Some wedding photos are so stunning that they make you stop in your tracks.
You feel as if you have a glimpse of their lives and love, even if you never met them.
These photos by Love And Embers have stopped me in my tracks time and again.
It was extremely difficult to choose just a few moments from Lauren and Todd’s garden wedding. There were so many sweet, beautiful, and fun moments that it made it impossible to select them for this feature.
Not to mention that I am a sucker for vintage red lipstick, vintage short wedding dresses, and a grey-yellow color palette!
From The Bride…
Our wedding looked like a vintage garden party but felt more like a backyard BBQ. We wanted to marry in the city and were fortunate to find a place that felt private and tucked away.
We chose a main color palette of yellow and gray but couldn’t help adding pops of colors.
Retro, Colourful Bridal Style
I am a girl of the ’50s at heart, so I knew I wanted a shorter dress as soon as my husband and I got engaged. When I first saw my dress, I knew it was perfect. If I was wearing a shorter skirt, I knew that I would need to wear colorful shoes. Mac’s Ruby Woo was the perfect red lip color to finish it all off.
They all wore the same charcoal-colored cocktail dress, and even though they were 300 miles apart, they complemented each other perfectly. They also wore killer yellow shoes.
The Flowers
I used white roses and garden roses. Also included were craspedia or “billyballs” (which are great!) I used ranunculus, dusty Miller, and garden roses. In the city, I found a florist who was eco-friendly and used local and in-season flowers.
The Ceremony
We kept our ceremony short and sweet. We wrote our vows. My parents joked that it was hard to write “non-religious ones, feminist ones, non-heteronormative,” so we just focused on marriage promises.
Decor, Details & Refreshments
We found a space with minimal decoration requirements, so we concentrated on the little details. Paper flags with different patterns were made as escort cards, and paper lanterns were hung in the garden. My friend is a bookmaker, so I asked her to make our guestbook.
Art in the Age, a Philadelphia-based company, makes gingerbread liquor that we use to make our signature cocktail. We had lots of comfort foods – mac and cheese, sliders, and grilled beef or turkey.
The Wedding Music
My dad is a Van Morrison fan, so we walked down to the altar together. We danced to Sweet Thing. Tupelo Honey was the song we chose for our father-daughter wedding dance. Bee was my childhood nickname because of the song. My dad got it after hearing, “She’s sweet as Tupelo honey,” so it was very special.
Our DJ played Motown to get everyone up and dancing. My husband’s aunt said that it had been over 20 years since she and her husband danced.
