I also watched a lot of videos on the Internet posted by florists!

 

I'd heard that hydrangeas can be fragile, so I was careful with my flowers.  I cut the stems under running water and then cut a notch about an inch long going vertically up the stem.  We arranged them on Friday and kept them in cool water Friday night, and they lasted throughout the wedding and evening reception on Saturday!

 

The locket on my bouquet was a graduation gift from my maid of honor and I wear it almost daily.  I loved the idea of giving something very familiar a wedding purpose!  It was nice to carry my maiden name initials as my "something old."  I put a picture of my father, who passed away from cancer while I was in college, inside, since he couldn't be there to walk me down the aisle.  Only me, my mother, and my cousin knew it was there.

I did a mock-up of my centerpieces with ivory Vendela roses, purple Alstroemeria (Peruvian lily) and baby's breath, two milk glass pieces from my mother's collection, two books with blue hardcovers from my collection, and votive candles.  What do you think?  The real centerpieces will include perivinkle and lavender hydrangea instead of the alstroemeria.

 

Mr. Spin getting ready... he chose an ivory vest and black tuxedo with white pinstripes.

He had never looked more handsome to me than he did on our wedding day!

 

I love that our photographers got this picture because it matches the ones of me and his sister pinning our moms' corsages.

 

Mr. Spin's and the groomsmen's clothes are all from Amrhein's in Roanoke.

 

Photos by Lesley Wray.

The Ballroom set up for our ceremony.  I decorated the mantel with large milk glass arrangement and the venue staff set up the chairs, lit the candles and tied the pew bows :)

I was inspired by a lot of dessert table photos I'd seen online.  We ended up with more milk glass than we really needed for the centepieces so we added two to the dessert table.  The cake stands on each side are from Pier1.  I made the bunting banner from scrapbook paper, cardstock letters, and an old music book that belonged to my grandfather.

I had told our baker, Susan Kelly, that I wanted the cake's frosting to look like milk glass.  She made two diamond layers and a hobnail layer with buttercream and decorated the cake with flowers left over from the centerpieces.  It was PERFECTION.. my vision brought to life!

 

Did anyone else think it was hard to find decent cake servers?  Ours were from Wal-Mart and were the least tacky ones I could find in town.