So do you remember that whole thing about how our original choice church double booked us? Well the church we ended up at was First Presbyterian downtown. This ended up working out beautifully as it was only blocks from our reception space and the pastor was wonderful. We did such minimal decoration because the whole place looks like it’s carved from one block of wood. We only had two trees up front:


and of course the twirly sticks!


On the Sunday after the wedding these wouldn’t fit in anyones car and it made me just about sick to have to throw them out. I did keep a few, but I hope someone at the hotel saved them or something. Anyway, so we got to the hotel about a little over an hour before the wedding. The church wedding consultant had wanted us to get their even before that, but I was all, "Um, I get bored really easily." Ya, there was no way I was sitting around longer than that. We did have a few things to do, like get dressed. The boys were in the little room right behind the alter:


Where they hung out and got dressed. If you walk straight back down the aisle you come do this cool double staircase:


Great use of a fish eye lens Eric! the stairs that go up go to the balcony, and the stairs that go down go to the nursery where the bride’s room is.


It was so fun having everyone down there. And of course Violet was the little star. Check out how cute in the dress I knit her:


Awe. I just love the little munchkin. So during this time Sciarrino who hadn’t been feeling all that great all day started to get pretty sick. So I don’t have too many pictures of her because unfortunately she was us, "worshiping the porcelain god" you know. So if she’s not as smiley as usual that’s why!


The girls all helped me get into my dress and pretty much from that moment on I was beyond excited. I could not calm down.


And I totally loved look at myself in this dress, which by the way is a Justina McCaffrey Haute Couture from her classics collection called Alexia II. I found my dress at Ania Collection in Portland. I was a bit freaked out to go dress shopping because reading the reviews of the dress shops is like reading a list of the worst customer service ever. But like most things I deferred to Emee (our coordinator) for help and she sent me there. See, isn’t Emee the smartest ever? They were so sweet and nice every time we went in. They had the bridesmaid dresses ready to go early so I could take one to  Ceara, they helped me find shoes, everything, and the best staff. I love them. Anyway then it was time to put on my veil and I’m like, whoa it’s time to put on my veil?!?!


My mom made the veil after Andrea at the Bridal Loft cut all the tulle for us. It was so perfect.


I love my mom.


This is a nice pictorial of full on Amber excitement. I get super hyper excited a lot, but this took the cake. I was getting so squirmy to see Bj, I just could not wait. In fact when I was at the bottom of the stairs ready to walk up I could here him talking and I squeaked, "Hi Bj!" So what calms me down after getting my dress on?


Baby hand holding 🙂


And a moment of prayer. Then it was time for the shoes.


I had all my girls write on the bottom and the one who wore off the most during dancing would have good luck. That was Ceara’s message, right on the point of the toe. So then the girls all went upstairs to line up and I was alone with my make up genius, Catherine. Seriously she rocked! And of course Eric. So I was all, "Eric can I use your camera?"


The thing was freaking sick, sick ill I tell you, sigh.


As always. And then I was ready to walk down the aisle!

Oh and my shoes were by Mika Inatome. She came to Ania Collection for a trunk show and I got a pair of slingbacks that I could dye. I dyed these and a little handbag from Nordstroms this green color. I just took in a ribbon for them to match, seriously cool, huh?

My first choice for our florist was a Portland shop owned by a graduate of Sprague, where Bj and I went to high school. When Bj called her up she was already booked for the date so we got Emee to search around for us, and eventually settled on Geranium Lake. I brought in a bunch of photos and told them I wanted as many local blooms as possible, and that I wanted really open, full and colorful things. I mentioned that I was in to sustainability and Kim, the owner, said they were too, they even drive a bio-diesel van! I knew they were the ones. Oh and did I mention the flowers are just divine?


I love this photo, I feel like I’m in an ad here!


My bouquet was actually three bouquets put together, you’ll see why later. I had her work in some of the roses that Bj always gets me, the orangish colored ones. And I love these local tulips. The Thursday before the wedding I was able to go to the flower shop and check out the blooms that Kim picked out. I thought some of them were too pink and almost had a freak out, but my lovely bridesmaids took care of it for me. I didn’t want to confront them that it wasn’t what I wanted. So they went back in and talked to the women there to make sure I would get plenty of flowers still and not so much pink. I think all the flowers ended up working great together, with our dresses, the room, everything.


I know it’s probably a good thing that I let go a little bit on the day of the wedding and didn’t take any many pictures, but I wish I had a better shot of the beads I wound around the bouquet. They were glass and crystal from my collection. It really calmed me before the ceremony to be able to run my fingers over them.


Here you can see a bit how the three bouquets go together. Okay and I’m not just recommending this because I own a ribbon shop, but I really think it is a great idea to provide your own ribbon. They gave me a discount for doing so, and I feel like my flowers were more perfectly colored because they knew exactly what I wanted. Also why all the hate against wired ribbon? I love combining it with taffeta’s, silks, and satins, it makes even a stationary bouquet like this look like it was movement. It’s never sold well on my site though, otherwise I would stock it in every color under the sun.


The girl’s bouquet’s stuck to the rust/orange/green section of my color scheme.


All of the boutonnieres and corsages were different. This is my mom’s. Her ribbon was the same as the ribbon around my bouquet. I loved tying them around their wrists like this, and they stayed fabulously.


Emilie and Violet had little head wreaths. Brett ended up carrying Violets as she thought it was more of chew toy, but Emilie’s stayed on through a long night of dancing. Plus she had little crystal hair pins stuck in there I had made for her.


After the ceremony I requested this shot from Eric (who took all these photos). Our rings are from Tiffany’s.


After Bj bought them we stuck these blue boxes right in my dad’s safe until Brent picked them up the day before. Unfortunately after we began dancing I noticed a stone had fallen out, and then later another. I don’t have the ring right now because it’s being repaired, we took it back to the shop right before we headed out on our honeymoon. They were very apologetic and offered me a new ring, but I opted to have it repaired (you know sentimental value and all of that). I should be able to pick it up on Wednesday, as it had to be sent to New York for the repairs. Everyone else was more freaked out about loosing the diamonds than me. I knew that seeing as how I’d only worn if for about eight hours they would repair it no problem. And I think it’s very interesting to think of two little diamonds floating out there in the world. Where are they? Bj and I guessed in a someone’s shoe or something. Back to the flowers:


Originally I had thought of putting two big floral wreaths on the doors going into the ballroom, but they are dark and Kim thought this might had a better impact. She was right, I loved it. We also got spots for it so that it could be lit. Orchids with ribbon from my shop. This is the number one reason to buy high quality ribbon, look how it catches the light! YUM!!!


Each table had a big full bouquet in these awesome citrus green urns. We bought five of them, I just loved them so much! The night before we were working on tying all that ribbon on the chairs, do you see it? It really made a huge impact in the room. All but the head chair on each table had it. The head tables had the table numbers looped around back. And look; the key place settings. I love how it all went together.


Our table had three bouquets and our two chairs had pretty flower balls on them. I freaking love those things. Oh and a note if you go with these gold chairs, they normally come with cream cushions, but Emee got the rental company to use their white cushion (normally for the black and silver chairs) for this chair type. I’m not really a gold person, but you can’t fight the room (I saw silver chairs in here, yuck), and the dishes are all white, so cream would have been a huge clashing mess. Before I knew it it was time to throw the bouquet.


Un-beknownst to the girls I had pulled my bouquet apart and Sciarrino attached the stamped fortunes to each section. It broke apart perfectly when I threw it.


We stamped: "you will marry the boy next door" "you will marry your best friend,"


And Kristin’s, "you will marry a millionaire" on herringbone, another favorite of mine. 


My mom also used the ribbon to make my garter, which Ian caught, but I don’t have any pictures of it. Basically we pulled the wire out of some semi shinny lime and then put a smaller satin on top of that. My mom gathered them together on elastic and added a ribbon flower, and some blue beads to the center of it.

Someone recognized me at the scrapbooking store today from my wedding pictures. She was really sweet and told me I was a beautiful bride. I said thank you, of course, and told her that I couldn’t stop looking at my wedding photos. It’s true, I can’t! I want to spring for our Pottery Barn frames now, so that I can have these up on my wall like NOW. But if you’re getting sick of these let me know… I think I could probably talk about the wedding for a year. But I’m also more than happy to go on and on about how cool it is to have Bj here now. How funny he is every night, how he does the dishes, how he gives me kisses for no reason, how he mowed the lawn, how he does all the little things…. I’m crazy in love, what can I say?