Handmade Weddings: A Rustic Beach Affair

JulietandJulieta

Story by JulietandJulieta

Published on Feb 18, 2012 in Read

Photo by Elizabeth Lloyd

By day Lorena is in corporate finance, but by night she likes to indulge in her creative side. In her free time, she loves to travel the world and spend time with her wife and their furry baby, Simba. She’s currently discovering a new passion for photography, which she incorporates into her blog.

Dustyn and I live in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, but I am originally from Argentina. After some research, we decided to have our wedding celebration halfway between in beautiful Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

As we began our planning, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I am certainly not a designer by training, and I had never planned a party, let alone a wedding. We knew we wanted our wedding to be an intimate celebration with DIY touches that was full of surprises.

Everything started with our color palette. Dustyn loves purple, and since we agreed we were not going to have a robot-themed wedding (she is an engineer who makes robots for living), I had to compromise on the color. I added ivory, light brown and olive green to our palette. When I saw the colors together for the first time, it said “rustic” to me. This evolved into a rustic, romantic aesthetic.

I designed and made all of the paper aspects of the wedding, including invitations, favor tags, cards, menus and wedding programs. I came up with the idea of putting cute quotes on the fans, handkerchiefs and favors. An example from our ceremony read, “As the sun shines on our wedding day, may this fan keep the heat away.”

We wanted simple dresses and jewelry for our beach wedding. I fell in love with a pair of earrings and necklace from BumbershootDesigns, and I made the purchase before I even got my wedding dress. I designed my  headpieces (as well as Dustyn’s headband) based on the overall theme of our wedding and my dress style. Dustyn decided she wanted a brooch bouquet, so I looked for brooches to make the most beautiful bouquet. I also made a bouquet out of wool felt for myself, but I ended up with bouquet of calla lilies at the last minute.

I funneled my creative energy and newly discovered DIY spirit to make things like customized pillow covers for the cocktail area, sashes for the chairs and napkin rings.

We both wanted Simba, our cute white Persian cat, to be part of our special day, but he would not have liked the flight very much. Instead, I bought unfinished wooden dolls from Clickityclack, which I used to design our cake topper. I also included a wooden figure of our little white lion.

After a magical first kiss as a married couple, we went across the street to our gorgeous and classic Mexican hacienda. We were welcomed with a ten-man mariachi band, freely flowing cocktails, amazing appetizers and a fun piñata that the little ones certainly enjoyed.

A DJ took over as we were seated for dinner.  As darkness came, the fire-dancers surprised us with their drumming, dancing and fire-wielding skills.  Thousands more words are captured in the pictures from our amazing photographer Elizabeth Lloyd, who was able to distill these magical moments into works of art we get to keep forever.  I could not have imagined a more amazing way to celebrate our marriage and lifelong commitment to one another!

All photos by Elizabeth Lloyd.

Thanks to Lorena for sharing her special day! Do you have a handmade wedding to share? Submit your photos to our Flickr group.

Handmade Weddings | Weddings Category

By day Lorena is in corporate finance, but by night she likes to indulge in her creative side. In her free time, she loves to travel the world and spend time with her wife and their furry baby, Simba. She’s currently discovering a new passion for photography, which she incorporates into her blog.

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