The Wedding of Mary & Opie {Part 2, plus HEAPS of Scrumptious D.I.Y. detail…}

I promised you, shortly before Christmas day to bring you part 2 of this, one of my favourite ever styled weddings.  Big sorry for the gap between part 1, and this most inspirational and DIY filled part 2 – but I have been spending much-needed time with family and friends over this here festive few days – as I hope you all have too.  Did you have a lovely Christmas?  I hope so. 

I've kept in touch with Mary, the Bride over the past couple of weeks, and I can say, this truly is a lady with totally original style (with a bit of a cheeky sense of humour to boot). And this brings me very nicely on to part 2 of her fabulous wedding to Husband Opie.

If you read part 1 of this feature, you'll know that Opie asked his Bride Mary, a Starbucks Barista, out over the hand-out bar.  Coffee is obviously a bit of a permanent feature in the lives and Mary and Opie and so, they decided to incorporate it into their wedding day decor. 

All Imagery Copyright (C) 2009, Jenna Cole

 

"I'm not sure if it was Jenna & Lynn or some wedding guest that
wrote LOVE with the coffee beans, but it was an adorable unplanned
touch…."

The coffee beans above had been taken from these table centre-pieces…

"I saved up coffee beans for a full year before the wedding. I get a
free pound every week at work, and while I forgot a few weeks here and
there, I had a TONNE stockpiled by the time the wedding rolled around. I
bargain hunted for ages to find cool inexpensive vases. I bought the
white tablecloths on ebay as soon as I knew how many we needed, after
going on a similarly epic quest for the cheapest best-looking ones. I
bought the votive holders off of Craigslist somewhere midway through
planning the wedding. The cups doubling as candle-holders were all my
maternal grandparents', and I've saved them ever since the estate sale
after my grandfather passed away when I was 13."

"The green polyester shantung fabric was stalked and purchased on sale
with coupons months in advance. My mom cut and hemmed all of them a
good while before the wedding. The little lunch sack favour bags were
purchased from Target every time they restocked them for about a month.
My sister and I decorated them over the summer when she came to visit.
It was also at that time that we taste-tested the favours themselves. We
decided on deeeelicious cranberry and coffee chocolate truffles that my
sister handmade."

I love how coffee beans were scattered as a type of table confetti…

 

I spent hooouurrrss agonising over what food to provide for our guests when it came to my own wedding, so when I asked Mary what her experience had been regarding the same issue, I had to smile at her reply…

"we had a plain ol' hamburger buffet with baked beans, chips and
potato salad, 2 kegs, some wine, and enough pie and cake to go around.
We're simple folk, and there was no need to pretend otherwise on our
wedding day…"

Yay! How refreshing – a Bride who most definitely was not going to let what can, at the best of times, be a totally crazy wedding industry dictate what she was going to do on her own wedding day…

Scrum-diddly-umptious….

Perhaps one of the coolest and most original aspects of this particular wedding was the total absence of a traditional wedding cake, and in it's replacement, the Bride and Groom had their very own….PIES!

Mary had her own 'Bridal Pie'.  How uber-cool is that?  It was made by her Sister-In-Law (and I bet was all the more tasty and went down so much sweeter because of it – it's so lovely to get the family involved like this).

"I'm just not a cake person.  I always had a pie or cobbler at my birthdays growing up, and didn't want to serve something I don't even like.  Opie and I make time for "pie time" on many special days (and many days
made special by pie time), so it's only fitting that we had pie on our
wedding day! It was a delicious pecan pie made by my sister-in-law
Melissa."

Opie the Groom had Carrot cake by Paradise Bakery. 

"Carrot Cake is his favourite and this was the tastiest one we found locally"…

The details of these pies are captured beautifully below by Photographer Jenna Cole…. mmmmm, pecan……

 

Below Left, Copyright (C) 2009, Lynn in Love

The couple's rings were stunning White Gold Celtic Warrior Rings, from Irishshop. 

"My paternal Great-Grandmother's lineage was very strongly Scottish. She was 94 when she passed away in 1995.  My Mom's parents were born in 1907 and 1910! Hence the flapper inspiration from that Grandmother." 

Mary's Irish connections come from her Mother's side of her family.

"Our original patriarch that immigrated came over at about the age of 12, during the 1840's potato famine) and then he and all of his children married other Irish immigrants and their descendants.  Opie's lineage is also Scottish-Irish.

I play fiddle and we both enjoy our Scottish/Irish heritage.  Also, I find Celtic knots very symbolic of marriage…"

Look at the detail!…

Precious moments, captured away from adoring family and friends, and shortly prior to the first dance…

….and shortly afterwards, the first dance itself….

"After we finished our group portraits, we went straight into our First Dance, "Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On"
as performed by Louis Armstrong. We never took dance lessons. Neither
of us are particularly good dancers. Our practicing consisted of
swaying and twirling in our office and foyer at home a few times during
the weeks leading up to the wedding. I have absolutely zero regrets
about this. Sure, maybe it'd be fun to learn to dance together
sometime, but on our wedding day, swaying and looking at my shiny new
husband was all I was keen to do. I certainly didn't want to be
stressing about remembering any coordinated dance moves. It was a
lovely three minutes…."

Below  Right, Copyright (C) 2009, Lynn in Love

Don't you just love moments like this captured on camera…

 

I LOVE this DIY photobooth idea (crikey, how must much it cost to hire a traditional photobooth at a wedding? More coinage cleverly saved…

"Ingredients: Fabric bought for about $0.90 a yard at Ikea about 6
months before the wedding. 1 Captain Kirk standup that typically lives
in our kitchen because we're classy like that. 1 Yoda backpack that I
bought several years ago because I'm awesome. 1 awesome Uncle who threw
all the ingredients together and made it work even though I forgot the
part of the tripod that holds the camera on, and also yaaaay duct tape…."

 

….and some photobooth fun results! …

Below Left & Right, Copyright (C) 2009, Lynn in Love

 

A frame was left in place of a traditional handbook, for each guest to sign.  The frame will later be filled with one of Mary and Opie's favourite photographs from their special day…
 

A little detail from earlier, that ties in so very beautifully with the colour-scheme of the day…

"Oh, my beloved beautiful bunting!  Probably my personal favourite bit of decor. This is one that I fought a
number of people on. "Why?", they asked. "Like the flags at used car
lots?", they said. "Yes, exactly", I said. "You so don't have time to
make those", they said. "Yeah huuuuuh", I whined. Ultimately, it
totally wouldn't have happened if my mom (one of the original
protesters, particularly about how much time I had on my hands) hadn't
tracked down the fabric and cut out all the flags. Thanks mom! I glued
all of 'em onto the string one afternoon and they wound up looking
aaaaawesome."

They did indeed…

 

"Another late-in-the-game project was the streamers on the railing
around the trees. We wanted something to soften their appearance, since
our ceremony was set to occur between these trees. Beige metal railing
didn't have the right.. ambience. Our first good idea was ribbons
disguising them like so, but… I'm a cheapskate. A cheapskate with a
tight budget. And ribbon's expensive!"

hehe! I love Mary for her honesty…

This Bride was so clever at weaving her chosen co-ordinating DIY detail throughout the day, and it started way-back when the 'Save The Date' cards were issued…

"I played around with various nature-themed stamps to ornament our Save The Date cards.
I ultimately decided on a leaf stamp, playing off the fact that we
chose our wedding date almost exclusively based on the Autumn season we
love so much".

Remember how, in part 1, leaves were scattered down the aisle by the pretty flower girl, instead of the usual petals?

"I employed something of an assembly line method, despite the fact that I
was running the show alone. I basically stamped one with brown pigment
ink, covered the ink in clear embossing powder, and then set it aside
to stamp & powder another card. Rinse, repeat, until I had just
about the whole kitchen table filled with cards, and then I busted out
the heat gun and melted the embossing powder on all of them at once".

 

One very naturally artistic and creative Bride here!

And a few more happy photographs from the day…

Below, Copyright (C) 2009, Lynn in Love

 

 

Look
at those GORGEOUS finger curl waves in Mary's hair, I love them, as I
do the chocolate brown shawl Mary used to keep the chill off her
shoulders in the evening. Such elegant and natural style…

And here brings me to the end of another elegant and astoundingly gorgeous wedding day, featured on Love My Dress.  Part of the reason this Blog was established, was to truly inspire Brides, Grooms and others planning a wedding.  And it doesn't matter where in the world you may be located; the resources used to add detail to this particular wedding could be sourced from almost anywhere – it's the ideas and the way the detail have been pulled together that count.  

Thank you so much Mary for kindly providing me with SO much useful information to share with my readers.  Anyone planning a wedding and wanting to do things their way will without doubt be inspired by your achievements – I most certainly have been.  I mean it from my heart too, when I say that I believe you and Opie pulled off an exceptionally beautiful day ~ proof indeed that style and originality needn't cost the world, and that good old fashioned love, passion (and a little help from your friends and family, of course!) can create a fantastic day, jam-packed with wonderful personal touches, and pretty detail.  Your wedding was an event and experience that clearly represented who you both are and refused to conform to the pressure placed on all of us these days, by suppliers in the wedding industry.  A hearty WELL DONE and CONGRATULATIONS to you both – Mr and Mrs 🙂

Mary, it's lovely to have made a new friend, and anytime you fancy a base to come and explore Scotland from, you and Opie would be very welcome.

♥