Here are some of the pictures from our amazing photographer, Kate McCann (Philadelphia, PA).
*Sidenote: I am so sad to hear of all the devastation left behind from Hurricane Sandy on the East coast. I was lucky enough to have the most beautiful of days for my wedding, and truly hope that the residents and cities that were affected by the storms are able to grow back as they were before. Much love, and thank you for giving me a perfect wedding day.
It was a perfect, cloudless day, and I had the best time of my life with wonderful friends and family. Sigh. I just want to go back and do it all over again. Not the planning part, but the actual day-of. I miss my wedding.
One of the first (of many) projects I committed myself to for this wedding was my brooch bouquet using memorable pieces of jewelry from family and friends. I had searched online for directions on how to make a bouquet like this, and with the help of a few random sites and my own hard-headedness, I was able to come up with what ended up being the most perfect bouquet for my wedding.
I spent months collecting old brooches - granted, some were bought from eBay or Etsy, but many were given to me from my grandmother, Kevin's mother and both his grandmothers, and even some of Kevin's mom's co-workers, once they heard what I was attempting to do. All in all, I used about 50 brooches to make this brooch bouquet. The most time-consuming part of this project was wiring each and every brooch to make a "stem", using green floral wire.I had to twist the wire around the back of each pin/brooch, many times using 3-5 wire strands per brooch (it depended on how heavy the piece was - you need to be able to hold the "stem" between 2 fingers without it compeltely bowing over). After each pin was wired, I wrapped the wire stem in green floral tape from the top to the bottom of the stem, which took some getting used to, but by about the 5th "flower" I was a pro. The process of obtaining, wiring, and wrapping all my brooches took about 8 months (please note my earlier comment on this being one of MANY wedding projects I took upon myself to complete, as well as the fact that I was finishing my last semester of school, working full-time, and moving across the country - this may not take others quite so long).
Once I had all my flowers, I used 3 stems of silk hydrangea to help shape it. But it wasn't looking so good. So I called in the professionals. One of Kevin's mother's friends is a retired florist, so I went over to her house with a pie in hand, hoping she'd help me. Well, she did more than help - she created a gorgeous bouquet for me, weaving in my colors of navy, ivory, and gold that glittered in the sunlight on my Cape May beach. It was a masterpiece of helping hands and memorable pieces. Perfectly gorgeous.
