The Many Sides of Chuppah

As I've mentioned before, Mr. Lion is Catholic and I'm Jewish.  Neither of us are traditional in practicing our faiths, but we definitely identify with them culturally.  As a Jewish bride who plans to have a non-denominational wedding ceremony, I wanted to somehow incorporate a few Jewish traditions.  One tradition that we decided to include was using a chuppah.

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A chuppah, or canopy, is a piece of decor that sits at the altar during a Jewish ceremony to symbolize the home that the bride and groom will build together.  Traditionally, the four poles are carried down the aisle by members of the wedding party.  From there, it can either be secured at the altar, or the wedding party members can continue to hold it up throughout the ceremony.  The groom walks underneath first to symbolize his ownership of the home, then the bride walks in to symbolize the groom providing for her.  No offense to tradition, but we'll probably walk underneath together because that's more our style!

The chuppah is usually open on all sides, to symbolize the hospitality of an open home.  The chuppah is typically covered, to symbolize God's presence over the home and over the marriage.  The cover can be designed with traditional Jewish symbols...

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...or it can be a more modern and unique design...

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...or it might not even be fabric at all!

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The chuppah itself can come in all shapes and sizes.

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Some chuppahs aren't even covered on top, but the concept is still the same.  Plus, it serves as a great way for the couples' personalities to shine through!

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So what will our chuppah look like?  Well, we wanted it to fit in with the rest of our whimsical garden decor.

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We're Mr. Lion is planning on going the DIY route with this project.  A few wooden poles, some cement and flower pots for the bases, and some fabric for the top should do the trick.  Our florist is providing a little bit of greenery, but other than that we wanted to keep it pretty simple.  I'll let you know how it turns out!

What's the significance behind your ceremony decor?

It Started with a Chair

10 points if you can name the movie reference in the title!  One thing that I love about our antebellum-home-turned-restaurant venue is that it has a lot of the original accents.  Paintings that belonged to the original owners line the walls, while first edition novels fill the shelves.  Some rooms even have antique pieces of furniture, though many of them are refinished.  For our outdoor, vintage-garden ceremony, I prefer something a little less polished.  You know...that distressed, old but beautiful look.  What if we set up something like this for our ceremony?

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I love the idea of a statement piece of furniture as ceremony decor.  For example, look how these dressers bring together a tabletop display:

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Though the dresser seemed like a much more functional option, I couldn't justify the cost.  Additionally, transporting a dresser to my venue in my tiny sedan seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.  Thus, the chair was born.

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Wouldn't it just be lovely to have a stack of programs propped up on one of those chairs for guests to grab on their way to their seats?  Yeah, I thought so too.  So, imagine the squealing that ensued when I found this at one of my favorite antique stores for only $35:

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And here it is with a tarnished copper bowl, which will be filled with said programs:

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Are you using distressed furniture in your decor?  What kind of treasures have you found?

Garden Geometry

Seriously, choose a nerdier title.  What can I say?  I dig the alliteration.

As I've mentioned before, we're going for a certain look with our wedding: vintage garden with extra whimsy on top.  Our wedding ceremony will be outside in a garden, and the reception will be inside the same venue's ballroom.  One of the best parts about a garden ceremony is that it requires very few additional decorations.  Sure, you can add more if you want, but the scene would still look pretty complete without it.  But I wanted our theme to be consistent throughout.  How does one bring that same outdoor greenery inside to the reception?

Enter the topiary.  Topiaries certainly have vintage appeal; personally, they remind me of something you'd see on a Victorian valentine.  They also emit a sense of whimsy, especially because they can be sculpted into just about anything you could possibly imagine.  What's more whimsical than imagination?

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I found this topiary idea on Martha Stewart and knew it would fit in perfectly at the entrance to our reception.

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I love everything about this, but I was afraid it looked a little expensive.  Then it dawned on me: we could DIY!  A little styrofoam, some crafting moss...totally doable.  I promise a tutorial after a little trial and error!

We thought a nice way to tie in this same look throughout the reception was to use these little babies:

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Such adorable little place card holders.  I looked into making these myself, but frankly it just wasn't worth it.  The materials ended up costing about the same amount as actually buying them pre-made, and then there was the labor.  Oh my goodness, the labor.  Making 125 of these things just sounded terrible.  I don't mind biting off more than I can chew with some DIY projects, but this one was not one of those projects!  Plus, the 'Bee sells these beauties now for a pretty good price :)

This one's not particularly my style, but I would certainly appreciate it if I saw it as a DIY centerpiece at another bride's wedding!

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Then, there's always the option of edible topiaries.  Like this fruit one...

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...or this cupcake one:

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You could even extend the topiary theme to your invites if you wanted to!  Okay, okay, maybe these aren't exactly vintagey-looking.  But look how cute the little birdies are!

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How have you carried a theme throughout your wedding plans?

Choosing Our Theme

I love a good theme party.  After all, my first date with Mr. Lion was to a theme party!  I wanted our wedding to have a theme...one that suited our setting, like Miss Starfish.  I wanted our theme to suit our style, like Mrs. Cowboy Boot.  I wanted to do something classy and understated; although, let's face it...even the over-the-top themes are still pretty awesome:

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Our ceremony and reception will be held in the same venue; the ceremony will be outdoors in the garden and the reception inside in the ballroom.  So, we knew we needed a little garden inspiration.

Source: Audrey Hannah Photo via Wedding Chicks

Source: Denise Mabilog via Style Me Pretty

Our venue is an antebellum home, built in 1797.  It contains original artwork on the walls and original bricks on the garden patio.  So as you can imagine, we wanted to incorporate a vintage element into our wedding style.  Maybe not antebellum, per se (I don't think I could walk in a Scarlet O'Hara dress)...mid-20th century was more our style.  Why not make our vintage style "old meets older?"

Source: Joielala Photography via Style Me Pretty

Source: Captured by Jenny via Wedding Chicks

(Love love love those little sleeves!  So Old Hollywood)

So we've found inspiration that captured our vintage venue's style, now we just needed something that represented our personal style.  I don't know if you've caught onto this by now, but Mr. Lion and I are just absolute goofballs.  You add goofy to stylish and you get something called whimsical.

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Source: Wildflowers Photo via Wedding Chicks

However, there's always just plain old goofy.  In my opinion, this can still end up looking pretty beautiful at a wedding, mostly because it's genuine.

Source: Tim Will Photography

Source: Tim Will Photography

Does your wedding have a theme?  How did it evolve from your inspirations?

Disney/Pixar's Up Inspiration

As I've mentioned before, Sr Groom's hot air balloon proposal was inspired by the film "Up" by Disney and Pixar.  I am an absolute sucker for Disney, and not just because I'm from Florida.  Sr Groom grew up in Florida as well, and he thought Disney was nothing but silly kid stuff...until I dragged him to Walt Disney World early on in our relationship and successfully convinced him otherwise.  My cousins have always been really into Disney, and I grew up looking up to my cousins as I would look up to older siblings.  We've always been close, and our memories growing up at Walt Disney World are among my most cherished.  Basically, they're to blame.

EPCOT with some of my favorite people in 2003

How could a Disney freak plan a wedding without a few subtle nods towards the mouse?  It's so whimsical, so romantic, so MAGICAL.  Everything about Disney just screams wedding to me.  Let's start where our engagement began: with Disney and Pixar's "Up."

The Wedding Chicks recently featured an "Up" inspired engagement shoot.  Of course, I just had to share with y'all!

All photos by Wildflowers Photography via Wedding Chicks

How adorable are the little grape soda buttons?!  You can get your very own Ellie badge on Etsy, here.  The Wedding Chicks loved this couple so much (and can you blame them?) that they documented their wedding day too.

All photos by Wildflowers Photography via Wedding Chicks

To make things even more adorable, the writer and producer of "Up" saw the e-pics on Wedding Chicks and sent the bride and groom a copy of "The Art of Up," complete with personalized hand drawing!

Wildflowers Photography via Wedding Chicks

Too cute.  Have you incorporated inspiration from a favorite movie into your wedding theme?  How so?

Save the Dates Parte Uno: The Inspiration

Some might argue that Save the Dates are unnecessary.  After all, the first question folks as when they find out you're engaged is, "when's the big day?"  Everyone important in our lives has already saved the date, especially after almost a year of engagement.  So what's the point?  Many would say that it's just a formality.

I disagree.  A Save the Date is your guests' first impression of your wedding.  It's your announcement to your loved ones that this is really happening.  It provides an opportunity to set the tone for your wedding.  Guests are clued into your theme, the entire vibe you're trying to convey.  I thought about doing a photobooth strip magnet, because we're planning to have a photobooth at the reception.  I thought about using some of our engagement pictures (more on that later).  But then I decided to take advantage of this opportunity and do something WAY more complicated.

You may recall that we got engaged on a hot air balloon.  Balloons are so whimsical, and that's definitely an element we plan on incorporating into our wedding.  I googled "balloon" and "save the date," and came up with a lot of boring stuff, a lot of expensive stuff, and this:

Source: Office Optimist via For Print Only via oh happy day!

How FUN is that?!  I loved the novelty of it...I'm sure none of our guests have ever seen anything like it.  I also loved how it involved the recipient.  Sister Lioness always says that I'm trying to make our wedding an "experience," and I think that's a good way to put it.  I want all of our guests to feel involved.  This was a good way of engaging them.

My only issue with this design was how the balloon was the only element with the actual date on it.  The back of the card also had useful information on it, but not anything about the actual date.  What if the balloon popped before the recipient had a chance to write down the date?!  Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose?!  Then I found this:

Source: Wedding Chicks

This is from a free template on Wedding Chicks who, by the way, have lots of free goodies on their site.  If you haven't checked them out yet, you should!  I loved the simplicity of this design.  The fonts were gorgeous...romantic with a hint of whimsy, exactly what we were going for!  Perhaps if I combined the simplicity of this design with the uniqueness of the balloon design, I could create something just right for our Save the Date.  How will it turn out?  Stay tuned!