Books

You are currently browsing articles tagged Books.

Claire & Scott chose an old movie theatre in as the setting for their ceremony, The Lantern Theatre, Sheffield. Although they hadn’t even thought about marrying in a theatre, after seeing one in Whitby they loved the idea. “We’d originally planned to marry in Whitby, as it’s a special to place to us both,” Claire told me. “Whilst looking at venues there, we were shown a theatre hidden away at the back of the sea front community centre. We hadn’t thought about marrying in a theatre, but we both fell in love with the idea. In the end, we decided that we’d rather marry closer to home in Sheffield, but the idea of marrying in a theatre stayed with us.”

“After an afternoon on Google, Scott emailed every theatre within a fifty-mile radius of us to ask if they did weddings. The Lantern Theatre was one of the few that replied and it turned out to be barely a mile from our house. When we arrived we fell in love with the place. It’s an old 84-seat Victorian theatre with anaglyph wallpaper and red velvet seats. The staff there were so flexible and open to all our ideas. They even bought a mirrorball so that I could walk down the aisle in spiralling light. They served cocktails in teapots, put together a lighting and music programme so that the ceremony ran without a hitch and Keith – the volunteer who ran the bar – even dressed up in a dapper waistcoat and tie.”

After the ceremony the couple and their guests boarded a old London bus to The Countryside Centre. “We chose The Countryside Centre because it gave us a blank canvas to work with,” Claire continued. “There are no staff there on the day itself so you have complete freedom to use whichever suppliers you want. Though there’s a converted barn and grain store, we chose to hire a marquee to make the most of the beautiful grounds and asked our caterers to set up a steak and fish barbecue, which was fantastic.”

The couple chose a music and literature theme for their day. “Literature and music have always been important to us and during the planning it soon became apparent that though we hadn’t intended to have a theme for the wedding, words and music were a recurring motif. Our invites were designed to look like classic orange and white vintage Penguin paperbacks, with library tickets inside for the RSVP (we’d stamped the wallet in which the library ticket sat with the key dates of our relationship). We used the Smiths’ song title ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ as the title of the paperback/invite.”

“Our place settings followed the Penguin theme, with the guests’ names replacing the author’s and a lyric we’d individually chosen for each guest replacing the title. Inside the place settings were CDs with the key songs from the wedding day. The orders of service that were handed out at the theatre were designed to look like vintage Penguin Plays paperbacks, with the title on the cover taken from a Velvet Underground song. Our readings were taken from books, except for one, which was the lyrics of the Pulp song, ‘Something Changed’.”

“During the service, we exchanged copies of our favourite books, around which the rings were tied on a ribbon. Even the confetti followed the literary theme. Using a heart-shaped holepunch, we punched confetti from the pages of our favourite books.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Chris & Courtenay had a “Book Nerd/Steampunk /Pirate/Sci-Fi” themed wedding which was held on The Hawaiian Chieftain, a historical replica of a 1880’s trading ship. “We really wanted the wedding to reflect who we were, and a celebration of what we loved about each other,” the couple told me. “We wanted to be able to have a killer party with our closest friends and family and not compromise our tastes and values. Our venue came complete with cannons (which they fired off for us in celebration!) The double edge of this was a headcount of under 40, which was great to us, but some people just assumed they would be invited who were acquaintances and we had to explain this wasn’t an everyone in the world kind-of affair.”

Courtenay wore a custom dress from Dark Garden Corsetry and shoes from Fluevog. “The Dress is a combination of Victorian and Indian influences, made out of silk dupioni in lavender/gold and a wedding sari from an Indian bridal store in Berkeley,” the bride continued. “I knew that a dress from a traditional bridal store was never going to feel right. Mostly because of all the beautiful dresses available at those places they were never going to fit my curvy 5’2” short waist-ed frame. Autumn at Dark Garden was able to perfectly capture and create my personality and vision into an awe inspiring corset and bustle skirted wedding dress.”

In keeping with their theme, the whole wedding party and a lot of the guests dressed the part too. The groom wore a suit inspired by the movies Firefly and Stardust made by Laurie Tavan at Daze of Laur. He even added a firearm and sword! The bridesmaid’s outfits were also from Dark Garden and the groomsmen wore outfits hired from Costumes on Haight, San Francisco. “Almost everyone who attended got dressed up to the nines and looked fantastic,”  Courtenay explained. “My father went out of his way to get a 1890s cowboy style outfit with beaver felt hat and classic oil cloth duster, he was so handsome. My sister got a beautiful Dark Garden corset, and my niece and nephews got into the act with pirate/Victorian style costumes. For the first hour and a half people kept coming up to me just in awe of how beautiful it was that day, mid 70s and sunny, it was truly magical.”

“I think the most Rock n Roll thing was us, how we approached the whole day with humor and a little literary wit,” the bride concluded. “If the wedding had to be a musical genre I would call it folk-punk, or Steam-folk. We set out to have an amazing day and it turned out better that you could ever imagine. We wanted to live the quote “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” Because it was about us, not a huge affair with doves and dollar dances and stuff being thrown about, we were determined to avoid bad DJs, crazy relatives we’d never met before, flower girls, ring bearers, punch fountains, ballrooms, chicken or steak entrees, towering confections or bored guests who couldn’t wait to leave. There were casualties of this of course, hurt feelings, traditionalists, and others, but at the end of the day it was about Chris and Courtenay celebrating their lives together, be happy for them or not that’s all there is.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , ,

Michelle & Deborah’s touching ceremony was one of the main reasons I wanted to share their wedding with you all today. Quite apart from all the beautiful and individual  details the couple put into their day, the readings and poems that they selected for their ceremony made this wedding really special and signified their relationship perfectly.

They chose Shakespears Sonnet 116, a section from the children’s book  “I Like You” by Sandol Stoddard and “I carry your heart with me” by E.E Cummings for their vows. Finally in order to include the fight for equality they read the Massachusetts ruling on marriage. They thought it was so simple and basic and spelled out what marriage meant to them in a perfect way.

“FROM GOODRIDGE V DEPT OF HEALTH (Mass. 2003): Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. Without question, civil marriage enhances the “welfare of the community.” It is a “social institution of the highest importance.” Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family… Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition….It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a ‘civil right’.”

“We just really liked the definitions of marriage,” Michelle explained. “Again, we chose our readings because they all held a significance in what marriage should be regardless of legal status (strong and steadfast, childlike at times, a basic human right, always honest, the beauty of partnership).”

The couple had been lucky enough to spend some time in Paris so chose a Romantic Parisian theme for their wedding. The croquembouche (cake) was a nod to their love of French culture and flamboyant presentation. They even cut it with the traditional sword.

“They choose the perfect location – the elegant Astin Mansion – they have did the table flowers and catering,” photographer Katherine O’Brien continued. “Michelle said that Deborah thought that spending money on bouquets was silly when they just die a few days after so she told her she could make her a bouquet that would never wilt and thus her fabric/book flower project began. She got the newspaper flowers Etsy and mixed with her own. They also used Etsy for their bridal party gifts – each attendant got a cool vintage pinup flask and the cute cloth love brides were from The Girl in Yellow. The main wedding cake looked like a stack of books from Shakespeare to the Merry Wives of Windsor.

“Instead of favors for their guests the couple made a donation to the Pride Community Center. It  is their area’s first LGBT community gathering place and is providing a much needed resource to youth and adults in our area. At first they thought they we were going to donate to the Human Rights Campaign, but realized it was more important to give locally, and see their donation help within their own community.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Alex & Lisa met 13 years and discovered a mutual love of music, books & film “We met nearly 13 years ago and the one thing that brought us together was music. He was wearing a t shirt of my favourite band and I fell for him” Lisa told me. “When we started dating we would wander around London checking out music shops, flicking through CD and vinyl to add to our collections and then head to a local cinema to catch a film. We probably spent more time in the records shops in Soho and a cinema than anywhere else.  Many of those films we saw are now our favourite films and we probably know them inside out. I read books like there is no tomorrow and Alex is slowly coming round to that after having spent a lifetime reading comics and graphic novels. I bake cakes every weekend and while I enjoy making them, Alex enjoys eating them so when we are out I always take him to a cake shop so we can have a treat. I am also the official photographer in our relationship and I have the cameras and stacks of photo’s to prove it.  Alex helped me buy my first SLR and he sat in front of the camera on many occasion to help me with college projects”

After reading this do you see anything more perfect for these two than the engagement session below? I love it!

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I usually only put one post up on a Saturday, but I have to admit that I wanted to share this engagement shoot as soon as I could…and plus, the submissions have been coming in at such a rate of knots since I posted my How to… Get Your Wedding Featured on a Blog post (which I’m not complaining about of course!) but I do feel like I have a lot to get through this week!

Alister & Rachel are having a gothic & diy wedding on a mountain vineyard in  a few weeks. The wedding is sure to be super detail-heavy and I can’t wait to share it! However their engagement session was actual quite impromptu. ”They wanted a Gothic yet bibliophile theme with a twist for the main part of the shoot, hence the books, vinyl and rug. Then for the rest of it, we simply found some killer locations and let them do their own thing; smiling, laughing, whatever went!” photographer Julian told me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,