Wedding Inspiration - Part I

One of the most fun parts of wedding planning has been checking out other weddings in search of inspiration. As I have previously suppressed my girly-girl side (I blame this on being an engineer) I honestly never really paid much attention to weddings until I actually got engaged. I'm surprised at how much is out there!

At the very, very beginning of my wedding planning - before we even nailed down a state, let alone a venue I came across the wedding of Jay and Jessica in Chatham, MA in the Brides.com magazine.

I had snuck into a bookstore near where we live and unbeknown to Mr. Panda was secretly flipping through bridal magazines. Not that Mr. Panda would have minded - at the time I just didn't want to admit that I had been swooped up in the all the hoopla and craziness and WAS READING A BRIDAL MAGAZINE (gasp)!! Don't worry I've since given up that facade months long ago and now indulge. Even though I don't always want to admit it maybe I do have a girly streak ;)



Anyway, my peak at Jessica's and Jay's wedding was a moment of definite inspiration that admittedly got me pretty hooked on having a Cape Cod wedding ;) At the time I thought "Sold, I'll just buy that wedding! Done! I love it - no additional planing required." Wouldn't that be great if you could just pick your wedding out of a catalog or magazine? Perhaps others are cringing at this thought but seriously you have to consider how much easier would this all be???

Anyway, now that I'm further along in the wedding process it's fun to reflect back on this initial inspiration and how my wedding is actually shaping up to be similar. No surprise here!

And now for the eye candy introducing Jessica and Jay's wedding

Source: All images and descriptions of events from Brides.com, Real Weddings, Boston, Jay & Jessica

"After meeting in law school, Jessica and Jay decided to return to the bride's childhood Chatham, MA summer home to celebrate their nupitals"



Check out Jessica's beautiful hair and elegant lace dress. For some reason this dress screams Cape Cod to me.



Buckets of hydrangeas - these are all over the cape in the summer.


"Guests donned bibs to feast on the traditional clambake dinner, catered by White's Catering. On the menu: clam chowder, lobster, corn on the cob, and watermelon." I LOVE Lobster and am obsessed with eating it. Mr Panda has TONS of pictures of me chowing down on Lobster. I'd be totally game to do this in a wedding dress. Plus, I love the plastic bib - awesomely classy!


"Hand-lettered escort cards were tied with ribbon to lobster-shaped lollipops."


I love this photo of Jessica & Jay dancing. Jessica's dress is so elegant as it spins, I also really like the informal atmosphere of the tent.


Last but not least "In addition to two types of pie, Ben & Jerry's ice cream was served for dessert. The treat was a nod to the state of Vermont, where the couple met." How cool is this? Something different from the traditional wedding cake is so refreshing! Doesn't that ice cream look refreshingly yummy??


How have you been inspired by other weddings? Was this by attending another wedding, flipping through magazines, or another source?

Photo Inspiration - Pirates and Seamen

i LOVE the internet. Where else can you get free "inspiration" (read ideas to copy) at the tips of your fingertips??

Lately I've been thinking a lot about photos. Mr. Panda and I are crazy about photography and we want to share our love of photos with our guests. We've decided to place disposable point and shoot cameras at each table with instructions for guests to fill up the camera.

Mama Panda got these on clearance for us at Hobby Lobby. Check out these beauties!! I love how cheesy they are..... Wow we even get a flash!!!!



Having pictures of each table will be nice but someone it's still somewhat unfulfilling for me. I'm mean how great are photos going to be of everyone just sitting around eating? Hmmm....

Then a DJ that we were considering pitched selling us the portable photo both package. I would LOVE to have a photo booth but at a $700+ price tag it was just to pricey.

That's when the online inspiration came in. I was digging around the Martha Stewart website and came across a wedding where the bride and groom constructed several make-shift photo backgrounds out of different patterns of cloth fabric. Their photographer then matched various outfits to cloth patterns and took photos of guests.

The red cloth - Source Martha Stewart Real Weddings





Yellow Cloth Background






Very cool idea, but how comfortable would guests be letting loose in front of a photographer that they didn't know? Many people hate having their pictures taken and I just didn't see guests lining up enthusiastically to pose in front of a cloth background for a photographer. Plus, when would our photographers have time to capture all this? Perhaps during cocktail hour but we also wanted photos of cocktail hour!

Then I found a posting from Wedding Bee Blogger Miss Cowboy on her photo booth. She had taken the cloth background idea but incorporated it into a DIY photo booth. Genius!!






The camera is already set up on a tri-pod and programmed to shoot after 10 seconds so guests simply press the photo button and scramble into place. Your very own make-shift photo booth!

To spice things up and add to the photo booth atmosphere Miss Cowboy provided props Cowboy hats (her wedding was ranch themed) and a blackboard. This allowed for some creative photos.






I showed these photos to Mama Panda who is an ex-elementary school art teacher and it took her literally 10 minutes to produce a PVC pipe background support (something she had previously used for creating shadow shows on a cloth background).



The frame is a bit too narrow but could easily be widened by replacing 3 pieces of PVC with longer ones. Plus, this frame is SUPER lightweight and actually very sturdy. All I will have to do is cover it with cloth. Better than the clothesline used in the Martha Stewart shots.

Mr. Panda will have to help figure out how to make the lighting perfect - actually the part I'm worried about the most. Not sure if we can rent a diffuser.

As for props my wedding theme is basically all things Cape Cod so I was thinking along the lines of fishermen (think bright yellow rain slickers, fishing nets) and pirate stuff to use as props. Mama Panda dug through her Halloween & art school collection and produced some very cool FREE props. I don't want to give away all the props but below is a sampling.

Wow, how lucky am I to have Mama Panda? What other bride would have a mother that already owns a pirate treasure chest?













Sister Panda gracefully modeling one of the hats.


If you could create any photo booth imaginable what would you use for props?