Outdoor weddings are always so magical and today’s dreamy summer wedding from Perfectly Posh Events captured by O’Malley Photographers is sure to inspire! With a vibrant color palette of yellows and peaches, the summer vibes are off the charts. We are loving the ombre bouquet and the bright yellow eyelet lace bridesmaid dresses!
We choose our location first and that was really the driving factor of most of our other decisions. My husband and I are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints and it was very important to us to be married in one of our temples. I grew up only a few blocks from the Seattle Temple, and that location is important to my family so it was a very easy choice of venue for our ceremony. We considered a number of fancier reception venues, but we ultimately decided on Robinswood House due to it’s proximity to where our ceremony was held and the neighborhood I grew up in. Many of our guests were from my family’s church community, and we wanted the reception to be easy for them to attend. The temple was just across the street from the park that hosts Robinswood House, so many of our guests and the wedding party walked through the forested park to get from the ceremony to the reception. This was super fun and made for beautiful pictures with the bridal party. Many of our design choices were then driven by the beautiful outdoor garden. After finding our cute yellow bridesmaid dresses, choosing colors came naturally. We choose mustard, terracotta, and rose with dusty blue accents to have a more modern, natural pallet instead of a more traditional two color theme. These were all of my favorite colors, with pink adding femininity and keeping and antique looking ‘something blue’.
About the Attire:
I wanted a dress that was simple and elegant. I wanted to wear the dress and not the other way around, especially sense I am rather petite. I tend to dislike over decorated dresses as a rule, so lace and rind stones were out. It was also essential for my dress to be modest with covered shoulders, a high back, and no cut outs for the ceremony at the Temple. My dress was long with short cap sleeves, which made for a perfect mix of formal and relaxed for a garden reception. The sleeves and opaque stripes down the front and back of the dress were trimmed with little white daisy shaped sequins, which tied in adorably with the flowered garden as well.
When dressing the bridesmaids, I was very aware of the size differences we had within our party. We wanted a dress that would be flattering and comfortable for all of the girls. After finding the perfect dress at Madewell, my mother spent hours modifying my maid of honor’s dress so that she would feel as beautiful as I know her to be. On the day of the wedding, all of the bridesmaid’s congregated at my childhood home to get ready. it was wonderful to see them all excited and happy about their dresses as we did hair and makeup together. In addition to bouquets, we decided to do flower accessories to go in their hair. These were each a little different, which was fun as each girl picked how they wanted their hair done.
Favorite Parts of the Day:
For me, one of my favorite things ended up being the time I spent before the ceremony getting ready with my bridesmaids. I didn’t think that doing a ‘getting ready’ event in the morning was something I wanted as the day was already all about me, but we decided it would be fun to have hair and makeup for my bridesmaids as a treat I thought they would have fun with. I am so grateful that I had that time with them. We had so much fun talking and laughing as we took turns having our hair done. Having that time with my best friends and future sister in laws made it so that throughout the busy rest of the day when I was playing hostess or with my husband, I didn’t have to worry that I hadn’t spent enough time with them. I also really enjoyed the hour we had to take pictures with the bridal party while walking through the woods from the Temple to our reception venue. It was really fun to spend time as a group without having guests waiting around for us to take pictures as they went ahead to a casual hors d’oeuvres hour. My favorite pictures are from this walk. My husband’s favorite part of the day was the reception. He was the leader on picking the dinner menu and desert as he is a bit of a foodie. One fun thing we did was having an ice cream cart in addition to cake for desert. The cart made for an adorable decoration, and the fun flavors we picked for ice cream floats were a big hit. For all that Kevin and I enjoyed our wedding day, my dad is the one who really had the most fun. He was having the time of his life. He also went back for ice cream at least three times, we have photographic evidence.
Handmade or Heirloom Details:
A small detail that ended up meaning a lot to me was a set of family wedding pictures that we displayed at the reception. Kevin’s family is small after the passing of his father and both sets of grandparents. While my extended family is large and were able to travel for our wedding, Kevin’s side was rather small. I wanted to honor the marriages of his parents and grandparents who were not able to be with us on this important day. When we started planning our wedding, Kevin’s mother showed me the beautiful wedding portrait of her parents who had immigrated from China and met and married in the United States. I loved this picture and wanted to include it somehow. Over the next few months, I collected as many wedding pictures as I could from both of our families, even finding a few of great grandparents. We put some of these pictures in our guest book and displayed more in various places at the reception, such as by the cake and in the lounge area. These pictures ended up being one of my favorite details. I loved being able to honor the legacy that we come from and the happiness that I could see in those pictures. We couldn’t have Kevin’s dad or grandparents there with us, but I feel like I got to know them a bit by looking for stories to put along side their names and pictures.
The other detail that I made did myself is that I illustrated our save the dates. I love customized wedding invitations, and I decided that I wanted to do something unique. I illustrated the Seattle Temple where we held our ceremony and used that illustration first on the save the dates. We then reused the line drawing on the invitations along with a drawing the stationary company had of the reception venue to add a whimsical touch.
