Stand by for probably the cutest bride I’ve seen in a long time. Rocking a gold sequinned bodice, a ballerina style skirt, retro fabulous glasses and the most adorable poofy veil, this is one babe who’s got her bridal style darn right perfect.
“We met through mutual friends at a Chromeo show in San Francisco, where I think we both impressed each other by dancing with ridiculous abandon”, began the bride, Aysha. “About a year later, had our first kiss on New Year’s Eve at a Lake Tahoe music festival. We had our wedding in the San Francisco Bay Area on a gorgeous Friday the 13th, which was also the night of a full moon. We got engaged on a 13th, so it’s a very auspicious day as far as we’re concerned.”
“We love theme parties and costumes, so we pretty quickly decided on a superhero-themed wedding”, she continued. “The theme was also a way for us to pay tribute to how amazing our guests are. We set the tone by sending out postcard invitations designed like a comic book cover. At the wedding, we named tables after some of our favorite superheroes, from She-Hulk to Sailor Moon. Our party favors were sunglasses with the inscription ‘You’re our hero!'”
“Our colour scheme was CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) as it’s also the basis of old-school comic book coloring. It reflected our love of comics and design.”
“We wanted to have a wedding that incorporated as many of our feminist ideals as possible”, took over Tom. “This included writing our own ceremony language and creating a new name that’s a portmanteau of our maiden names. Since we met at a concert, and started dating at a music festival, we had a lot of fun picking out music too. Our playlist ranged from electro-swing to The Ramones. Our first dance was to a remix of Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’ and was choreographed by one of our very talented bridesmaids. Since it included different dance styles and two flips, we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves — even if we did forget a few steps.”
You’re not going to believe this, but Aysha’s envy-inducing wedding dress was actually DIY and she only decided on it the morning of the wedding! OK now I officially love this brideg even more! “I didn’t have a wedding dress until the last possible second and it wasn’t for lack of trying!” she explained. “I had checked out tons of online shops and went to stores but couldn’t find anything I liked. I had something very specific in mind: retro A-line shape, gold sequins, sleeves, shorter length, piles of ballerina tulle. So for me, it was disheartening seeing dresses that were all some variation of all-white, strapless, floor-length, or mermaid silhouette. A couple of weeks before the wedding, I settled on a dress that I felt tepid about. Finally, on the morning of the wedding, I tried a Frankenstein experiment by chopping a gold booty dress in half and sticking it on top of a white tulle skirt. Suddenly BOOM — the wedding dress I had envisioned, three hours before the ceremony!”
“There was plenty of other DIY in the wedding too”, said Tom. “Lots of people came together to help. My younger brother works for Habitat for Humanity and built a lot of amazing things for us, including two sets of giant Jenga and a photobooth in our wedding colors. Thanks to one of our groomsmen, we had our own slideshow software that populated a database with all the photobooth pictures, plus the photos posted online with our hashtag. The software organized these photos into a looped slideshow, which we projected onto a wall by the dance floor. So many other people helped with bringing these kinds of projects together, like folding a million pinwheels or going on a last-minute prop run.”
“Aysha’s mom, with backup from relatives, did all the flowers for the wedding since gardening is one of her big passions. Her friends always enlist her creativity when they throw parties and she often donates her arrangements to our local hospital. The arrangements for the wedding turned out beautifully, beyond our already high expectations. Having the venue decorated with her creations made things even more special.”
The Gallery
Suppliers
- Photography: Bokeh Photography
- Venue: Los Altos History Museum
- Bride's Dress: DIY
- Groom's Attire: H&M
- Flowers: DIY
- Cake: Harvey’s Donuts
- Catering: The Party Helpers
- DJ: Spinheads