Design Story : designing a wedding for an artist
This week, I am so excited to share the entire design story of Lauren + Jason’s wedding. You may have seen me post pictures as the day unfolded in July via my Instagram, but I haven’t shared the entire beautiful day with you and I feel like I need to before the year ends! It was one of my highlights of 2019 and a true delight to work with a bride who I aligned so tightly with. If this were the last wedding of my career, I would have left the industry completely happy. Head over to the Jaclyn Journey Weddings site to see the wedding in its entirety.
My brides are usually artists, designers or stylists (with the occasional nurse or hair stylist thrown in) The commonality between all these professions is that they are all empathetic, sensitive, and visual (aka, me.) I know I’ve said this before but it’s funny how so many of us start businesses and lose sight of who our ‘ideal’ clients are - they are US. We start a business to fill a void - something we alone can offer. So, when ideal clients come back around, the job feels effortless in many ways.
Lauren and I spoke the same language from the start. She wanted a warm, harmonious event where aesthetics were one of the top priorities. She wanted everyone to feel warm and welcome and understood that the look and feel of the space contributes to that. Ashbourne is an absolutely incredible venue that provides a lot of that warmth in it’s amazing interior design already. We wanted to play off that - design the event around what was already there, rather than try and transform it.
As L is an artist, I knew from the very beginning it was important to have her art woven through the design. Together, we created a color palette to work from, with 20 different shades, lol, but neither of us thought it seemed that crazy to do - when you are inspired by nature, it happens haha. I took the 20 different Pantone colors we selected and created a floral recipe that inspired the rest of the wedding design
My floral recipe for this wedding was full of colorful, mid-summer blooms, based on our Pantone selections. We planned to have fruiting branches, roses, dahlias, protea, amaranthus, foraged summer ‘weeds’, snapdragons, rusty oak leaf hydrangeas, and pomegranates. I asked Lauren to use that as inspiration and paint some flowers so we could use them as a seamless connector throughout the rest of the stationery for the wedding. She created the most beautiful floral artwork that we used on the invitation vellum wrap, the envelope liner, the menus, the ceremony program, the coasters….anywhere we could add that special touch, we added it.
I don’t think I’ll really be able to describe the ceremony and do it justice. I’ve never been a part of a ceremony so personal and special. Maybe it’s because I designed the ceremony so intentionally and then our couple brought even more intention in…it brought tears to all of us, even members of my team who aren’t religious.
From the moment we started talking about L+J’s ceremony, I envisioned them standing in a garden. Well, Ashbourne didn’t have a flower garden so I knew we were going to have to build one. I used a mix of potted plants and faux flowers to build it and when we finished it, it honestly took my breath away. With the billowing draping of the tent and the breeze blowing the taller blooms from side to side, it was calming, sweet and colorful.
We picked this spot for the ceremony because of the beautiful view of the rolling hills. Because of the time of day of the ceremony and the fact that it was mid-July, we opted to bring All Occasions to build us a structure tent with no gables so it didn’t block the sightline. We added the pink draping to the ceiling to not only hide the steel beams but also to add some softness to the structure. Since the ceremony was happening during daylight, we didn’t need any lighting dropped down so it was a clear view all the way through. It became a garden under a pavilion.
To show their service and humility to one and other, L+J had a foot washing ceremony and it was my favorite part. It was so intimate and such a beautiful way to show their family and friends their commitment through their faith.
As a gift, I commissioned @kristenfalkirk_tileworks to make a pitcher and bowl for them to use for this ritual and hope it will be something they treasure (until one of their kids accidentally breaks it :) )
From ceremony to reception, we kept everything as cohesive as possible to tell their story in the best way. For their escort card table, we wanted to soften all the rich colors in the flowers, so we did light blue escort cards with gold calligraphy. The addition of the blue and gold which sat on top of a rustic wooden table added a sophisticated, elegant layer to the design.
We wanted L + J’s reception to feel comfy, cozy, colorful and layered. For the head table, we placed rugs underneath the tables to warm up the room. We had light pink custom linen tablecloths (that they took home after the wedding!) made at cafe table length so you could still see the rustic legs of the farm tables. On these tables we had various types of beeswax taper candles and votive candles in pretty floral dishes. We placed lush arrangements of blooms in Camp di Fiori vases and single stem bud vases in the center, so the entire tablescape connected with color and texture.
For the rest of the tables, we did soft green linens to the floor and did varying centerpieces of connected bud vases and smaller lush compotes and piles of styled flowers and pomegranates.
The ‘placemat’ for this wedding was one of my favorite details, ever. We used L’s florals and had them printed on round vellum translucent paper. On the head table pink linens, we did pink paper menus and on the green linens we did light green menus.
Huge thank you to all the vendors on this wedding AND to Kentucky Bride Magazine for featuring it!
Wedding Planning, Design + Florals - Jaclyn Journey Weddings | Photography: Bella Grace Studios | Venue: Ashbourne Farms | Videography: BC Weddings | Caterer: Ashbourne Farms | Cake: Scarlet's Bakery | Rentals: All Occasions | Linens: La Tavola Linens | Music: Young Hearts | Stationery : High Fancy Paper | Calligraphy: Rachel Fisher Calligraphy | Hair: Maddie Woff | Makeup: Carley Randall Beauty | Bride’s Attire: Rebecca's Wedding Boutique | Groom’s Attire: Sam Meyer's
