We were married on September 13, 2008 at the Delaware Museum of Natural History in Wilmington, Delaware. We were going for a "geek chic" wedding -- one that was modern, full of unexpected details, and a bit quirky -- just like us. =) To contact me with any questions, please email me at geekchicwedding@gmail.com.
All pictures are from Jeremy Evans Thomas or Mary Kate Burgess, unless otherwise specified. Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.
Getting Ready:
 
I wore Jim Hjelm's JH8611 in Blush pink. We bought it at a sample sale at Jennifer's Bridal in Hockessin, Delaware. It was my "something new."
 
I had a pretty disastrous makeup trial, so I went to the Laura Mercier counter and got some great products to do my makeup myself. My mom ended up standing in as our makeup artist that day! For a DIY smoky eye tutorial, click here.   The shoes are Michael Kors, from Saks. I attached blue sticky rhinestones in the shape of my new last initial (coincidentally, also my old last initial!) to the soles for my "something blue."
My grandma, who's looking on in the picture on the left, lended me her pearl and diamond earrings for my "something borrowed." I still have them, so I'm not quite sure if "borrowed" really qualifies... =)
  The groomsmen wore orange striped ties (below), while the Best Man wore a solid orange tie. We had a little tie mishap and needed to purchase another one late in the game.
   The groom and groomsmen wore pocket squares in lieu of boutonnieres. GeekChicGroom's pocket square is a swatch of fabric from my dress. We gave all of the groomsmen the choice of wearing their own black suits or renting tuxes. They didn't care, and most already had black suits, so we just told them to go with that. It was nice not having to coordinate tux rental from long distance!
I gave GeekChicGroom boudoir pictures as a wedding present, so we swapped gifts before we left for the wedding. I wanted to be discreet about it (no need having his groomsmen peeking over his shoulder for that one), and it was more personal that way. I wrote him a card the day of the wedding, which his mom delivered to him right before we saw each other.
First Look and Couple Portraits:
 
GeekChicGroom tried on his suit for the first time about 1.5 weeks before the wedding. Big mistake. The jacket didn't fit well at all; it clearly wasn't altered properly. The shoulders pulled in the wrong places, and ended up pooching out so they looked like a ladies power suit from the 80s. Men's Warehouse ordered him a new suit, free of charge, and had it in the weekend before the wedding. He tried it on in the store and it was fine, but on the day of the wedding, the pooching problem mysteriously reappeared. GeekChicGroom was fidgeting with his shoulders all day, and now hates all of the pictures where his shoulders are poochy. =( I really don't think it looked bad though.
  We had our first look before the wedding because we really wanted to take advantage of the urban environment (the museum is outside of the city), and we wanted to spend cocktail hour with our guests, not taking pictures. We also had to sign the ketubah before the ceremony, so it's not like the first time we would see each other that day would be down the aisle anyway.
 
     In the picture on the right, GeekChicGroom is eating a snowberry from my bouquet and I'm protesting vigorously. (He didn't really eat it though!) My bouquet is composed of brown leucodendron leaves, white callas, white snowberries, and silvery dusty miller. I tied my great-grandmother's handkerchief around the handle as my "something old."
   
 Bridal Party Portraits (and playground shenanigans!):
 
 
Ketubah and Marriage License Signing:
  In the picture on the left, I'm seeing the reception room set up for the first time. In the picture on the right, I'm finding out that things are starting to go wrong. Oh well...I was getting married!       Since siblings aren't supposed to sign the ketubah, it worked out well that I had 2 Maids of Honor! My friend signed the ketubah and my sister signed the marriage license.
 
The bridal party waited around the museum while we were meeting with the rabbi and signing the ketubah. Each bridesmaid chose their own style of dress from Jim Hjelm's collection, as long as it was chocolate satin and not floor-length. We ordered them from netbride.com. They also chose their own shoes, jewelry, hairstyles, etc. Dressing myself is hard enough; I wasn't about to try to dress anyone else. They all looked beautiful!
 Ceremony:
  
You can see how I made the programs here.
The chuppah decorations were composed of lisianthus, spider mums, spray roses, and green amaranthus.
    Our wines for the night were 2007 Maipe Malbec, 2005 Cline Cellars Oakley Four Whites, and Riondo prosecco.
The table that the wine and the glass are resting on is covered by my mom's veil that she wore at her wedding.   The rabbi, the groom and his parents, and the bridal party all walked down the aisle to JS Bach's Air on G.
My mom made our chuppah roof herself, including the embroidery! She put our names, the date, and a line from our vows ("I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine") on there to make it extra personal. It was really perfect for us and for the venue.
  The string quartet learned Tchaikovsky's Valse from Sleeping Beauty for my walk down the aisle. It was absolutely beautiful!
    I chose to give the bridesmaids pashminas instead of having them carry bouquets. It was a big cost-savings, it was a great way to add a pop of color to match the groomsmen's ties, and, while bouquets die, they got to keep the pashminas after the wedding.
 
 
  We had our friends and family write their own Seven Blessings and read them aloud. I made books for their readings so they wouldn't be reading off of a wrinkled Post-It.  
 
We chose to have both of us break the glass, as my parents did 30 years ago. We tripped over the glass the first time we tried to break it, which gave everyone a nice laugh! We got it the second time though.
Cocktail Hour and the Museum:
  Our guest book was a handmade album from Enjibeck on Etsy with bronze stardream 4-bar envelopes pasted inside. Guests were given luxe white cards on which they could write their messages. For more information, click here.
We had a dendrobium orchid boutonniere (tied with a skinny brown ribbon) for each of our guests. My mom made the board to which they were pinned. These actually ended up being really cost-effective (much less than outfitting our bridal party and family members with corsages and boutonnieres).
  Instead of signature drinks, we had a prosecco bar. We offered a variety of drinks mixed with Riondo prosecco: limoncello with a frozen raspberry garnish, pomegranate juice with a skewer of blueberries, and a kir royale. Unfortunately, the kir royale didn't happen, so instead, we had blood orange juice with a candied orange garnish. I wrote this on the prosecco bar menu: Prosecco is an Italian, dry sparkling wine that is crisp and clean with notes of citrus. Its zesty effervescence and transformative, yet subtle, flavor profile lends well to cocktails. As such, prosecco cocktails are delightful social drinks and perfect "aperitivi."
   We wanted to bring in something from our residential state (we're not Texans, we just live here!), so we served only Shiner beers, which are brewed in a small town in between Houston and San Antonio. We had Shiner Bock, Shiner Hefeweizen, Shiner Spezial Light, and Shiner 99.
The caterer allowed us to bring in our own alcohol, which not only was a huge cost savings, but also allowed us to truly customize the wines, beers, and liquors we served at the wedding, which became an additional personalized element of the day.
  GeekChicGroom and I love grilling our own pizzas, so we knew we had to have grilled pizzas during the cocktail hour! The foods during the cocktail hour all had a Mediterranean feel. My family and I are pretty hardcore foodies, but GeekChicGroom's family is a little tamer, so we decided to have more adventurous food during the cocktail hour and have comfort-like food during the reception. It turned out to be a good compromise for all.
 
We had a few party crashers... =)    
 
The squid hung from the ceiling in the foyer, so it was a nice backdrop for our ceremony.
Reception Details:
  The escort cards were mini envelopes that had a table number card and a Moo card inside. The Moo card gave our guests information about how to upload their pictures to our Smugmug site, where we collected over 1000 of their pictures. The envelopes were closed with a brown wax seal in the shape of a dinosaur. You can see how I made them here.
  The arrangement for the escort card table were curly willows with dendrobium blooms attached.
I "borrowed" the idea for the placecards from a picture on the website of an amazing (and very expensive!) calligrapher, Tracy Joe. I embossed each one with the guest's entree choice so that the waiter didn't have to ask the guest what he or she ordered. For more detailed instructions, click here.
  I had a basket of brown flip flops in the bathroom for all of the women at the reception, but I wanted the bridesmaids to get special ones! So I had gold ones placed on each of their chairs at the reception.
Each menu was customized for the entree that that person selected (which was easy, because we had place cards) and was placed at that person's placesetting. I designed it in InDesign and ran them all through a laser printer. They were printed on 6x6" square copper stardream cardstock. For more information, click here.
   I didn't want the napkins to sit on top of the menus, because they brought a nice pop of orange to the table. Instead, our caterer had the wonderful idea of draping them off of the table.
We wanted everything that we could to be square, without overdoing it. Party Rental Ltd. was a great source for rentals and had wonderful ideas -- our rental representative suggested using square-bottomed highballs and square-edged flatware to continue the theme. Our florist used only square vases.
Instead of table numbers, we used hung number charms around the wine glasses like wine glass charms. For more information, click here.
I love bittersweet, but I wanted something much simpler and more structural, like these willow branches. To obtain the look of bittersweet without the messiness, our florist had the idea of attaching bittersweet berries to curly willow branches. It made for a really eyecatching effect.
  We had 2 very long tables (60 feet total) on either side of the room, with 5 square tables in between them. The long tables are pictured in the middle of the set of pictures 2 rows above. They each had 2 different types of tall arrangements (white callas asymmetrically hanging out of a large square vase, pictured above left; and tall curly willow branches with bittersweet berries, pictured 2 rows above right). They also each had 6 small arrangements in between the tall ones (3 square vases of varying heights, each with a different orange flower -- orange celosia, orange mokara orchids, and mango callas, pictured below). The square tables had a number of different square vases, all of varying heights, with all different types of white flowers, including white spider mums, dendrobium orchids, snapdragons, spray roses, and lisianthus.
 
Entrance, Dinner, Speeches, and Dances:
 
Our first dance was to "Hero," by Chad Kroeger.
 
We had our first dance before dinner was served, so that people would feel free to dance immediately after dinner ended. We didn't want to cut in on dancing time!
  Check out the square glass salad bowls! The salads were mixed greens, pistachios (one of GeekChicGroom's favorites), and maytag blue cheese, dressed with meyer lemon vinaigrette. The breadsticks are the caterer's specialty and are SO good! Laying the breadstick asymmetrically in the salad allowed us to forgo bread and butter plates, which was both a cost savings and made the table look less cluttered.
  We used the break in between the salad and entree courses to have the Father of the Bride, Best Man, and Maid of Honor Speeches.  
The Best Man used this opportunity to poke fun (lightly, of course) at my obsessive nature and how it affected my wedding planning. I had sent him this article from the Knot on Best Man speeches, and it became the basis for his whole speech. It was an awesome speech -- not too over the top, but just funny enough!
 
   
I *LOVE* cheese, so a cheese course was a must at our wedding. We served manouri, morbier, and aged Australian cheddar with various accompaniments.
Hora:
 
  GeekChicGroom's family isn't Jewish, so this was the first time they had ever participated in a hora. They loved it! But his parents didn't know they were going up in chairs until that moment. Oops. Cake Cutting:
  Our cake had square tiers, all frosted in chocolate ganache. The bottom tier was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, the second was yellow cake with raspberry preserves, the third was spice cake with cream cheese buttercream, and the top was chocolate again. We saved the top for our anniversary; I hope it's still good by next September.
  Someone should've warned me that wedding cake is much harder to cut into than regular cake!
  With that mischievous grin, I bet you know what's coming...
  I think subconsciously I did, too.
Kids' Room:
 
My mom made these goodie bags for the kids and filled them with all sorts of dinosaur stuff from Oriental Trading. The museum provided us with 3 babysitters who were teachers at the museum for only $160, and it was one of the best investments of the wedding. The kids had a blast, and they let their parents have some fun too!
I had no idea that they took the snake out until I saw these pictures. I'm glad I didn't know at the time!
 Fun!
 
    We broke out a few college traditions...Oh Pat, anyone?
 
  We were never planning on doing a bouquet or garter toss, but we were going to do an anniversary dance. However, time got away from us and our friends didn't want to leave the dance floor!
  Really, does my mouth ever close? At right is GeekChicGroom's "dance face." You know, the face he gets when he's really gettin' down? That's the one.  
Late Night Details:
  In Western Pennsylvania (where GeekChicGroom's family is from), homemade cookies are always at weddings. These became our favors! Everyone loved the cookie bar.
   At around 10pm, the caterer brought out the popcorn cart with freshly popped popcorn. It's GeekChicGroom's favorite late-night snack, so I wanted to surprise him. He loved it!
Afterparty (non-professional pictures):
 
We got a shuttle that looped from the hotel to the museum all night long. This was another great investment. We had about 60 of our friends from college at the wedding, and most were drinking (heavily!). They really appreciated that they didn't have to have a DD or get a taxi.
We had ordered pizza and breadsticks to be sent to the hotel, and it was waiting for us when we got there. We took it to the hotel bar, where our guests hung out until the bar closed. We went to bed shortly after we got to the hotel, but our guests moved the party into one of the groomsmen's rooms until late in the night!
Brunch (non-professional pictures):
 
My parents hosted a brunch at their house the next morning. It was a nice chance for us to say goodbye to our guests and to thank them for coming before we left for the airport for our honeymoon. Honestly though, I was so tired, and I really just wanted to be alone with my new husband and my immediate family. Our guests really appreciated it though.
 
Besides, we had to have an official sendoff! Our guests threw eco-fetti at us while we were walking to the car. We had a towncar take us to the airport so that my parents didn't have to cut the brunch short to take us themselves. Everyone left shortly after we did though.
 
Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner (non-professional pictures):
 
I made nametags for everyone at the rehearsal so that the wedding planner could run things a little easier.
You can see in the picture on the right how rainy it was the day before the wedding! That caused a few headaches. The day of the wedding, no cars were allowed to park in front of the museum, so guests had a clear view of the museum's front lawn. No ugly vans, please!   
We had the rehearsal dinner at one of the caterer's restaurants, so we got a 10% discount off of the dinner. We knew the food and service were good though, since we eat there regularly. We weren't disappointed!
GeekChicGroom's grooms cake had all of his favorite things on it. He was so surprised and we were all so impressed. Suzy's attention to detail was incredible -- she even made the ridges and holes in all of the Cheez-Its! I just gave her a list of everything that he loved (including Jagerbombs, fire [he's a bit of a pyro], Cheez-Its, Wendy's chicken nuggets, blond girls, Halo, and the Pittsburgh Penguins) and she ran with it. And though I was reticent about using fondant, I had no reason to be. The fondant was rolled so thinly that it actually tasted good! The cake was GeekChicGroom's favorite flavor from the tasting (the yellow cake with raspberry preserves filling).
  GeekChicGroom gave his groomsmen iPod Shuffles, preloaded with a bunch of songs that he personally picked for each of them. I gave different gifts to each bridesmaid, along with personalized stationery and a pashmina for the next day. |
