Southern Weddings

Real-life red wedding shoes!!  One point for Emily + Eddie’s Minneapolis wedding from Photogen-Inc.  But not just any red shoes: adorable, red, feline-inspired ballerina slippers from Marc Jacobs.  (These two-cute flats even have eyes and whiskers!)  But enough about shoes… though the groom and his attendants did have some awfully cute red Chuck Taylors.  I’m a little obsessed with the yellow accents in everything from the bride’s cozy wrap to the rustic arrangements of curry yellow billy balls and fresh green thistle.  (Note to all our DIY brides out there: Emily and her maids designed the bouquets and boutonnières themselves!)  Though it’s not your usual bridal color palette, I have to say that the red and yellow touches are what really made this Midwestern celebration.

How did the two of you meet?  We met for the first time in 2004 while volunteering in Guatemala at the San Lucas Mission. Eddie was living in San Lucas Toliman, and I had come to Guatemala for a week-long mission trip. We soon found out that we are both from the same small town in Minnesota (Stillwater), but had never met! To make it even more bizarre, Eddie lived about 6 blocks away from the house I grew up in!
Describe the proposal. Eddie had moved to Chicago for graduate school in 2007. I helped him move and decided to stay the whole month of August (Why not!?). Talk of marriage had been swirling around for quite sometime now, and on August 31st in Chicago, Eddie and I (without trying) had recreated out first date. Eddie at this time was kicking himself for not having the ring with him earlier.  But when we got back to Eddie’s apartment and were relaxing in our PJ’s, when Eddie jumped up and started rifling through boxes in the other room. I started to realize what was about to happen- when he came back into the room with his hands behind his back holding a little box.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Giddy, adventurous, gleeful.
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? Art/Architecture with a twist of Dr. Suess.
What was your favorite design element of your big day? Our color combination (curry and red) and the Chambers Hotel. Both really set the tone for all of our design choices.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: Honestly, finding the dress was the easy part. I ended up with the third dress I tried on!  Getting it fitted, well, that’s a whole other can of worms!

See, I told you: fun, right?  I love that Lee (in a gown designed by her groom’s mother) + Cameron celebrated their new marriage with a jump on the giant trampoline.  Talk about memorable wedding portraits!  More and more brides (including this one from Down Under) have started trading traditional multi-tiered confections for smaller, personal cakes.  (Check out Lee + Cameron’s cakes from Queen of Tarts.)  Think this is a trend worth trying in 2010?  Thanks again to our friends at The Image is Found, for sharing this Australian wedding.

Describe your wedding flowers:  Our friend, Kylie, organized them from London, and then she assembled them in the hall the night before the wedding. They were absolutely stunning! The flowers were a mix of David Austin roses, lisianthus and ranunculus.
Describe your wedding cake: We had a little bit of a last-minute panic with the cake, and our original plans had to be changed. We ended up finding a great cake shop the Tuesday before our wedding, an hour away from home. Mum and I headed out there and we chose 3 different mud cakes in different sizes with white icing. I had fresh flowers placed on the top of each cake, along with some nice ribbon around the sides, which finished off the decoration nicely.
Were there any wedding traditions or new ideas you included in the wedding?   Our new idea was having a wedding weekend festival rather than a day-long wedding. We asked everyone to join us on the Friday before the wedding for a big BBQ.  We then had a Saturday morning ceremony, a picnic lunch, then dinner.  Everyone even stayed for a breakfast BBQ on Sunday morning. There was also face painting for everyone, cricket on the oval and, most importantly, a trampoline for fun and to help with some of the amazing photos.
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? The entire ceremony, specifically, walking down the aisle with all of our friends and family singing “All you Need is Love” by the Beatles.  I also loved being showered in bubbles, confetti and rose petals as we joined our friends and family on the river bank after the ceremony. Cam was also very excited by how much people loved his smoked ham!
Did you write your own vows?  If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line?
We wrote our own vows, took little bits from here and there and mixed it with our own words to create what represented us best. Neither of us knew what the other was going to say until that moment. In his vows, Cam promised to love, cherish and tickle me for the rest of my life! Lee; In my vows, I secretly used one of Cam’s nicknames, ‘Spewbert’ instead of Cameron Stuart!
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future?  We are looking forward to starting a cute little family and spending the rest of our days enjoying life together and jumping on trampolines.

Congratulations, Lee + Cameron!  Thank you for sharing your wedding with us!

Since 2010 is all about “firsts” for Southern Weddings, we thought a fun and festive wedding from Australia (yes, really!) would be the perfect addition to our January line-up.  Can we all agree that Lee + Cameron’s wedding, photographed by the Image is Found, looks like one of the most fun weddings ever?  Bubbles?  Confetti?  Face painting?!  Lovely loose floral arrangements (designed by the couple’s dear friend, Kylie Short) were the perfect complement to the natural beauty of the Riverwood Downs where the Aussie natives swapped handwritten vows.  If you think the ceremony looks fun, I know you’ll go nuts over their reception.  (Hint: there’s a giant trampoline and, yes, the bride did jump on it in her handmade wedding gown!)

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story.   We were lucky enough to be introduced to each other by a mutual friend, Angela. We met one night over a glass of red wine while having a carpet picnic at Cam’s house. It turned out we lived less then 800 meters from each other. Cam mentioned he went for a bike ride some afternoons, I kept my eye out for him but I never saw him.  A couple of months later, Angela invited me to a New Year’s Eve party at none other than Cam’s house. The fireworks started well before midnight, sometime between the champagne and bad karaoke. I really thought he didn’t like me, but it turned out he was just shy! From then on, we have been inseparable.  
Describe the proposal. In a word, romantic!  Cam decided well before our six-week trip around Europe that he would propose to me while we were away and had a ring made prior to our departure. He had previously spoken to both of my parents and had told his parents what he was up to. Being a traditional kind of guy, he asked my father for permission, and then it was just a matter of time to put his secret plan into action! We were in Vienna visiting some friends at the start of our trip. He had originally planned to propose at a special spot in Prague, but later said he was having too much fun to wait. Apparently, he though I was onto him, as I was supposedly acting strangely, and the ring was burning a hole in his pocket! Thankfully, he had the help of our two friends to make it all happen. We were looking at jewelry in a shop window and I made a comment that I would never put a ring “like that” on my finger. Little did I know that Cam had a ring in his pocket and, that within three hours he would be down on one knee in a beautiful Viennese square surrounded by stunning old buildings and nervously asking me to marry him. We then celebrated late into the night with our friends.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: FUN, memorable and unique.
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? A wedding festival that reflected not only our personalities, but also the way we live and experience life everyday.
What was your favorite design element of your big day? The Paper lanterns hung with colorful party lights with fairy lights strung in between.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: My favorite details were my bridal flowers and the trampoline.  Cam’s favorites were the three legs of ham he had smoked the day before for everyone to enjoy. The music was also really fantastic! We had an acoustic guitar, a three-piece jazz band and then a local singer/musician to entertain us all, well into the night.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: It was really about trying to describe what was in my head to my wonderful mother-in-law, who was kind enough to make my dress for me. It was beautiful and exactly as I imagined it.