So to make it easy I thought I'd start off with Colors. I also thought I'd start off with my favorite wedding...my own! Not my first wedding. I was a mess with my first wedding almost 25 years ago. I pretty much let my mom take over and I just smiled and then nodded every time she proposed something. And it's not like we didn't end up with a beautiful wedding...we did...it just wasn't me. We also didn't end up with a reception that was "us"...ok, we didn't end up with much of a reception since the town had a blackout not long into our reception time. Yup, my poor family cleaned up the reception hall with flashlights. My new husband and I ended up going through a Carl's Jr. drive thru because we didn't get a chance to eat before the lights went out. For this reason my husband has always said I deserve a "Do-Over". For our 22nd Anniversary (too long of an explanation there for why 22 was good for us LOL!) we got our Do-Over. And, for me, I took the lessons I learned from the first wedding to heart. Mainly that the wedding should speak to who I am as the Bride and to who he is as the Groom and to who we are together as a couple. The other was that looking for the same shade of French Lavender for everything will drive you insane!
So I went with Blue. I know, I know...but what SHADE of blue? Nope, learned that lesson and I decided that ANY shade of blue would work. If you mix enough different shades of a color into your palette then you end up with highlights and lowlights all over the place and a more beautiful presentation over all. And easy? Oh yes, it was SO much easier. I could pick out ribbon without having to have the rest of the ribbon there, paper without worrying about it matching the ribbon, flowers without worrying that they wouldn't fit in. So today I am sharing with you some photos from our Wedding Renewal so you can get an idea how Blue looks when it's all put together.
Hydrangeas are already shades of blue but, for me, it was more important that they were one of my Dad's favorite flowers. We had lost him a few years before but I wanted "him" there as much as possible. The dragonflies were also a nod to my dad. The final touch to personalize this bouquet to me was to add a little bouquet frame with my dad's photo in it. At the end of the ceremony I handed my bouquet off to my mom. She was so touched and it was a very special moment in the day for me. 
Another blue detail was the programs. Our ceremony wasn't that complicated so instead of a traditional program we decided to write a thank you note to our guests to let them know how special and important it was to us to have them there for our day. The other part of our Blue theme was the ocean. We chose Monterey for our location because I am that Beach Girl. But we wanted it to look elegant so we added the ocean touches wherever we could. I got lucky and found a "bubble" corner punch for the programs that helped to promote the them without looking like a little kids invitation.
Obviously your cake is a huge part of your day. As a Caker it was even more important to me that it fit my dream of what I wanted our cake to be. We trusted a local baker called Layer's Cakes to make the dream come true. They don't do "Custom Cakes" like I do so I was grateful that they did work with me to come up with our blue on blue cake surrounded by "sand" and "shells". The sand is cookie crumbs and the shells are chocolate. The taste was amazing and there wasn't a crumb left at the end of the day!
We didn't want the kids left out of the day and since Bacon Wrapped Scallops are not usually a huge hit with the kids we made up lunch pails for them and inside were little Ball Jars filled with their own cupcakes.
On the lids we put their initials so they would easily be able to say "This one is MINE". They ate the cupcakes out of the jar with a spoon. No mess and the kids loved how "weird" it was and that they were the only ones who got this treat!
Ok, not going to say much about clothing here...your dress, his suit or clothes are a very personal choice. Whatever hits your heart is how to go. BUT, here's an idea you can easily add. I wanted a touch of blue in my clothing that day so I added a blue ribbon to my necklace that I put blue beads on the end so it would drape down my back as an added detail. I wore little blue ballet flats I had bought in Milan for this day. And I got more positive feedback for those two touches, much more than I ever expected. Oh! And don't forget to have your photographer get a photo of your jewelry! I love that this shows off the diamond necklace I was wearing as well as my rings. The necklace is a family heirloom and my rings are from the 1940's. Antiques that we found and love. The new pieces, the earrings and headband, fit in perfectly. So I love this photo and how it shows the gorgeous jewelry I was lucky enough to wear.
We used blue shimmer chiffon as well as glass beads, the flowers and shells to continue our Blue theme on the gift table. To make it more personal to us and show our family off I placed a photo montage there so that while people were picking up their favor they could see our photos at the same time.
These cute little favor boxes were plain white but to fit in the ocean and blue theme into our favors I simply added a strip of textured paper under the ribbon that came with the box and replaced the "monogram" sticker that would go in front with a punch out of a sanddollar. Perfect!
This was a touch for my husband. He had seen something similar in a magazine and thought that having this on the garden gate door for our guests to see as they entered our ceremony space would be wonderful. He was right. And it has made a wonderful keepsake for our home as well.
Here you can see the shades of blue and how well they work together. The navy blue of the tablecloth, the lighter shade in the personalized napkins, even lighter blue in the shimmery chiffon overlay and even lighter blue in the hydrangeas. Even the little glass beads helped to extend the theme for us.
I found these cute little lanterns at a garage sale, painted them light blue and the fit right in!
We chose to use the old fashioned "bowl" type champagne glasses rather than flutes. It added such an elegant touch to our cake table. This was another detail that still comes up in conversation with family and friends who were there that day!
Another detail that was very personalized to us as a couple were the Movie Love Quotes that were placed all over our space. You may have noticed them in the other photos but didn't know exactly what they were. So here is a close up. As movie lovers it was hard to just pick out a dozen of our favorite quotes but it was easy to pick the one that would sit next to the cake on the cake table. This quote from Pride & Prejudice is our favorite and sums up how we still feel about each other. The quotes were backed with blue shimmer paper and it was fun to watch as our guests read each one and picked out their favorites!
The last example of our Blue palette is our twist on the Sand Ceremony. My husband had seen this on TV and wanted a way to incorporate it into our day. There are five of us in our family. Husband, Wife and 3 kids. So we decided that each of us should be represented in this ceremony. We used small decorative bottles to hold different colors of sand from the lightest of blues to the darkest of blues and then layered them in. Each of us layered in our colored sand, representing our love and commitment to our family, and then topped it off with a votive candle. This last touch of blue made one of our most cherished keepsakes of that day.
Next week I'll pick another color and show you how to incorporate that into a full theme. If you want a specific color just leave me a comment and I'll get to work on it for you! See you next week!
Cat
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