The submission I received for Jessica and David’s wedding began “If Wes Anderson was a wedding planner…” so instantly my interest was sparked. The Philadelphia wedding was a quirky Southern BBQ with retro touches. “I never knew what to say when people asked what the theme was”, explained the bride. “I’d reply with ‘It’s a wedding… isn’t that the theme?’ I guess it was more about the color and the mood we wanted to create. I love retro fashion and I also love all those farm/ garden weddings all over wedding blogs. I also had our budget in mind and keeping in the budget helped make a lot of decisions about said theme… so maybe we can call it a budget retro summer garden party!”
The couple didn’t want a big, fancy or over the top wedding. The bride took a lot of ideas and inspiration from wedding blogs but she knew she wanted to put her own spin on things. “I always liked Liberty Lands Park where we had our ceremony”, she continued. “The gardens are beautiful and the platform stage was perfect! A lot of my planning was starting with a grand idea and breaking it down to what was easy, local and on budget. We could not have amplified music at the park so I didn’t want to hire strangers to play. Instead I called on my music making friends. Same thing with the ceremony. We did a self-uniting marriage since we are not religious, so rather than hire a stranger to perform our ceremony, we called on a close friend.”
“Another thing that made our wedding unique were our whiskey drinking ceremony. After watching 100 episodes of Four Weddings on TLC, I got so tired of the sand and candle ceremonies that mean nothing to us personally and so started thinking about what we could to symbolize our union besides our rings. I thought when people celebrate they might take a shot so maybe we could do a shot during the ceremony! I started looking around on the internet and I came across the ‘bury the bourbon’ idea. You bury a bottle of bourbon at your wedding site a month before the wedding and then its not supposed to rain on your wedding day. Then, during the wedding you dig it up and the men drink from the bottle… of course in our version we all drank from the bottle not just the men!”
“We had our reception at Yards Brewery which also helped set the mood. It’s a great space for friends and family to get together and party. We skipped on the dance floor and DJ. Dave made a playlist on his iPod full of pop punk and 90s dance jams that kept the mood high and fun. They have a pool table and shuffle board and we brought a homemade photo booth that kept people entertained along with the free flowing beer and great comfort food buffet. We really just wanted the night to feel like a regular night out with friends just with the volume turned up.”
“Do what you want!” Jessica advises future brides and grooms. “It’s your wedding not anyone else’s. But don’t go broke or ask your family to go broke for it.”
“Also don’t worry about the guests”, David took over in conclusion. “Plan a party that you want to go to. People that are going to come to your wedding are going to come because they like you, and your party will reflect you. Also, don’t sweat the small stuff. Everything that is going to stress you out leading up to the day of the wedding doesn’t matter at all on the day. Just relax and know that the honeymoon is just a few days after and its all smooth sailing from there.”
