Weddings at the beautiful Marin Headlands Center for the Arts are always lovely, but Jackie and Alex included an extra special “first look” to their day that kicked off the celebration in a breathtaking fashion. Scroll through these fab photos from John + Louise to see what I mean…
The couple describes their favorite part of the day: “We invited all of our family and friends to join us for our first look which took place on a suspended bridge near Point Bonita Lighthouse. It had been a typically foggy San Francisco morning and just as we set off, the clouds parted. Embracing under the sun on a rickety bridge over the Pacific felt like a touch of the divine.”
Why did you choose this location for your wedding? Because it felt like us. When we first visited we fell in love with its sense of remoteness, despite being only a few minutes outside of San Francisco. It is also walking distance from the Marin Headlands Hostel which could accommodate most of our guests. We wanted to offer friends and family an affordable weekend getaway in a spectacular and intimate setting that involved no driving once they arrived.
What inspired you when you were planning your wedding? Having a celebration that was as true as possible to who we are as a couple.
Did you include any traditions in your wedding? We asked all of our friends and family to give their blessing by tying a knot to the tail of a kite which we flew to culminate our wedding ceremony.
What was the best advice you received as a bride? After months of planning, make sure to enjoy the actual day!
What advice do you have for other brides? Be present in the moment and appreciate that it will be one of the few times in your life you will be lucky enough to have so many of the people you love in one place. And DANCE!
I’m such a sucker for a classic wedding. Throw in gorgeous photos, a fun venue, and a Sylvia Weinstock cake, and you’ve made my day. I’m pretty sure Katie and Matthew’s New York wedding from photographer Bryce Covey will make your day, too!
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Flower girls were darling in pale blue dresses and jasmine and rose head wreaths.
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
After the ceremony, the newlyweds toasted with glasses of Champagne in the vintage checker cab that transported them to the reception.
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
What’s a New York City wedding without portraits in Central Park?!
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
With the brick venue and romantic flowers from Poppies & Posies, the reception struck a perfect balance of urban and garden.
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
I love the way Matthew tells about their gorgeous Sylvia Weinstock wedding cake: “On a table in the dressing room where Katie was looking for The Dress, there was a large book with a wedding cake on it. She comes home from this trip looking for dresses, and the first thing she wants to talk about is this book. Sylvia Weinstock immediately became an A-list celebrity in our lives, and it just so happened she works in NYC. She was so sweet when we met her, gave us an incredible amount of cake to taste, and sketched exactly the cake that Katie had been dreaming of after listening to her describe it for about five seconds. It was stunning; clearly, this woman has found her calling. Our cake came in two flavors: vanilla raspberry (the same kind Katie’s parent’s had for their wedding cake) and chocolate pistachio apricot. It was of course delicious, but the genius of this cake was its flowers. It was covered in a beautiful bouquet of completely convincing sugar flowers and succulents. Our guests – and even us! – were stunned how real these flowers looked. Needless to say, the cake was a big hit, and my wife was happy.”
Bryce Covey
Bryce Covey
Why did you choose this location? When we discovered The Foundry with its ivy-covered courtyard and brick-and-iron interior, not to mention the super cool history, we were in love. We knew from the outset that we wanted to get married in a place with character and charm.
What inspired you when you were planning your wedding? Possibly our biggest inspiration was the city of New York itself. We have fallen hard for this city. Our paper designer created an icon for us that was based off the old NYC subway token and our getaway car after the ceremony was a checkered cab. We also had a pretty good idea of how we wanted the day to feel from the start. We knew we wanted a traditional, beautiful wedding that was still us – nothing too formal or stuffy. So that helped too as we looked around on awesome wedding blogs – like Snippet & Ink! We planned everything together, researched it all and just knew when something felt right for us both.
What was your favorite moment or part of the day? From Matthew: Somehow we never quite found time for those dance lessons we had promised to take. We did a few trial classes at the Fred Astaire studio, and we vowed to practice at home, but suddenly the big day was upon us and we had nothing. So now we’re married just a few hours, have never been so happy in our lives, the day is more than we had dreamed, and then it’s time for our first dance. For the next 4 minutes and 37 seconds, we held each other tightly, very slowly turning around in circles in the middle of an empty dance floor, I spun her once, and we whispered I love you several times. Other than to look right into her eyes, my own eyes were closed the entire time, and the whole room might as well have been empty. And when the music stopped, I kissed my wife and my heart exploded. Favorite moment by far, of that day or any day.
Did you include any traditions? Katie’s family comes from a proud Polish heritage and funnily enough the hokie pokie is a Polish wedding tradition. So we insisted that James Mulry, our DJ, play it at some point during the night. I remember the look on his face when he asked, “Which version should I download from iTunes?”
What was the best advice you received as a bride? Don’t stress too much. Yes, it’s a big deal and yes, it’s a lot of money and yes, a million other scary things. But it’s the day you marry your best friend and at the end of the day, nothing else even matters.
What advice do you have for other brides? Strange as it may sound, learning about the etiquette involved actually made planning a lot easier. Who should sit next to whom? Who should be invited to the rehearsal dinner? When you can fall back on, well, what’s the proper thing to do? No one can really argue or be upset with that. Easily diffuses any possible family issues. Also, there’s a lot of mystique around finding The Dress. When I started shopping, this stressed me out. I felt I was waiting for some ah-ha, halo-of-light type moment and became terrified after a few trips to the store hadn’t yielded any out-of-body experiences. But then I just relaxed, enjoyed it, and found the perfect dress.
Do you have any budgets tips? Plan it yourself. It will take you so much time, way more than you can imagine, especially if you choose all your own vendors instead of go the all-inclusive route. But it’s totally worth it because everything is how you want it, the two of you work together to decide on everything – this is incredibly fun and rewarding. And you save a bunch of money.
Happy March! I love this time of year – daffodils and narcissus are popping up, and the pear tree out our window is full of little white blossoms that look like they’re snowing when it’s breezy. Hoping to enjoy some Spring sunshine this weekend. And sending you off with some of my favorite links from around the web this week…
Pear Blossom and Moon by Yun Shouping.
It feels like farmers market weather, which makes me think I need a French market basket.
With all of our focus on how to make your wedding special, we thought it was important to highlight some ways to make your marriage awesome, too. Introducing “Snapshot of a Marriage,” a series from contributor Emily Westbrooks, who interviews couples on some of their secrets for a strong and successful marriage.
In the age before e-vites and Facebook invitations, Elisabeth was on the hunt for someone to help her design a paper Valentine’s Day invitation to a college party she was throwing. At a friend’s suggestion, Elisabeth enlisted Adam’s drawing skills and he produced the perfect invitation with cupids and hearts.
Despite meeting on such a romantic occasion, Elisabeth and Adam took their time with their courtship and dated for eight years before tying the knot. Adam explains that they “formed the foundation” of their marriage in those years of dating, which included a month hiking the Appalachian Trail, another month living with Adam’s parents while he recovered from knee surgery, and a year and a half spent on different continents.
When they were first dating, Elisabeth joined Adam hiking, mountain biking and rock climbing, but after a while, it became apparent that Elisabeth wasn’t such a fan of hiking or mountain biking, and that she was actually deathly afraid of heights. Elisabeth explains that while she wasn’t the type to compromise to impress a boy, “I was so in love.” Now fifteen years into their marriage, Adam admits, “We hike together no longer.” Elisabeth says that she realized “I didn’t have to do his thing.” Now, when Adam takes his bike down a mountain, Elisabeth chooses to go out for a run instead. Adam advises newlyweds, “Respect your differences.” And sometimes those differences even extend to laundry baskets: “That way, we’re ruining our own laundry rather than the other person’s.”
Now the couple spends time enjoying the things they do together – cooking, eating, enjoying cups of coffee and raising their four-year-old daughter. Says Adam, “We’re strongest when we’re working together for a combined goal.”
(Side note: Elisabeth runs a company called 11stories where she interviews newlyweds and captures their story in a book.)
SNAPSHOT SUBMISSIONS Do you know a married couple whose relationship you admire? Or maybe you’re married and want to share your words of wisdom! We’re now accepting submissions from couples who have been married for ten years or longer. Email Emily at emily@fromchinavillage.com with your first names, how long you’ve been married, and a few sentences about why you’d like to be interviewed for our Snapshot of a Marriage series.
