The tale of the tea lady and the rockstar!!!

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                                                                    (photos by Adam Peterson: www.therestlessone.com)

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KEEP SCROLLING DOWN MY BIO: for a FULL visual recap of the day as it progressed.........................................................................................................................................

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soooo About the wedding..........

Well it was a Southern one..

 *buffet tea party foods

 *casual dress

 *in a church

 *no alcohol

 *and no dancing because I was too embarrassed to.

* but it was a fantastic day for me full of colorful things, whimsy, and TEA!

HERE'S HOW IT HAPPENED.........................................

        ..................................................................LOVE.................................................................

It began with a love for music.... since the beginning of time--or at least from the beginning of each of our lives.  I played random household items with my siblings as a kid annoying my family with abnoxious singing and pecking songs on pianos.  He picked up a guitar and I think knew right away what to do with it--other than how to hold it since he does that backwards, being a lefty.

It was our love for music that brought us together.  He played trombone in highschool band and I played flute in highschool band.  These schools of course were 2 hours away, but paths met when we both were auditioning for all-region band.  I was 15 at the time and had only had one significant boyfriend in my life.  Some friends I was with (all boys) met me outside my audition room when I finished and told me they had met someone I would think was "hott".  They said he looked like "Omar" from the Mars Volta (a band we all liked a lot at the time).  I went to grab some dinner in the cafeteria and heard someone singing and PLAYING (not just holding or playing terribly, but really playing) guitar.  I had to go listen.  I requested a song by the same band and sang along while he played and sang.  I went back to my friends and asked if that was him and it was.  He in fact, did not look like "Omar", but like the singer, Cedric (because of his hair), but it didn't matter because I DID find him attractive just as they predicted.  Well, of course I didn't make all-region band; I got my music 3 days before tryouts, but one of my friends and my new crush did make all-region where they roomed together and went on to room together for all-state also.  About 6 months later I got a call from someone.  It was my friend, Jameson who asked if I wanted to talk to his friend or something like that and was like, "who is this?"  I kept hearing "Alias" and was like "who the heck would name someone Alias, what's your real name?"  After a while, I finally understood he was saying "Elliott" and told me he was with my friend, Jameson.  He told me he would be in town for the weekend.  Jameson told him there was a girl who had the "hotts" for him and so the next day they came to my house because of course Elliott had to meet again the girl who he now knew had the "hotts" for him.  He looked totally different than before with long straight hair, but still good-lookin'.  And so we began to "talk" from that day on.   I was 16 years old (but starting my senior year at high school) at this point, he was 18.  We began dating at the end of that summer in 2006.

MARRIAGE...........................

after you get a fancy ring of course....

for my 18th birthday he was going to take me to eat steak and then we were going to go ring looking dressed up in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" inspired attire.  We got out of the restaurant too late though and didn't get to go looking, but we went back the next week.  I'm not a jewelry person so I had no clue what I liked.  When we went looking I was really drawn to the small marquise cut diamonds on white gold bands.  I finally found one I loved and loved on me and it had little sidestones.  He bought the ring the next week or so and was going to ask my parents' permission.  I wanted to go home that weekend though (I was in college) so I just went with him.  He proposed to me at 6 in the morning the day after he asked them.

ENGAGEMENT PHOTOS of course!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*********Ha... you thought I was going to say BABY didn't you

These engagement pictures were taken on a few windy days by his father because we did not have time to schedule professional photo shoots and such (or we were just lazy).

DIY

these were all taken with the camera timer and the running back and forth.

                                                                              and this one we used for our invitations ^

Me and my sister, Bethany the MOH, getting our hair done

Gotta Eat.................  Mom made us croissant sandwhiches before the wedding so there wouldn't be any fainting.

Guest Book & table:

Here's a link to our photo guestbook:  

Click here to view this photo book larger

Starting time:  2:00pm on May 23, 2009

Wedding Party walked in to "Now my feet won't touch the Ground" - a folky sounding tune by Coldplay.

The ringbearer began his walk down the aisle during "Only Hope" - by Switchfoot ... the flower girl followed, carrying her teapot shaped basket.. and then THE BRIDE... me. 

As far as music goes I wanted a live musician, but I didn't know any cello players and the thought of "Only Hope" without a cello was crushing me so we just played tracks.

My Grandpa, who married my parents also, led the ceremony as the officiant.

We both had always wanted to do this at our wedding and he did this for me the morning he proposed.  We washed each others feet. 

Song:  "In Love"- Jon Foreman

In love, in love, in life, in love
In you, in love, in death, my love
in time, in love, in place, in love
In form, in love, in death, my love
My God, my love, my life, my love
Is yours, my love, my bride, my love
This cross, my love, is mine, my love
To bear, my love, to die, my love
This cup, my love, this bread, my love
My life, my love, is yours, my love
Come drink, my love, my blood, my love
My life, my love, in death, my love
My God, my love, my life, my love
Is yours, my love, my bride, my love
This cross, my love, is mine, my love
To bear, my love, its time, my love

music:  "Pot Kettle Black" - Wilco  &  "Head Over Heels" - Switchfoot

                                                            My Parents

At the beginning of wedding planning, I could've cared less what my cake looked like.  I didn't like any I'd seen enough to demand, but when I started looking at tea party cakes instead, I found so many I loved and knew that ONE would be my inspiration.  It was one layer with a victorian style hat on top and under the hat were pearls hanging down and tea party gloves.  Exactly what I wanted to wear for my wedding, but didn't knowing guests wouldn't be quite as enthusiastic about dressing up for a wedding as if it were a tea party.  CHECK OUT what my cake baker came up with.. and the frosting is buttercream per my request because I find fondant absolutely disgusting.  The bottom layer is strawberry because DH and I love it the most and the other layers are chocolate and vanilla.  For only $200, this was the most delightful detail of the day!  She designed it in my wedding colors and with my wedding flowers.  and Guess what?? I never even met with her to tell her what I wanted, my mom just took her the inspiration picture and showed her my colors and flowers.  I think I screamed when she brought it in.  My sister, MOH frosted funfetti cupcakes in teacups while I got dressed.  (because I couldn't leave funfetti cake out of my wedding day!!!!)

The Cake Table

Cake Cutting

.... and cake.

In the South--I'm from Arkansas--we typically have a table at the wedding reception in the interest of the groom.  My man has often been told that he looks like the celebrity to also happens to be one of his musical role models:  Jack White.  I wanted to highlight his musical tastes since the rest of the wedding was themed more in my preferences.  I made a crappy bass drum (that was shiny ugly orange) into a picture box timeline of his musical endeavers, hanging pictures from guitar strings inside after ripping off the ugly plastic and repainting the entire thing red and black to follow the White Stripes Theme.  I found an inspiration picture for the cakes that had the Groom's name on one of the guitars and the Bride's on the other, appropriate since we both play guitar.  He also is a fan of Jone's Soda so I found some red cans. And decided his top hat would make good decor since it's totally Jack White.

and.. sorry that for some unfortunate reason I can't upload the pro-pics of it so here's some others.

So we got married on May 23 and 3 weeks later on the 13 of June we left for London.  We stayed in a cute historic hotel in Slough, England, which is an industrial suburb of London.  Slough in itself is not the prettiest place, but was only a short walk to the train station and 5 minutes on the train to Windsor--and our hotel was a very nice and quaint place to stay.  Slough is also where the British "The Office" was created.  We loved Windsor so much.  It was small, walkable, dainty, and everything was a sight to see!  We toured the castle too.. so neat, but no pictures allowed inside the building.

After 3 days in England, we hopped on a plane and flew to Budapest, Hungary where we stayed for 4 nights.  Surprisingly, we loved it even more than Windsor.  We stayed in a perfect location right in the middle of a pedestrian square with St. Stephen's Basilica the main view when we walked out our hotel door.  We did some sight seeing, but never toured parliament since we were having so much fun just relaxing and enjoying the city.  We ate out and ate well.  We will never regret our visit to this amazingly beautiful city.

This was our street and the view of the Basilica from the door to our hotel.

The Hotel

SIGHTSEEING:

                 Heroes Square                                                      The Opera House

                                                 The Bridge from the "Buda" side

View from the top

                 Fisherman's Bastion

                                                               Parliament

Eating out in Budapest...

In Pizza Hut

St. Stephens Basilica  - we went to a concert here one night

I love making things.  We did almost everything ourselves for the wedding as we were working with a rather tiny budget and I'm a crafty one.

1.   Parasols to replace bridesmaids bouquets: not so proud of these, but they ran out of

parasols in my wedding colors and I had this cool lace pattern.

2.  "I Do" Shoes:  My inspiration was a picture on Dirty's profile that was done in rhinestones,

but I couldn't find turquoise rhinestones so I used glitter glue instead.

3.  Stamped Napkins: just turquoise and brown napkins that I used gold and brown ink to

stamp our names onto with a personalized stamp we had made.

4.  Invitations:  I really just came up with the design and had them printed.  The jumping

picture is the front and the other is the inside.  We did have to adjust the date, which turned

out looking better since we added the ribbon you see here.

5.  Guitar Picks with our Faces:  Legendguitarpicks did these for me.  I created the design in

adobe indesign and they printed these for my favors.

6.  Toss Bouquet:  yes.. I used fake flowers (don't judge me).  I'm more a fan of fun colors and

 paper than of smelly flowers, though I do love orchids, wildflowers, and wildflower

 daisies.  I have a field of them, but they wouldn't have survived.

7.  Programs:  I originally was going to do the fold out fan for a nice tea party addition, but am

a huge procrastinator.  I made these instead. The lace paper is brown paper like on a

roll that I found and it had a lace pattern and was perfect for a tea party so I cut and

printed and ribboned these all up.

8.  Pomanders and Pew Bows:  we wanted to incorporate the flowers into the ceremony decor

when my mom saw one of these in hobby lobby, she said "we need to do this"  despite

the fact we had less that 10 days until the wedding, we made these.

9.  Poofy tulle headpiece veil:  I created this after seeing some neat poof alternatives to the

traditional veil. I'm traditional, but I'm a quirk and this was super "me"!  It's tea dyed

also and has my "something old" which is a brooch from a grandmother or great grandmother.

10.  Boutonnieres and Corsages:  I loved all the ribbon corsages I saw and wanted to incorporate

it because it looked so fun and whimical.  I settled on this daisy/ribbon duo and loved it.  The bouts

were fabric callalillies that came with about 10 from wal-mart for $1.  I tea dyed them and rolled them

up and used ribbon and pearls for fun color.  I made the flower girl's a wristlet for extra cuteness.

11.  Bridal Bouquet:  I loved these colors when I saw these flowers and they kind of influenced

 my colors.  I loved the ribbon work on another bouquet I saw a picture of and used

 what I liked about it for mine.

12.  Garter:  I was going to make it just from scratch, but the dollar tree had some lace and plain garters so I ripped the bows off and save myself covering elastic completely.  Instead I just embellished this plain lavender one with ruffled turquoise ribbon I found.  I was going to add the sculpey tea beads I made, but didn't have time.

His Wedding Band.  $90 (?)    My Wedding Band similar to this one(white gold) $300

My rings...

                                                                Our rings

Hanging parasols, daisies, and tea pots

These are for the windows

        in ceremony                         Parasols to hang from ceiling in reception

        Paper Lanterns                     Making pew bos

I honestly didn't know this was a trend to make photo guest books when I made it.  Shutterfly kept sending me promotional codes to my email for a free 8 X 8 in. photo book and it would expire soon so though I really wanted photo books of the wedding to give to grandparents and parents instead of a stack of prints, the code would expire long before the wedding and I wanted to take advantage and see how it would turn out.  We didn't take official engagement pictures and weren't going to have a slideshow.  We thought of a slideshow with cute pictures and I started making it and wanted to die it was so boring, so I gave this a shot.  The pages are themed with things we did as kids and things we do together now.. with a picture of us together on the right page where all the guests can sign and pictures of us as kids on the left.  Page themes include music, eating cake, playing outside/in the woods, being masculine/feminine, dressing up in fancy clothes, and there is a page devoted to him dressing up in costumes and one to me having tea parties.  This turned out great and only cost me the $8 shipping with my free promo code.

P.s.  for those of you making one... I made the lines by drawing them the length, clicking enter drawing the same length, enter... until I had a stack of lines and then I copied and pasted that block until I had quite a few and (shutterfly alerts you when there is too much on the page) so I gradually deleted to find out how many lines I could have on one page.  when I got one page the way I wanted it, I copied all the lines and pasted that number onto every other page.  so it only sucks figuring it out for the first page and then you're set.

sorry I can't get the slideshow to work here, but click the link to see our guest book.

Click here to view this photo book larger

me and my mother prepared all this lovely tea party food.  But she made me make the teapot cake, which I've never done, so it's not the greatest thing.

Color inspiration:

Hair inspiration: 

Veil inspiration:

Cake inspiration:

Reception inspiration:

Bridesmaids dress inspiration:

Groom and Groomsmen inspiration:

Shower inspiration:

Gift inspiration:

MORE INSPIRATION::::

If you see some great shots in my bio.. they probably were some of my pros taken by Adam Peterson.  www.therestlessone.com.