wedding video

I think I've mentioned this before, but Jesse and I first met years ago at art school. One of our closest friends there (and Jesse's roommate for several years) was a very talented video major named James Favata. James is awesome for many reasons - he once completely painted himself red for a photo project, he used to work at a picture people in the mall and would hang random people's portraits on their college fridge, and he and our friend,Chris, inadvertantly are the reason Jesse and I met one fateful night.

The main reason that James is awesome, though, is because he offered to shoot our wedding video. And he did a seriously great job. If you live in the Washington D.C. - Baltimore - Philadelphia area and are looking for a videographer (wedding or otherwise), check out his website - he's a cool guy.

And now, a little snippet of our wedding day! Watching this the first time brought all of the emotions from that morning right back. The music used throughout the video was taken from either our ceremony or reception playlist. Enjoy!


Jesse and Deanna's Wedding from JPstudios on Vimeo.

Music (Part 3)

And finally, the promised post about our ceremony music. First a little back story, though.

After deciding to get married in Lititz Springs Park, I spent a few weeks worrying that our day might devolve into Joy and Darnell's fabulously trashy park wedding from the television show, My Name is Earl, hostess twinkie cakes and all. Their wedding looked fun on TV, but wasn't what I had in mind for my own. So we decided we would hire a violinist to play at our ceremony to "class up" our little public park soiree. As the date loomed closer, though, our budget got tighter and our violinist contacts dried up. So we decided to stick with the itunes laptop again, and pay a really nice friend of Jesse's to man the operation. In the end, I'm actually really happy we made this decision. It was way cheaper, we got to pick very specific versions of personal songs, and we were able to hide Brett (Jesse's awesome friend) and our laptop on the side of the gazebo, so it didn't detract from the ceremony. The park even provided most of the speakers and cables.

The only ceremony photo including our awesome laptop helper. The expression on his face cracks me up.
(click to enlarge)

We couldn't make another mixwit compilation because most of our songs are either very specific or kind of obscure. So, instead you just get a little list. Sorry. We didn't want our ceremony to stick to the traditional music since it felt too stuffy for us, but we also didn't want to go crazy with pop music. I think we ended up with a nice balance, while still including a lot of subtle nods to movie sountracks since we're both such film nuts. Whenever I hear any of these songs now, it just brings me right back to that morning and makes me giddy.

Pre-ceremony Music (Played while the guests arrived)

1. String Quartet in F Major - Ysaye Quartet (Royal Tennenbaum's Soundtrack)
2. La Valse D'Amelie (Orchestra Version) - Amelie Soundtrack
3. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - The Smashing Pumpkins
4. Claire De Lune - Debussy

Processional Music (Played while our mothers and my sister entered)

1. Les Bulles - Carlos D'Alessio (Delicatessen Soundtrack)

Bridal Entrance

1. Ave Maria - A simple piano & Violin version by the O'Neill Brothers

Recessional

1. Happiness (Jesse edited this down to just the chorus) - Elliott Smith
2. Hey Jude (The Beatles Cover) - Mutato Muzika Orchestra (Royal Tennenbaums Soundtrack)
   

Up Next: we'll finish up our wedding blog with a very fitting final end post - our wedding video shot and edited by one of our extremely talented friends.

Music (Part 2)

Now we move on to the post meal dancing...
Again this is an abbreviated version of our dance playlist.
Deanna and I are not clubbers, and we aren't usually too up to date with the latest radio and MTV chart toppers. So when it came to picking out the dance music we had a little bit of trouble finding a way to balance the music we like, with the music you can actually dance to, and that our guests would enjoy. I think our only regret with the playlist is that we would have played slow songs more frequently. We found that people over 35 will not dance to anything but slow songs. There were plenty picked out, but we only ended up playing about 1/2 to 2/3 of our dance music. There were many reasons for this...
1- people didn't drink too much, most likely because it was an afternoon reception.
2- we had a really long playlist
3-we had to fit in cake cutting, throwing the bouquet, throwing the garter, announcements and so on.

So on with the music!

The MixWit songs are pretty accurate on this one. So I will let the list speak for itself for the most part. Here are a couple notes.

The songs are not in the order they were played.

#4 I like Ben Folds, Deanna does on occasion, but isn't a fan of this song. We did find that our parents and the older couples really liked this one though.

#9 This was our first dance song.This is credited to Jon Brion because he did a different mix of this song for the Punch Drunk Love Soundtrack (which was the version we used). It is actually sung by Shelly Duvall and was originally on the Popeye Soundtrack.

#10 This was Deanna's dance with her father.

#11 was my dance with my mother. Our family has always had close ties to all things Muppets, so this was a good pick for us.

#12 Everybody's Gonna Be Happy is a Kinks song, it was not labeled on the mix.

#13... no, we don't watch American Idol. We liked this song before it was ruined, and only hope there was enough space between that version and the wedding for people to forget Sanjaya's version of it.**Deanna thinks this comment sounds mean and claims no responsibility for it.**

#16 Ok, so the lyrics don't exactly speak of marital love, but its a really great cover, and Deanna likes "old sounding" songs.

Music (Part 1)

Here is a selection of some of the music we played during our wedding brunch. We played our music off of a laptop and hooked into the reception location's sound system, so everything was cheap and sounded pretty good after a lot of mp3 testing and playlist setups. We used many instrumental songs as to not interrupt our guests' chatting too much. Most of the music was plucked from some of our favorite movie soundtracks. Both Deanna and I are movie junkies, so it was another nice way of making the day feel more like "us". The "food" playlist, as it was called, ended up being about an hour and 45 minutes. We wanted to give it a little extra buffer if things ended up taking longer than expected. Deanna's mother arrived early to start the music, so it was playing when everyone else entered. I think we played about an hour and a half of music from the start until the end of the meal.
The sampling here isn't spot on, some of the versions of songs were different, but it gets the point across.

1: The Theme from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Jon Brion

2: The Way I Feel Inside - The Zombies ( We used a different version, but its close)

3: Playground Love (from the Virgin Suicides) - Air (We used the vibraphone version, which is an instrumental)

4: After Hours - The Velvet Underground

5: Phone Call (also from Eternal Sunshine) - Jon Brion

6: A Well Respected Man - The Kinks

7: Just Like Honey - The Jesus and Mary Chain (cause we liked it in Lost in
Translation)

8: Hey Jude (from Royal Tenenbaums) - Cover by Mutato Muzika Orchestra (We used a lot of Mark Mothersbaugh music from the Wes Anderson movies, and yes I know a lot of this makes us come off as hipsters... sorry)

9: We Are Going to Be Friends - The White Stripes

I will put up a similar post soon about our dance and ceremony music, so stay tuned.

More details about those birds

I've gotten several requests lately for patterns and more detailed instructions for our little fabric birds.


While I'm very flattered that so many brides-to-be liked them, this is also kind of a touchy subject for me. As a self-employed freelance illustrator, I know how hard it is to make a living off of your artwork, and while my birds aren't nearly as cute as Ann Wood's, they were very heavily influenced by hers, so I'm leery of doing anything to cut into her business. That's one reason why it wouldn't sit right with me to make or sell these for a profit.


On the other hand, I also know what it's like to be a bride on a budget and how frustrated I felt when I first started experimenting on mine. So, instead of detailed instructions, I'll post all of the links that I found helpful and add a few more tips. You can also look back at my original bird post for my very general instructions.

mrs. penguin's handmade bird toppers from weddingbee.com - general details and photos of the making-of process.

spool's bird mobile pattern - these birds look a little different, but they offer a free pdf pattern you can download. I actually used a modified version of this pattern to make the bodies for mine. I extended the belly piece further up to form a face, attached wings, and made a separate larger tail. I also found that threading wire through the tail helps make it bendable.

peonies and polaroids hand made bird instructions - detailed instructions with photos. i didn't use these to make mine, but her tips were very helpful.

So, you can see there are quite a few different ways to make the little birds, but they usually require a lot of time and a little bit of experimentation. I hope this is helpful, without stepping on anyone's toes. Good luck!

Up Next: Music (finally)

Thanks Katherine!

During our super-long engagement, I developed a pretty hardcore wedding blog addiction. I used to check brooklyn bride, style me pretty, a practical wedding, and weddingbee at least every day (and several other bridal blogs more sporadically). My absolute favorite and most inspiring blog, though, was the inspiration-board-a-day extravaganza, snippet & ink.


So, I was incredibly honored when Katherine of Snippet & Ink asked to include our little soiree as one of her "featured weddings". Our post went up over the weekend, and I'm so touched by all of the wonderful comments readers have left. So, thank you so much for the shout-out, Katherine, your site is seriously one of the best out there.

P.S. - Since getting married I've gone cold-turkey on my wedding blog addiction.....almost. And I promise to finish up the last detail post before the next century. Work has been crazy and I'm a pretty terrible blogger.

detail post #6: flowers

I should say up front that flowers were not high on our list of priorities for the wedding. I just couldn't justify plunking down tons of cash for something that would only last for a day. Plus, we knew that we wanted to keep them fun and simple, so we decided to do them ourselves

The Centerpieces

I mentioned our decision earlier to place individual stems in vintage glass bottles. Jesse and I are thrift store fiends and collected most of our bottles for $1 or less. His mother even found a table full of really awesome old ones at a garage sale for $25. I really wanted to fill the bottles with dahlias since they would be in season in July and I love the modern shape of their full-petaled heads.


We ordered the 75 yellow ones wholesale from fiftyflowers.com to be delivered two days before the wedding. They arrived early that Thursday with no problem (I highly recommend their site). I trimmed each flower down and stored them in buckets full of water with plant food until later that evening when some really kind neighbor ladies helped me start arranging them in the jars.


I thought the centerpieces might need some accent colors, so Jesse and I ran to the lawn + garden section of the local grocery store that evening and bought a potted lantana and a couple of small potted kalanchoes in peach, pink, and orange for about $30 total and added their trimmed buds to our smaller jars.

a photo taken by my friend Jen. This was our "chemistry set" inspired centerpiece.

Luckily we were allowed to set up our centerpieces at our reception site the day beforehand which was made even easier by the assistance of several friend and family members. Arranging and storing our centerpiece jar groupings in advance also helped to save time. I was pleased with how they turned out and they weren't terribly hard to do ourselves, especially with so much wonderful help. Plus, now we have a really fantastic collection of vintage bottles!

The Bouquets

Although I'd been collecting clippings for months of tons of different beautful, full bouquets, even a week before the wedding I didn't know what I wanted to do for mine. I seethed with jealousy of brides who got to carry peonies or daffodils, and tried to figure out every possible way to find them in mid-July, but buying them out-of-season would have cost me a small fortune. I finally decided I just didn't really care. I'd only be holding my own bouquet for a few minutes while I walked down the aisle. It wasn't worth worrying about and I really just wanted something small, monochromatic and hand-tied, so I did the unthinkable in bride-land....I bought my bouquet flowers from a grocery store.

We only needed three bouquets - one for me, one for my sister, and one to toss during the reception. So, I bought white, yellow and pink roses, some mixed zinneas and snap dragons, lots of ribbon and called it a day. My mom helped me to arrange the flowers the evening before the wedding and I finished tying their ribbons later that night while hanging out with girlfriends in my hotel room, so it turned into a fun bonding experience. Sure, they were far from perfect and it's obvious that they weren't professionally arranged, but they suited me fantastically for the day.

My sister's bouquet turned into a wildflower mix of zinneas and snow peas tied with a thicker red and white striped ribbon with a thin salmon-colored ribbon on top. I initially wanted to go monochromatic with all three bouquets, but her dress (although absolutely beautiful) was a little bit darker and more purpl-y than the rest of the wedding colors, so I mixed darker, lighter, and brighter flowers in an effort to tie everything together.

The toss bouquet consisted of large yellow roses tied with a thin yellow and white ribbon. In the photos, the flowers actually almost look a tiny bit like yellow peonies (at least in my imagination) because they were so full.


I ended up using the white roses and the same yellow ribbon for my own bouquet. I used to label roses, and especially white roses, as "boring" for a bridal bouquet, but the day I bought them I decided to re-label them in my mind as "classic". It's amazing what a difference a tiny little mind trick like that can make.

(all photos taken by Mariano Delgado unless specified. Click any of them to enlarge)

Up Next: Music