WEDDING BLOG

Earthy Luxe Oregon Wedding at Castaway Portland

October 24, 2017 | Junebug Weddings

Ali and Andrew’s Castaway Portland wedding perfectly embodies the city with the mixing of industrial architecture and greenhouse vibes – not to mention the dessert trucks at the end of the night! Ali’s bridesmaids were rocking neutral dresses with the most perfect bouquet rings from Tribes N Pines, while the groomsmen stuck to a classic look with black suits. Melissa Marshall and A Beautiful Union perfectly captured the beauty and Portland vibe throughout the day. All of the perfect details were made possible by Ali and Andrew’s love for planning, as well as the added help from Luxe Event Productions.

The Couple:

Ali and Andrew

The Wedding:

Castaway Portland, Portland, Oregon

As a once in a lifetime experience, it was so important to us to embrace the planning process. Luckily, Andrew and I are both very organized and love to plan. This made the process enjoyable for us. We also did it together and I absolutely loved that. I’m not sure I would’ve planned the wedding without him.

Enjoy the process! You only get to do this once and it should be fun. Once it’s over, it’s over. Stay organized and finalize all your details in advance so that your wedding week can really be about you. Don’t be scared to delegate. Whether it is a family member, a florist, or a caterer, everyone is there for you. Love your photographer – your photographer captures these most special moments forever.

I chose my Charlie Brear dress for its simplicity and elegance – beautiful take on a slip dress. For the ceremony, I added a skirt overlay by the same designer for a little something extra. For hair + makeup, I just wanted to keep it effortless and natural. I borrowed my grandma’s earrings and wore a simple gold wire headpiece with small scattered pearls. I had on simple white satin strappy heels. My girls looked beautiful! I asked them to wear something they loved and try to keep it to nude, neutral, light pink or light coral color. The contrast looked amazing. My husband’s look was pretty flawless – white dinner jacket, bow tie, and velvet tuxedo slippers. His guys wore dark suits and looked great. We both changed right into our Nike sneakers after the ceremony, which may have been our best decision of the night!

We made a pact – not to separate on our wedding. Of course, our days were apart, but from our ‘first look’ on we stuck together. We are so happy we did! Now all of our memories are the same, and together. Among countless memories, our favorite was taking a moment to look around during the best night of our lives to see ourselves surrounded by all of our people. It was magic.

Working with our photographer was a DREAM. Not only is Melissa incredibly talented, she is also so easy and fun to work with. We completely vibed from the first time we met. From our mini engagement shoot through our wedding, we felt extremely comfortable and lucky. The fact that her second shooter is her husband is also something we loved. The two of them (obviously) work so well together. It was so nice to have Melissa with me and her husband, Josh, with Andrew during the day leading up to our first look. They were able to capture every moment in the most amazing way. We have not stopped looking at our wedding photos since!

For dessert, we decided do something a little different! Instead of wedding cake, we brought guests back outside for three dessert food trucks – mini doughnuts with coffee and speciality chai drinks, made-to-order fruit infused ice creams, and handcrafted s’mores. In case that wasn’t enough, we brought in late night pizza along with lemon lime Gatorade (with custom labels) to help ease everyone’s morning hangover!

The Wedding Team:

Photography – Melissa Marshall
Event Planning – Luxe Event Productions
Venue – Castaway Portland
Floral Design – Tribes N Pines
Catering – Simpatica PDX
DJ – DJ Nature
Videography -Daniel Odegaard of A Beautiful Union
Stationery – Tie That Binds
Makeup Artist – Olivia Hawthorne
Hair Styling – Kyla Whiting
Wedding Dress – Charlie Brear
Groom’s Apparel – Ralph Lauren
Rings – Margulis Jewelers
Rentals – Something Borrowed Portland, Classic Vintage Rentals, Barclay Event Rentals
Dessert Trucks – Pips Original Doughnuts and Chai, Zeds Real Fruit Ice Cream, Nineteen27 S’Mores

Congratulations to Ali and Andrew on their wedding day, and a big thanks to Melissa Marshall for sharing their wedding with us! For more Portland wedding goodness, take a look at this artistically natural union/pine wedding in Portland.

Classic Rustic Tennessee Wedding at RT Lodge

October 23, 2017 | Junebug Weddings

black sage green white

Classic meets rustic in Lauren and Jason’s RT Lodge wedding. These two went with a romantic and timeless vibe with the wedding party in black and white, the florals centered around white blooms and greenery, and all the candles for their reception. To keep things a little more relaxed, they exchanged vows in the great outdoors and celebrated in a tent under the stars. September Company‘s timeless photography style went hand-in-hand with Lauren and Jason’s big day.

The Couple:

Lauren and Jason

The Wedding:

RT Lodge, Maryville, Tenneessee

I knew I always wanted to have a classic look. From my all lace dress, red lipstick, and chignon bun I was able to achieve this.

Our ceremony, it was so sweet and intimate. I remember being so happy but nervous to walk down the aisle to Jason. The second I saw him my nerves disappeared. I’ll never forgot those short 30 minutes together, hand in hand, professing our love and commitment to each other.

Working with Caitlin and Thad day of was such a breeze. Prior to the big day we built a fluid timeline together, which helped prepare me. What I loved is how they recommended ahead of time that we should escape after our vows to take photos. I am so glad we did, they are some of my favorite shots.

Work with a venue that has a professional organized team. Our entire wedding weekend was handled by the best wedding planner I could have asked for. Our venue was very hands-on with coordinating other vendors and that helped relieve a lot of stress and allowed us to spend with family and friends versus having to worry about the big and small things.

The Wedding Team:

Photography – September Company
Event Planning – Katie Stinnett at RT Lodge
Venue – RT Lodge
Floral Design – Colby West Design
Catering – RT Lodge
Cake – Magpie’s Bakery
Officiant – Congressman Bruce Poliquin
Live Music – Pink Cadillac Band
Invitations – Pieces of Eight
Makeup Artist – Bangs and Blush
Wedding Dress – Watters
Rings – Markman’s Diamonds, Dianna Rae

Thank you to Junebug member September Company for sharing Lauren and Jason’s classic wedding with us! If this wedding has you wanting more, then definitely take a look at this classic meets rustic San Antonio wedding at Hotel Emma.

This Tofino, British Columbia Elopement Features Mountains, Beaches, and a Helicopter

October 23, 2017 | Junebug Weddings

brown champagne white

Mountains and trees and water, oh my! This British Columbia elopement has it all – including a helicopter! Kari and Karin’s decision to focus on fun and adventure for their elopement was definitely met. With their photographer, Maddie Mae Photo, along for the ride – literally and figuratively – they saw British Columbia from many heights. Starting on top of a mountain to exchange views, having a picnic on an island, some quick photos in a rainforest, to then a video chat with loved ones while on the beach, Kari and Karin stopped at nothing to have their elopement be less than epic.

The Couple:

Kari and Karin

The Wedding:

Tofino, British Columbia, Canada

When you’re planning and making choices remember it’s YOUR DAY. We eloped, so we got to do exactly what we wanted, but if you have guests it’s easy to get carried away worrying about making everyone happy, so just always remember it’s your day, decide what you really want out of it, and do what is important to you.

We wanted a day that would be a fun and beautiful outdoor adventure. Our priority was to have a day that we could really relax and ENJOY. Our main priorities can be summed up in 2 words: FUN and ADVENTURE.

We found an awesome officiant, Heidi, who provided us with sample ceremonies. We chose one we loved, and went about personalizing it with her to suit us as a couple, but decided we didn’t want to know exactly what she was going to say till that day. So we gave her Karin‘s sister’s email, and they emailed back and forth to create our ceremony. So on the day, as Heidi performed our ceremony, she kept saying things that perfectly described our life as a couple and it was so surprising and wonderful that we were just laughing or crying the whole time.

Because our day was all about adventure, originally we had ordered super simple white dresses online. But then our families took us wedding dress shopping “just for fun”, and we both found gorgeous dresses we fell in love with! It turned out that having this crazy outdoor adventure in these fancy dresses made the whole day so much more fun and whimsical and special than if we hadn’t dressed to the nines. The best part is, we both felt beautiful and special in our dresses, but they were so comfortable, that we didn’t think about them at all while we were running through snow and climbing through trees! There was no tugging or pulling or sucking in our stomachs or suffocating in a corset! It felt like when I used to play dress-up as a kid.

We decided in the beginning that the photographer was very important, because we had no guests, so we needed pictures that would really capture the feeling and experience of our day for them. At the same time, since it was just us and we had a big, adventurous day planned, we wanted someone who we would enjoy spending the most important day of our lives hanging out with and adventuring with! Our photographer, Maddie Mae, was just so much fun. It was like spending the day with a super adventurous friend who is also insanely talented. We just had the most fun all day long, and somehow she captured it all perfectly!

We knew we wanted an adventurous elopement, and once we came across the idea of chartering a helicopter, we decided we wanted to get married on a mountaintop, but we also wanted to be on the beach! So we chose Tofino, British Columbia, as our home base, chartered a helicopter with Atleo Air, and just told the pilot to take us “somewhere epic”-and he delivered! We started the day on the beach, got married on a snow-covered mountain, picnicked on an empty island, frolicked through a coastal rainforest, and ended the day back on the gorgeous beaches of Tofino at sunset! It seems like we hit every eco system on our day!