What does it mean? Emily and Michael
“What does it mean?” is a continuing series where we ask a blogger how they brought meaning into their wedding. Today we are honored to hear from Emily Westbrooks and her husband, Michael. Emily is the blogger of From China Village.
“When Michael and I got married in 2008, I don’t think I fully realized how much it would end up meaning to us that we tried to create a mix of my American traditions and Michael’s Irish culture at our wedding. Only hours after our wedding, we decided to move to Dublin, where Michael was raised, and four years later we’re still here! In retrospect, our wedding was kind of our send off, so I’m now especially glad we got the chance to celebrate with hints of the culture I now live with every day!
Michael and I met at Colby College during our senior year. Colby has special meaning in my family – it’s where my parents met, where my father now works, and even where my high school graduation was held! For most of the planning period, Michael was living in Spain, where he played professional basketball. When the basketball season was over, Michael returned to Maine and joined the planning process a few months before the wedding. I was surprised he had so many opinions after I was the sole decision maker for so long! In the end, though, it made up the perfect blend of both of us.
Michael insisted that we have traditional Irish-style speeches during dinner. Not American toasts, but full 5-10 minute speeches from both our fathers, the best man and maid of honor, and the groom. Having never attended an Irish wedding, I was nervous that they’d be too long, but those speeches are some of my best memories of the wedding. Everyone put so much thought and care into their words as they welcomed new people into their families. And the speeches allowed some of our guests to take part in another (slightly tacky but fun!) Irish tradition – betting on how long they’ll last!
Finally, one of the most special pieces of our wedding was that my grandmother made my dress. She had made my mother’s and aunt’s dresses for their weddings, so I always had it in the back of my mind that I would love for her to make mine. I will always remember our afternoons together spent measuring, pinning and tucking.
Overall, we remember our day fondly and often!”
Thanks Emily and Michael!
by Brittany Watson Jepsen of The House That Lars Built
Bklynbride Popup Shop!
Hey all! After much delay, I’m finally selling these adorable handmade 2-tone and fluorescent balloons from Japan in my new pop up shop….I have VERY limited quantity because I just wanted to get an idea of who would be interested in buying them, so I anticipate them selling out really quickly, but will be getting more in the future. There’s a link on the page to signup for a mailing list to be the first to know when the balloons are back in stock.
Currently only selling to the US (sorry international readers!)
[images by Trent Bailey]
What does it mean? Elaina and Mark
“What does it mean?” is a continuing series where we ask a blogger how they brought meaning into their wedding. Today we are honored to hear from Elaina Keppler and her husband, Mark Alberti. Elaina is blogger of Fint og Deligt. She and her husband live in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“In a lot of ways, the things we didn’t do or didn’t have for our wedding were just as meaningful as those we did. Since our wedding date was somewhat set for us by the Danish Immigration Service (Mark’s Danish, I’m Canadian), we were free to break from a lot of wedding conventions. I found inspiration in prewar wedding traditions, when weddings were much simpler. We were married at City Hall, had a cake and champagne reception at our home and then went for dinner with our immediate family. Although I love a big party, we found this wedding model fit best with our values and for the kind of family we wanted to become. We were also able to focus on the things most important to us – family and friends, food, and photography – and leave the rest out. It was also really important to me that our wedding had a small environmental impact, which helped keep things simple as well.
Some of the little things that made it meaningful: – Knowing how much it meant to my dad that I was wearing my grandmother’s wedding ring. – Receiving a surprise bouquet from my husband the morning of our wedding, after I had hastily decided that having one would be “too much fuss”. – Getting married on the eight year anniversary of having gone on our first “date” to the beach.”
by Brittany Watson Jepsen of The House that Lars Built
photography by Hilda Grahnat
Flipkey vacation rentals
For those of you still looking for a venue for your wedding, or maybe still planning your honeymoons, this post is for you! Flipkey is a fabulous online rental company that features over 160,000 in more than 7000 locations worldwide. Why is this a big deal? Think about it…they’ve got rentals at venues for ANY style of bride…you could stay anywhere from a castle to a treehouse! I love that you can search for similar types of rentals, like architecturally dynamic properties, or those featured on HGTV…heck, you can even rent celebrity homes or stay at an MTV Real World house! For smaller weddings, your venue can double as lodging for your guests and you can even get away for bachelor and bachelorette weekends away at costs generally cheaper per person than staying at a hotel. Any deals available are specific to each owner, so it never hurts to ask…
[images from Flipkey]
This post was sponsored by Flipkey
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