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.

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.

Designed an emblem to use throughout the weekend

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.