Through the Looking Glass

Huzzah! We finally got our official wedding photos back from our lovely & very talented friend and photographer, Rebecca Fishman. My favorite part about looking at these photos--aside from seeing all the moments captured on that day--was the DIY details. Most people probably didn't notice the color of the vases or the stamps on the bag, but it gave me some satisfaction knowing my month-long searches through thrift shops and flea markets and eBay and Etsy had come to fruition at last, dammit!

Here are a few of my faves. All photos are by Rebecca Fishman.

Our groomsmen's boutonnieres: crespedia (billy buttons), blue eryngium, succulents, and seeded eucalyptus, wrapped in lamb's ear.

My bridesmaids' dresses were all the same infinity dress (purchased from a dressmaker off Etsy) tied different ways. Note my mom's 40-year-old wedding veil, which I cleaned and glue-gunned back to tip-top shape.

Can't take credit for this one, but I just love that big-ass rock and the towering ents trees around us.

My little nephew ringbearer. Note adorable grey hipster Sperry Docksiders, which I thought would be much more comfortable than kid dress shoes.

These flowers doubled as aisle bouquets and table arrangements. They included many of the same flowers as the boutonnieres, plus ranunculus, lisianthus, scabiosa pods, geranium leaves, and I forgot what those long green thingies are. The mason jars were bought on Craigslist and tinted with glass paint by me and my mom, as you may remember from this post.

The ceremony took place in the bones of an old greenhouse, overlooking a canyon.

My amazing bridesmaid Shianling hand-sewed this ring pillow in the likeness of my spoiled cat Pilsen. Kinda creepy, lots of awesome. Rowr!

Yay! We're a Mr. and Mrs. now. Exiting to the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice."

One of our thrifted Pennsbury Pottery succulents and vintage books as decor for our cocktail hour. Note delish crostini in the back (which I missed, dammit!).

We saved some money by using ecofriendly bamboo plates for cocktail hour at the crostini station provided by our caterer and granddaddy of the lasagna cupcake, Heirloom LA.

Part of our crostini station...can't believed I missed this nomnom while we were taking photos...

Our BBQ pork sliders on ciabatta. Glugglgguguguugaglugugggg (that's the sound of drooling)...

 

Instead of traditional numbers, our table signs were cities that we had each lived in at some point in our lives. Eight of them were painstakingly created by Alex's mom, who is a fantastic artist and does these awesome collages. Each strip of paper was sourced from materials from our lives in those cities--old letters, programs, favorite books, scripts, etc.

To supplement our table arrangements that did double-time as aisle bouquets, we also used vintage-y bud vases and medicine bottles.

Those DIY honey jars came into use as more than favors that get thrown away! Because of the wind, our friend/wedding coordinator extraordinaire Sara used them as place card holders-weight-thingies-that-don't-blow-away. She also designed the menu, which was folded into the farmhouse-style napkin.

The lights flicked on as the sun began to set and the guests got drunk nursed their strawberry fixes by the pool...

Please note our Han Solo / Princess Leia cake toppers. Ahem. We also placed old family photos around the dessert table to remind us of ... our ancestry?

Our DIY photo booth. We used Sara's polaroid camera and threw a bunch of props on the table for people to use. That hat is from an acting class assignment where I played Annie Hall. [Not seen: vest, tie, and tennis racket]

...and this was our photo booth backdrop. I'd originally bought the paper pom poms to use as arch decor for the ceremony, but we ended up hanging most of them here. Sara ingeniously fastened some flood lights from Home Depot too to brighten up the area.

Feasting at dusk...like vampires.

who's got more lasagna cupcakes?

I love this photo. I mean, c'mon, everybody's clapping for us! No, actually I just love seeing our mishmash of friends and family in the same photo.

The groom's dad makes his speech. Again, I love seeing everybody's expressions in the audience.

My aunt and cousin using my hand-stamped dessert take-home bags! Yeeeaaaah! Those chocolate chip toffee and sea salt cookies in the foreground were the BizNess!!

regret pie

Ding ding ding ding! Kiss! Kiss!

The ol' balls and chains

And they lived happily ever after. Now that I've thoroughly exhausted all wedding-related stuff, I'm going to turn this blog back toward its original aim, hardcore nudity!  designing/nesting in your first home!

How Math Class Finally Came in Handy

Two years ago I bought these tiny 4x4 prints from British photographer Cassia Beck. Something about her work really reminds me of my early childhood in Denville, New Jersey. Maybe it's the vintagey feel, and maybe it's the perspective -- so much of it is "from the bottom looking up" that it reminds me of being a kid and having everything tower over me. But I mainly think it's the colors and the subjects. Everything she shoots looks foggily like something I've seen before in my life.

I chose 9 of her prints, which was like choosing goodies from a candy shop! They then sat around in my desk for the past 2 years because apparently no manufacturer has ever had the brilliant idea to MAKE 4 x 4 size frames, dammit. Finally, after fruitless searches at Ikea, Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and the rest, I gave up and brought them to a frame shop in LA.

I decided to group them together to create one larger "piece" that reflects images that resonate very strongly with me. This one's my favorite. It reminds me of the forsythia that grew on the border of our yard in my childhood home.

achoo!

I lived on Magnolia Avenue, so we naturally had magnolia trees in our front yard and all the way down the street. This perspective is something I saw a lot.

This too. This reminds me of noticing telephone wires on my street for the first time in my life, and learning all about cardinals and bluejays by watching those little perchers waiting for my brother to come home from school.

chirp chirp chirp

Ok, this one I just like. It's a tea cup. I likes me some tea. This makes me think of sitting in a deserted coffee shop at night.

i'm so lonely

This one too. It makes me feel like I should be typing this on a cute vintage typewriter instead of this worn out Mac Book Pro. Beep boop boop beep technology.

clickety clack clack clack

This one makes me think of the lake at the park we used to go to for family picnics. The frozen one that my childhood dog Ginger ran onto during the winter to chase after ducks and then crashed through the ice into freezing cold water. Don't cry for her, she's already dead.

squawk!

We had tulips planted in a bed in a row along the front of our house, so they were probably the first flower I remember becoming super acquainted with.

This one reminds me of my brother's toy box when we were little. Man, how we smashed the crap outta those cars! They've recently been recycled and passed onto my brother's son/ my nephew, along with a battered Voltron and a green He-Man Battlecat/Cringer figurine, which stayed surprisingly newish over the past 25 years. A family heirloom, I suppose.

vroooooooom!

Here's a pic of the actual childhood. My 2 favorite things about this: 1) I'm holding the construction hat dog upside down, and 2) my brother is holding a very real looking weapon.

I carefully measured the space between two of our windows in the living room so that I could create a uber-symmetrical canvas. Lessee,  58" divided by 2, divided by another 2, minus 2 inches for the frame....gee, math is haaaaaaard.

excuse me, ma'am. no photos please.

Here's the final product! If I were to do it again,  I woulda shelled out the extra $100 for the matte, to make them bigger. Oh well. It's like having a mini photo gallery in our living room. Don't worry, I fixed the crooked upper right frame after the photo, ALRIGHT?

The blue phone hidden in the left corner is a prop from my short film, Mouthbreather.

On a side note, the apple blossoms I picked up from Rolling Greens the other day are opening quite nicely.

I like to live on the edge.

And my new rug for the office finally came in. I love chevron! And so does this guy.

What a cat-astrophe!