Real Gay Wedding Craven Farm in Snohomish, WA : Audrey and Erica

The second half of this square dancing, burlesque veil, wishbone designed, barn wedding is here!

Favorite design element of your big day? Any tips for readers on how you created it?
There was a theme in the ceremony of being on a journey together. We love to travel together and we used the trips we had taken together as a theme for the decor. The tables were not numbered, but were instead named after places we had visited since we have been together. In all the flower arrangements there was the name of the locations (really big so people could see it easily) and a photo of us on that trip and a little story about what we experienced on the trip. We tried to set it up so that guests from Erica’s side of the family were seated at a table with a trip to Audrey’s side of the family in New England, and that Audrey’s East Coast friends and family would get a story about Erica’s family in Montana or here in Washington. Most people walked around and read them all actually. It was really fun to write them and super easy. We just got 5×8 prints made and printed our story out on the same size piece of paper and put them back to back in the flower arrangements with one of those plastic pronged card holders that you get in a bouquet of flowers.

Favorite Design Element for Erica: Our cupcake toppers were crab people intricately dressed identically to us made by Audrey’s brother Peter.

I know almost every wedding has them but I really appreciated the simple, colorful local flowers from the farm across the dirt road. They made the whole grounds look so festive and warm. The common galvanized tubs/vases went along nicely with the barn theme, were basic and inexpensive.

We also really, really loved the toasts. They brought us to tears at times and made us smile so big our cheeks hurt. What was supposed to be the maid of honor, best man and both fathers each saying a toast, turned into the microphone being passed around the room and lots of people saying wonderful things about how apparent it was that were were happy together, how happy we made each other or how we deserved each other. We had groups of friends stand up and toast us cheerfully, or cry through the entire thing they said. Even Audrey’s coworkers stood up and sang her a silly song and her mother serenaded us with a beautiful, and unplanned love song. We really couldn’t believe so many people felt inspired to stand up and speak in public. Audrey said, “I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest because I had so much love pouring in from everyone. It was truly a magical point during the day”.

Funniest moment of the day?

Well, I don’t know about funniest, but we had the most fun performing our first dance. Erica and I had a surprise first dance for everyone. Erica really doesn’t like to dance, so we started out with an awkward, 7th grade style dance of swaying a bit back and forth to “All My Life” by Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville. All the guests stood very politely, smiled and said, ‘aww’ as they watched. But then… the music changed to “A Wink and a Smile” by Harry Connick Jr., and we had a cute choreographed dance involving grape vines, spins and dips (great job Erica!), and finally we kissed and everyone thought it was over, but then A Turkey in the Straw came on (we were in a barn, it seemed appropriate) and all our attendants came running in with straw hats and we had a little fun square dancing. It was pretty hilarious and very entertaining. By far, the most fun part of the day. Here is a link to the video. I think you probably have to be friends with me to see it. Just friend request me if so. I don’t know how to get it off Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/video/video.php v=519586028396&subj=1043160374

Photographer: Jenny GG
Venue: Craven Farm in Snohomish, WA
Makeup/Hair: Fuchsia Foxx
Florist: Friend of the Family
Cake Toppers: By Audrey’s brother
Officiant: Center for Spirituality
Caterer: 12 Baskets
Dress/Suit/Accessories: Dress: AniA Collection in Portland, OR (discontinued sample). Suite: Brocklind’s Formal Wear Tie: Nordstom. Shoes: Fluevogs. Veil: Lolita “Tatas” Valentino (made by special request) Necklace: Audrey’s grandmother’s.