This is what happens when nobody tells me no.
Your wedding should be cool. Most weddings are pretty, and pretty is easy: a safe neutral backdrop, a big guest list, flowers you've already seen a hundred times. I'd rather make something you can't stop looking at. Find the one weird thing that is completely, unmistakably you, obsess over it, and take chances everywhere else.
Mine was a moth.
I found it hunting for a print for the ceremony fabric, a moth drawn by Cassandra of Images by Cassandra Designs, and I couldn't leave it alone. It ended up on the menus. Then I punched moths out of magnolia leaves, one at a time, hundreds of times. They went down the aisle and up over the sweetheart table, hanging from a cloud of smoke bush.
No safe backdrop. The ceremony was printed trees on chiffon in dark greens and burnt orange, falling straight down raw brick, with a crowd of arrangements and candlelight in tortoiseshell glass at its feet.
No roses and no filler. The bouquet was orchids and lilies only: gloriosa curling like flames, oncidium spraying gold, and the strangest stems I could find at the orchid nursery up the road, with amaranthus hanging almost to the floor.
The bar got eremurus, and honestly, I'm still not over it. The foxtails went wherever they wanted. Down the front of the bar, oncidium and smoke bush poured all the way to the floor.
No ballroom and no 200 guests. It's a cocktail bar in Arvada: brick walls, a mustard velvet banquette, and a moth. Your wedding doesn't have to be huge to look like it belongs in a magazine. It needs one weird thing and someone willing to take it all the way.
So, what's your moth?
Planning a wedding in Arvada, Denver, or anywhere along the Front Range? Tell me about it.
Photography by Mio Sison
The team
Florals + Design | Ash + Ether | @ashxether
Photography | Mio Sison | @miosison
Content Creator | BTS by Rhi | @btsbyrhi
Planning | Après Planning Collective | @apresplanningcollective
Venue + Bartending | Method + Muse | @methodandmusespirits
Hair + Makeup | @jessica.hairandmakeupartistry
Dress | Lucky Charm Bridal | @luckycharmbridal
Rentals | Colorado Party Rentals | @copartyrentals
Model | @_taylorhennings_
Moth artwork | Images by Cassandra Designs | @imagesbycassandra_designs