Instax Mini Wedding

Just some more photos from the wedding. I brought my little Fujifilm Instax Mini to the wedding venue to snap a few as the girls and I got ready. Kyle gave me the Instax Mini as a birthday gift last year. The pictures are pretty tiny and cute, and I'm hoping to take more and decorate my office with them. I'm thinking a crazy cool wall full of Instax Mini pics and photographs.

I remember having a Polaroid camera when I was younger, and I love collecting vintage cameras for my office space. Right now we just have a few old Nikons that belonged to Kyle. If I could get my hands on a Holga and a vintage toy camera or two I think I'd be pretty stoked for a while. 

Do you collect anything? If so, what?

Our Wedding Video

I've been waiting and waiting to share our wedding video with you! Tyler Faires gave us a first glimpse into our wedding music video last week and I can't believe how well it captures the look and feel of our wedding day. (I wrote a short post about him and wedding videos several months ago.)

The wedding "music video" is such a great way to share highlights from the day in one 3-4 minute clip. I'm a huge fan of the song Tyler chose, "Give Love a Try" by the Sunbears, and I can't stop smiling every time I watch it!

So if you want to check it out, please do. Warning: some parts are a little mushy because lines of our vows are included in the video, and we kiss a bunch. Just sayin'.



Have a beautiful day!

Wedding Week: The Decor

Thanks for tuning into Wedding Week! Just now joining us? Check out the last three posts about our reception, the ceremony, and our wedding outfits. 

Kyle and I had so much fun planning the look and feel of the wedding. We tried to think about each and every moment of the evening, from the moment when guests entered the venue to sign the guest book down to all the personal touches throughout the reception. We spent so many weekends thrifting, collecting, and DIYing everything we could! Even though our apartment looked pretty nutty for a while, each and ever project was fun (and extremely budget friendly)!

Our welcome table was full of childhood photos and personal items, like my grandmother's wedding photo and her lace tablecloth. One of my favorite elements was the calligraphy by Betsy Dunlap. I LOVE her work, and it was so nice of her to create a piece with our names and wedding date on such short notice!

And I had way too much fun collecting items for all the centerpieces. We carefully selected all of the books, bottles, and postcards for every table, and all of the messages our guests wrote on them were so sweet and hilarious! A friend of mine arranged all of the flowers for us. We chose pom daisies, button poms, and feverfew for the centerpieces and baby's breath for the bouquets. We wanted all the arrangements and bouquets to look natural and clean since we never really settled on a color scheme. The colors in the pom poms, love streamers, and handkerchiefs were subtle and playful, and the ivory flowers blended in nicely.

We also collected and borrowed about a dozen different cake plates and cake stands for the dessert table. And we picked out the "XOXO" burlap banner on Etsy.

"XOXO" is right.

I had so much fun reliving our wedding over the last few days. Thanks for sharing the experience me again!

P.S. The vintage desk and chair, love streamers, table numbers, hanging paper cranes, paint chip seating chart , and invitations were all DIY projects. I'm thinking about sharing some DIY steps on the blog! Which ones would you want to see?

Wedding Week: The Reception

It's full on Wedding Week on the blog. And thanks so much for reading! If you're just now tuning in, catch up with the last two posts on the ceremony and our wedding outfits.

We held the reception under this beautiful wide-open pavilion with chandeliers. I loved the formal look, but we softened it up with a few pom poms and white bunting banners. I think this really set the party tone and added a bit of color to the mostly white space.

We started the ceremony with our first dance. I never thought we were the "first dance" kind of couple, but I'm so glad we did it because it was really fun and romantic. We actually learned a little routine to "Dream a Little Dream" by the Mamas and the Papas. We dipped, twirled, and did the grapevine like it's hot (while messing up a few times, of course), and it was one of the loveliest moments of my life.

And I love this picture of Laurel. She really knew how to party with those love streamers:

Mmmmmm ... and the food! It was all about comfort food and wine: chicken pot pie, mac and cheese, green bean casserole, salad, brisket sliders, and lots of good wine. And for dessert, we had a nice mix of cake and pie. We went with a simple berry chantilly cream cake from Whole Foods and various pies from Texas Pie Company.

We ended the party with a vivacious dance to "Shake Your Groove Thing." That means we danced like crazy people.

Wedding Week: The Ceremony

Thanks for following my Wedding Week posts! You can catch up on yesterday's post on the wedding looks and outfits here.

The ceremony took place outside at dusk, and the aisle was surrounded by a beautiful bunch of trees with low-hanging branches. We chose to say our vows in front of an adorable vintage writing desk that we refurbished just for the wedding.

Walking down the aisle was the most emotional experience for me. Kyle and I had already seen each other before the ceremony, so it wasn't as if I was nervous to see him for the first time. I think it just hit me as I stood there with my father and saw all the guests standing. I was about confess every ounce of love I had for Kyle in front of everyone that matters to us, and that was kind of trippy. And I think I was also very emotional about the fact that I was walking down the aisle with my pops and it was just as I'd imagined it would be.

All I could hear in my head for months and months before the wedding were the three songs we chose for the processional. These were three of our favorite songs, and I think each one suited the wedding party perfectly.

We wrote the ceremony completely from scratch and with a little help from our friend and officiant, Matty. He said the best opening words about marriage and how finding the perfect match and falling in love is just the easy part. The rest of our lives will be about loving each other every day, and some days will be tougher than others.

After a short reading, two members of the band played and sang to an acoustic version of "In My Life." It was such a peaceful moment before we got into the vows, which we each wrote on our own in secret. I loved hearing Kyle's vows for the first time! They were funny, meaningful, and oh so true.

We walked out to "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and it was the perfect way to end the ceremony. By this time we were more than ready to start partying with our friends and family!

Wedding Week: The Looks

Thanks for checking out my first Wedding Week post!

First things first: the looks. After choosing our Southern vintage style venue, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted the wedding party to look like. It was important to us that each and every person in the wedding wore something that reflected their own style and personality. Everyone looked amazing and I can't thank our friends and family enough for being part of our special day.

Getting Ready:

The ceremony didn't start until 6 p.m., but we were at it all morning and afternoon getting primped and ready for the first look. Hair stylist Liz Nevin and makeup artist Julie Odom met us at the venue bright and early to make us gorgeous and wedding-ready. The girls went with natural make-up and simple up-dos. As part of their bridesmaids' gifts, I got each of them a set of little vintage rhinestone hair pins from Lolita via Wedzu, and I think they were styled perfectly with each look.

The Dress:

I spent A LOT of time looking online before I settled on a dress. Actually, I never found my dress online! Just a VERY expensive Vera Wang version that inspired the dress I commissioned a local fashion design, Rachelle Briton, to make for me. I fell in love with one of the long, romantic dresses from Vera's fall 2010 collection. And the best part was the illusion sweetheart neckline with the tulle sleeves and floating lace. It felt very vintage, and I knew I wanted my dress to be tea length (so I could wear fun shoes!) and have a natural waistline. I worked with Rachelle very closely to build the perfect dress with just the right amount of lace detailing.

The Suit:

Doesn't Kyle look smashing! His charcoal Indochino suit was also custom. I love that he decided to go with a classic three-piece suit, but my favorite part is definitely the black cherry Lucchese boots. It was quite momentous, actually: a boy from the Northwest/West Coast falls in love in Texas and then gets married in cowboy boots.

The Wedding Party:

And I love how the wedding party looks turned out! I insisted that the girls wear different dark gray dresses, mostly because I wanted each of them to buy a dress that they knew they'd wear again! Each bridesmaid found the perfect dress for herself, and I love how their hair and makeup was styled to their own personalities. As for the guys, they held up really well against the girls in their charcoal vests.

All photos by Katherine O'Brien Photography

We couldn't have pulled these looks off without help from these folks:

Wedding dress by Rachelle Briton Designs, veil by Twigs and Honey, shoes by Kate Spade, and earrings by Kendra Scott
Kyle's suit by Indochino
Bridesmaids' dresses by J.Crew, Anthropologie, and Nordstrom
Groomsmen suits from all over
Hair by Liz Nevin
Makeup by Julie Odom

It's Wedding Week on the Blog!

It's finally time to share photos from the wedding! Kyle and I have spent the last couple of weeks going though all 1,400 photos, picking our 400 favorites, and then sorting for the best images to help tell the story of our day. I'll go ahead and declare the next few days as "Wedding Week" over here on the blog. I hope you like it! And for those of you who are already over the whole wedding business, please just bear with me. It's going to be fun though, so I hope you like it too!