Shaylah and Jon's Wedding: At home, With Friends

Back in June, I got the pleasure of working with my friends, Shay and Jon, on their wedding. As in: decoration and set-up of the reception site, even the the fun times with another friend JMiz (also named Jon and a designer-visit his site) building an arbor for the ceremony. Their photographer: Heather (onelovephoto) was amzing and was able to capture the wedding just like Shay and Jon wanted.

Here are a couple of Heather's photos of some of the details that I got the fun time of creating with Shay and other friends, and then setting up!

I guess I can work beyond the invites and the planning (insert smiley face here)

Shay & Jon with the Arbor and hand made pom poms

T

The entrance to the lovely home used for the reception.

Hand made pin-wheels, pom poms, and flowers done by the Bridesmaids

The dessert spread-pies missing to be cut and served

The house was beautiful and unique on its own. But fit the wedding so.

Friends. Eating and drinking soda.

More to follow.

Work and Summer endings, and on being a blonde

It is already the end of August. Usually marked with the begining of school: shopping, new pens and pencils (although A shoebox exists full of them under the bed, collected dust bunnies and other allergy inducers), cool nights, bright mornings, less daylight, and of course: classes.

However, this end-of-August-time doesn't carry with it the impending start of another college semester. It actually brings exactly what the-beginning-of-July brought. Work and then some. But...don't take me wrong, I am in love with my work! I don't see my job as work.

Effort? Yes.

Work? No...well, depending on the weekend.

I am continuing to plan in the Wedding world. Meeting new brides and grooms, helping them smooth out details of their weddings. Mkae my personal suggestions on how the escort cards should be placed, or if it is important to have ushers before the processional.

And it works. It goes swimminlgy well.

I haven't had a problem!

Until this past weekend.

The cake. The cake dropped. YES. I take responsiblity for a five layer cake sliding off the cake table, seconds after the bride cut it to serve to her 209 guests. Yes, it dropped, in front of all those 209 guests.

I couldn't do anything except close my eyes and say "Make it go away, make it go away." It didn't go away. Minutes earlier my manager and i were chatting about he loveliness of the evening and the perfection of the time line and service. Spoke to soon, eh?

It turned out that the table legs weren't locked, so upon moving the table off the dance floor, the cake slid off unto the tablecloth. Only after that did we learn that the cake dropped at the bride's parents wedding. Fate! Blessing! Cakes falling are tidings of good news!

The bride was completely happy. She laughed at me and told me it was okay since she didn't like cake anyways. I didn't know what else to do except hug her and almost cry from joy. Joy because I had this irrational fear that I would be fired, kicked out in the rainy weekend's cold. But no. I press on and have learned-check those damn table legs.

Oh, yes. I am a Blonde now. For those that don't me, I have been a Brunette (or darker) for my entire life. Finding joy in seeing my auburn hair flash in the sun and relish in its ability to (on a very rare and good day) to resemble Zooey Deschenal's hair. However, early spring, I chopped off all of it. I regretted it the next week when i coudln't see it on my shoulder anylonger. So what better way to bite through the painful and awkward groing out stage then to bleach it all and get some highlights.

Three separate dye baths later and a weekend to California, I have come out a lovely and natural looking Blonde. Resembling my twin sister more than ever.

I don't think I have noticed any changes int eh way that people treat me. I meet so many new people every weekend at the wedding I coordinate that I can't tell if they are different people (which I know they are) or it is because of my Blonde-ness.

I need to create more often.

Regularity as a goal has been reached every so often. Need to be more regular about reaching regularity. Noted.

Where in the world have I gone to

I am absent. From anything not associated with work or with being outside. So please forgive me for not including you in my endeavors.

The summer is underway. The wedding season is underway, well underway.

With two weddings a weekend, I am starting to broaden my creative abilities, from design and art, to displays and production.

I have also grown a new interest in decorating. Homes, rooms, wedding parties, tables for dinner. Anything. Housewares, home goods, lamps, banners, fabric. a new love. My new(ish) apartment has helped this love grow and grow.

Nesting I like to call it. Hoarding, others call it. If I am a nester or a hoarder, something about settling is so appealing to me. To find my place, and walk around it multiple times like my giant puppy back home, to create my bed, my comfort, all things that I am learning to do on my own. As an individual, as an adult, responsible to work and to my friends but most importantly, responsible to care for myself.

I have been working on my space in my apartment every day. I little here, a little there. Granted, I live with three other girls with very different style than me, but we have learned to fit it together to create a welcoming and unique place to rest and sit. I love it when someone walks into our custom painted living room and just breathes deeply.

My goal: to breathe deeply. To show others how to breathe deeply.

The most sunshine-y yellow kitchen

Our reading nook

 My safe haven

Regularity. My other goal

Oh, what a world

Oh, what a world that this is.

I am hours away from completing my last exam of my college career. Then onwards to commencement.

The past two months has been colored by pop-up shops, college events, geese, weddings, coordinating, moving, portfolios, and looking ahead.

Where do I even begin?

I have a job. There's a start. As a Wedding Coordinator. A job perfectly tailored for me, the event planner extraordinaire, with the ability to bring in all my creative efforts and desire to be around people.  The Willowdale Estate is beautiful and I already love working there.

As a Gordon College student, my time here (now that it is on the road to completion) has been colored by desiring to learn how to bring my vocation and my faith into one place. How to use the skills and lessons from CCC Freshman Seminar, or Design 3, or even Management into real life. Extracarriculars such as leading Campus Events Council, working in the Barrington Art Gallery, even leading a couple backpacking trips; all of these things have completely worked themselves into my life after college.

To plan a campus wide event with a time line and schedule and 50 people to coordinate taught me how to wrangle a wedding party for their reception announcements. Organizing a vendor list and time line for a April wedding taught me how to understand and work well with a team.

I guess this epitomizes what Gordon wants to teach its students. The cross over between student and adult, between learning and acting. I must say that I have never been more excited about the prospect of using these small tidbits from chapel services or convocation in my "real" life. Real Life.

Winter Wedding, Send-N-Seal option

This is a send-n-seal wedding option. It is quite lovely, designed for a winter wedding. The pluses of this type of style is that it is all inclusive. The invite, tear off RSVP postcard and envelope are all in itself! It folds very well and can be mailed with less cost!

  

 

Wedding season!

I have finally gotten around to taking photos of the invites that I have done in the past year.

So no more computer images!

Take a look.

I am quite pleased with with all of them thus far.

Only more to come.

 

 

 

Thank you to all the brides that trust me to work with them. It is always such a pleasure for me!

Persuaded

What is it about Jane Austen and her novels? (Which luckily have been recreated as PBS Masterpiece Collection films)
Novels about headstrong women (mostly brunettes, I might add), frivolous sisters, and shallow families who seek only money and a name. The wealthy Baroness is somehow thrown into the mix as well.
Yet these novels, and short films on PBS (for me that is) hit something so much more real than "When In Rome" or even "Win A Date with Tad Hamilton." There is something about life and love and loss that Miss Austen has been able to so successfully weave into her stories of Anne (Persuasion), Emma (Emma), and Elizabeth (Pride and Prejudice), that I cannot help but hope. 


To receive a letter saying:


"I can bear this no longer, you pierce my soul, in half agony and half hope, I have loved none but you...For you alone I think and plan, do you not see this? I must go uncertain of my fate. A word, a look, would be enough. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever."


With the beautiful piano composition building and building as I run through the cobblestone streets of Bath with the letter half ripped apart in my hands, frantically searching for the author.
I have convinced myself that his scene is more of a reality then a magical coin from an Italian fountain. Maybe I am wrong.


I would consider myself blessed to live 'Persuasion.' In half the sense. That I wouldn't have to lose that love. For the other half-of the pain and punishment that Anne had to face for 8 years, I don't want that. But tit for tat I guess.

Montreal