Adriene and Shannon wanted an informal wedding so they held their ceremony at Aids Memorial Grove in the Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. It was followed by a picnic reception in the park. One of the most unique and awesome parts of their wedding was the bride’s ombre wedding dress, which she made herself by upcycling two second-hand dresses and making them into one!
“I put two dresses together and then pinned the ‘petals’ of silk to the base dress in a gradient of colors from light pink to burgundy”, she explained. “I added a right pocket with a ring holding ribbon to keep my future husband’s new piece of jewelry secure and a left pocket for my iPhone! I knew I wanted to make my own dress because making costume-like clothing is my favorite way to express myself.”
“I was never really excited about the color pink but when my artist friend, Nicole Sillapere, was selling off old event stock and I found the pink ombre silk panels, I knew I would do something wonderful with them someday. This was actually before we got engaged so as soon as Shannon proposed and I started thinking about what I would wear to our wedding and the dress just came to me.”
The wedding was super casual and laid back and the couple wanted their guests to be comfortable. “We told our guests that it was a picnic in the park and asked them to wear stripes and/or bright colors”, she continued.
“We chose a handfasting ceremony because it was ceremonial but not religious. We found our officiant Cynthia by searching online for ‘non denominational wedding officiant’. We don’t consider ourselves to have any kind of religion but I have Pagan leanings (tea brewing, tree hugging, rose sniffing, nature lover) and Shannon thought it would be fun to see Cynthia in her Pagan robes!”
