Neil and Jesse were married at 78th Street Studios in Cleveland, Ohio. The venue was once a greeting card factory and is now a collection of artist galleries. The large and open plan space was perfect for their wedding.
“Our initial inspiration was ‘Wes Anderson meets Darwin’s Study’ but that definitely did not come to fruition!” laughed the bride. “What we actually ended up with is best described as pop art or graphic. I suspect that due my years of theater and Neil’s love of comics we unwittingly deigned our wedding to look like a play set, video game or music video. It was all held together less by a theme then a drive to create a crazy party mood. When I look at the pictures: the black and white, the splashes of color and the big hair, it makes me think of A-Ha’s ‘Take me on’ music video!”
The wedding also had lot of animal motifs around it. “All the boutonnieres had animals on them, given to each man for a specific reason”, she continued. “Neil had a fox (we saw Fantastic Mr Fox on our first date), our nephews all had insects and my Grandfather had a sea turtle.”
“We were going to originally rent some real taxidermy to have around the reception area, but it was rather hard to find folks willing to let us rent their animals. This resulted in me making our own taxidermy busts out of fabric, cardboard and plaster. I am most proud of the three headed swan, the life size narwhal hanging above the party and the rhino!”
“I loved making all of the paper and fabric garlands and chandeliers for the reception,” she explained. “I cut out thousands of paper flowers and circles and strung them via needle and thread, sometimes separating them with straws, or tubing. We also covered some of the art in the gallery (that wasn’t our style) with hundreds of dictionary pages that I stuck together. In the end I think the dictionary pages added to the graphic feel of the venue.”
The bride wore two dresses, The first was from Church Street Bridal in Lynchburg VA and the second was a pink dress for dancing that she already owned. “So dancing is a big thing in my family. As soon as I discovered I could not dance in my wedding dress, I sort of had a very mini (and I hope mostly internal) bride freak out moment. My amazing bridesmaid Lulu (and one of our wonderful photographers) quickly dashed back to the hotel and grabbed me my hot pink number. I had scissors in my hand about to cut my wedding gown off at the knees when they returned with the dress and saved the day (well the dancing).”
