Robert and I were married Oct 2019 - and had a blast.

From the getgo, it was important to us that we walk away from the event feeling like it was very much “us”. And that we hoped our guests would have that same recognition.
So what, exactly, would make an event “authentically us”?
1. We wanted it to feel like you knew it was an event, so not too informal, but not pressured about what you were going to wear, say, or dance like, so not stuffy.
2. We wanted it to feel recognizable, so retain roughly the structure of a ceremony, but wanted to create a meld of the cultures that run in our families, so not hew to any one tradition.
3. Many were traveling in to New York City to attend, and so when we were searching for a venue, we sought out a place that would feel like it could only really be in NYC.

The Metropolitan Building was the first piece in our puzzle that fell into place - it set our date (a neat, memorable pattern in either way we write dates: 10.19.2019 or 19.10.2019)

Wedding venue - metropolitan building

The space is a mix of amazingly-maintained interior elegance alongside exposed piping & other industrial touches, which took the old-school glamour down a notch - just the “formal-ish vibe” we were hoping for.

The building is owned by a German-born interior designer, Eleanor Ambos. Check out a great write up in the New York Times here

Plus… how do you say no to a space with floor to ceiling bookcases?

Situated in Long Island City, its views of Manhatten makes it truly location-specific.

That, and a second floor of furniture from the 50s and 60s to select from enabled us to save on any other decoration budget.

The logistics of it all:

Wedding planning could have been a huge headache… The generous gifts of many many many others who shared the fruits of hours of labor came to our rescue. I pulled a variety of pointers and examples together into a Template I am (perhaps overly?) exc… — Wedding planning could have been a huge headache… The generous gifts of many many many others who shared the fruits of hours of labor came to our rescue. I pulled a variety of pointers and examples together into a Template I am (perhaps overly?) excited to share with anyone who announces their engagement. Key for me was having a list of items laid out that I would not have even realized needed a decision.

Creating wedding touches made for a fun spread of projects, in a variety of media:

Wedding Site

Created our wedding site on Squarespace - being able to show the wedding’s events in a menu-style block made it easy for everything to stay simple & on the main page

I leveraged Awesome-table, an appropriately named awesome resource, to do more with our RSVP forms after emailing them out. We used it to create a place for guests to search for their RSVP form to give us the heads up about what they could attend.

Our site included a map for those visitors who were new to the City - check it out here.

CRAFTS

Designed an emblem to use throughout the weekend

Got a rubber stamp made at Casey Rubber Stamps in NYC’s East Village.

Save the Dates

Postcards from early 20th century that we augmented with our emblem. Found at the flea market extraordinaire, Grand Bazaar at 77th and Columbus Ave.

Cake Toppers

Japanese foam clay - a wonderful material that allows for incredibly precise blending to achieve exactly the color you want (which is key if you’re looking to get that bloodhound-tan)

Collecting fun pictures of guests, to hang as a wedding-table-navigator was a gem from Robert’s cousin Maria’s wedding we immediately filed away as a must-do for us.

Engagement ring

Worked with my former teachers who introduced me to making jewelry (who run a phenomenal jewelry studio, Redstart Design) to make my engagement ring ideas a reality - see my more fleshed out post on the project here.

A box altered (take out the top & add glossy ledge to hold the rings) to hand our rings around during the ceremony for guests to give us their best wishes - Thank you Tara for the inspiration.

Table Topper rendering

We designed little icons for each table

Laser cutting dreams came true at NY Design’s FabLab, where I cut out the table-top numbers which house references for the different tables.

Table toppers

Guests loved the personal references used in each table - more on how we made our wedding our own here

And I wanted to make my dress my own as well - more on that here.

Signage

We explored a couple different visual design systems before handing on the one we eventually printed out - some peaches and teals gave way to a more blue-lavender color scheme

I loved the crown moulding details at the venue, and created little corner details in various paper pieces to reflect a similar style.

Metropolitan Building partners with Maia Pearl Catering to offer top notch dishes.

We encouraged all to sign on to a community certificate.

Ceremony

My aunt, a phenomenal judge in NJ, officiated, using a script Robert wrote. Given we were married in NYC, we got creative and enlisted her former clerk’s husband, who presides in the same city hall in Manhattan where we got our marriage license, to make the official pronouncement.

Robert’s aunt read an E.E. Cummings poem - somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond

My dear friend Jacob Portes sang Erev Shel Shoshanim, a Jewish folksong on love, bringing in a Jewish tradition without making it necessarily religious.

Japanese tradition includes a dedicated ritual that includes all three couples: the bride & groom, and both sets of parents. (Learn about the San san kudo ceremony here). We created our own version… with hugs.

We wrote our own vows, and just as in life, brought some levity to the situation.

Another friend of mine, Leo Soeda, performed Bach’s Suite #1 - Sarabande on the cello.

We signed our wedding certificate, with our witnesses, in front of our community as part of the main ceremony - and Judge Lyle Frank pronounced us then and there.

I walked in to Heartbeats

Performed by Tara Davids on guitar and Leo Soeda on cello

We walked out to Move on Up

We danced to This Must Be the Place

performed by Leo Soeda, at a pace closer to the Lumineers’ cover version (original by The Talking Heads)

Take a listen through the initial playlists we handed over as general inspiration / soundboard to DJ Mulry, of 74 Events, who took it and added his own flair.

Once it got to dancing, he knew exactly how to keep us all going and read the room exceptionally well.

Here moments of the day - shot masterfully by Natasha Ilana Photography