Vintage bridesmaids looks from the Peacock Room

May 23, 2013June 10, 2013 by Steph | 1 Comment

Did you enjoy the vintage wedding inspired bridal photoshoot last week on LoveintheD? Check out more Peacock Room looks captured by bella moon Photography! These dresses would work wonderfully as bridesmaid dresses for spring or fall weddings. Make-up artistry was provided by Ethereal Beauty.

Marcia (left) and Lauren (right) are both wearing vintage dresses.
Kezia (center) is wearing a new but vintage-inspired dress.

Okay, okay. These dresses aren’t vintage but I love their simplicity and elegance.

Consider checking out the Peacock Room’s fascinator collection!

Readers: Are you thinking about purchasing vintage bridesmaid dresses? Or vintage wedding accessories?

4 reasons to go vintage … and a bridal photoshoot!

May 13, 2013June 10, 2013 by Steph | 13 Comments

Have you thought about “going vintage” with your wedding? From the decor to the photography and everywhere in between, there are so many options and there is no way I could fit everything about vintage weddings in one blog post. So I’ll focus on vintage wedding gowns!

Why buy a vintage dress?

1. Rachel, owner of the Peacock Room, alerted me to the environmental impact of purchasing new clothing. Did you know that by reusing one pound of clothing, you can save 10,000 pounds of water, a half pound of fertilizers, four ounces of pesticides, and six pounds of carbon emissions? All that water is used for milling fabric. Gallons and gallons of chemicals are put in into the water supply and those pesticides are, of course, used on crops that are used to create fabric. [Source]

2. Chances are, you probably won’t see your wedding gown on another bride! Why not go for something unique and one-of-a-kind — something vintage? Vintage styles and vintage cuts will make you stand out.

3. Save some money. Buying a vintage wedding gown could save you some serious cash.

4. Quality. Multiple sources indicate that vintage wedding gowns often have high quality construction.

There are several places to find vintage apparel in Detroit, and the Peacock Room is one of them. LoveintheD recently brought some Detroit women of color into the shop to try on some of the vintage and vintage inspired pieces that would be perfect as wedding dresses and accessories. I am excited to share this fabulous vintage wedding inspired bridal photoshoot by bella moon Photography. Ethereal Beauty did an amazing job with the make-up!

Lauren in a vintage dress. What do you think of that lace?

Lan tried on (and purchased!) this vintage-inspired dress. Also, check out the awesome necklace!

Okay. I will admit that I was skeptical about this blue vintage dress as a wedding dress but, as Tim Gunn would say, Marcia totally makes it work!

Lastly, how amazing is this vintage bridal headpiece?

Come back next week to check out the vintage bridesmaids looks, also courtesy of the Peacock Room, bella moon Photography, and Ethereal Beauty.

[photography] Ashley & Scotty’s engagement photo shoot in Palmer Park

May 9, 2013April 29, 2013 by Steph | 4 Comments

I’m excited that you get to see these engagement photos today! Tracy & Riva have graciously shared Ashley & Scotty’s Palmer Park shoot with LoveintheD. In case you missed it a few months ago, check out some of the bests of Tracy & Riva’s wedding photography.

[real wedding] Ana and Joel’s sustainable Belle Isle wedding

May 3, 2013April 18, 2013 by Steph | 4 Comments

When I first started LoveintheD, a friend said I absolutely must talk with Ana and Joel about their socially conscious wedding! After interviewing them, it was absolutely clear why! Ana and Joel had three themes for their July 4, 2009 wedding: community, sustainability, and health.

Sean and I may have had our first date on the same day that Ana and Joel met! Ana and Joel were both at the Detroit Festival of the Arts. Ana had just come back to the Detroit area, and hadn’t seen many bike commuters. She saw Joel on his bike and knew that he was a fellow bike commuter! He noticed her too. They began talking and found a million things in common.

Tell me about your love for Detroit.

Joel: We are passionate about spending our money in Detroit. A wedding is a major capital investment, so we made a commitment that we wanted to get married in Detroit and use Detroit vendors as much as we could. I work in sustainability and am excited about Detroit being a hotbed for a more sustainable, greener society.

Ana: My dad had a big presence in Detroit as an advertising photographer who was really involved in his community. My father was known by many people in the city and had a very deep love and commitment to the city. After coming back from the west coast, I knew this is the place where I want to spend the rest of my life.

The details:

Venue: Belle Isle
Photographer: Lance Havelka
Flowers: Mother’s friend (bamboo stalks)
DJ: Brian Gillespie
Videography: Rand Shackleton
Officiants: Richard Andres and Deb Lentz
Food: Prepared by Canape Cart
Chairs and tables: C&N Rentals

How did you incorporate Detroit into your wedding?

We chose Belle Isle because it is the nature area of the city. We go to Belle Isle to swim in the summer, to cross-country ski in the winter, to bike, and to participate in the Motor City Triathlon. Our out of town guests stayed at the Double Tree Hotel. We created tour maps, which included cool places like Lafayette Coney Island, the Heidelberg Project, Mexicantown, iconic downtown buildings, and community gardens. We gave out Detroit goodie bags. We wanted to make sure people left with a good impression of the city.

Tell us about the bike ride!

We go on a 1000-mile bike tour every summer. You read that right. After the ceremony, we held a bike processional! We rode a tandem and about fifty of our guests followed us around the fountain on Belle Isle!

Sustainability is a big part of your lives. How did that translate into your wedding meal?

All our food at the wedding was grown within 100 miles of Detroit. Most of the food was grown much closer. The meat was purchased from an Eastern Market farmer. Brother Nature provided the greens. The Canapé Cart was excited about preparing our meal using local food! Instead of a wedding cake, our baker friends brought fruit pies.

What was your favorite moment of the wedding?

Joel: Our vows were special — we wrote them ourselves. We asked the community to support us.

Ana: My dad had a stroke and was paralyzed on one side. Yet he actually walked me down the aisle. That took everyone’s breath away. The moment when he got up out of his wheelchair was pretty awesome. The bike processional was also very cool. We did a salsa number for our first dance. That was fun! The food was incredible! Food is a big part of our lives and that was important. I had a lot of favorite moments!

What words of advice do you have for those planning their own Detroit weddings?

Joel: Determine your highest priority and put a lot of energy and effort into making that element really good. Recognize what you can let go of a little bit. You can’t control everything! If food quality is important to you, find a venue that doesn’t require you to use their kitchen. If you have to use the in-house kitchen, you can’t really tell the venue to use a certain caterer.

Ana: You can make an impact on your local economy because you’re probably spending so much money! One thing that was really hard was narrowing down the guest list. You don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. Have you shared a meal with them in the last year? Do you want them in your life in the next ten years? Use those questions to help you decide.

[engaged in the d] Bride on Bride – Part Two

April 30, 2013April 23, 2013 by Steph | Leave a comment

Bride on Bride: Patriarchy, Bride Culture, and Space to Be Queer
Part Two

Engaged in the D blog post by Katherine [Read Part One]

…So we had to find other ways to plan our wedding, ways that didn’t require us to designate one partner as the bride and the other as secondary. We had to try to figure out how to play to our individual strengths while supporting each other and checking in with each other. Because we both identify as “brides” and neither of us feels like a “groom”, this might have been easier for us than for some straight couples. I’m not actually sure. Like I said, I’ve never gotten married before.

We’ve been taking on individual tasks where we can, doing a lot together, and trying to be honest about what we are capable of. I’ve heard it said that nothing will test the staying power of your relationship quite like planning a wedding, and that might be true. I’ll be honest – it isn’t all lovey-dovey. We’ve certainly had our share of disagreements. We try to remember that our wedding, like our marriage, isn’t something one person is doing and the other is going along with. It’s something we are doing together. It should reflect that.

That doesn’t mean that we both have to do every single thing. For example, Chelsea gets kind of freaked out by numbers, and I get kind of freaked out by making phone calls. One of our first agreements about the wedding was that she is in charge of calling people, and I’m in charge of drawing up the budget. Sometimes I’m a bit more planning-oriented than she is, which means that often times I’ve been the one bringing ideas to the table, and then we make decisions together. But it’s not exclusively like that, and I don’t make decisions about the wedding without her, or vice versa. I won’t sign up for any site that offers me a “community of other brides” and asks me to list us as “Katherine” first and “and her partner Chelsea” second. It may seem like a little thing, but language matters.

• •

It feels particularly important because we are trying to do this whole getting married thing as ethically as possible. One of our biggest values as a couple is being in an egalitarian partnership, and one of the best things about our particular egalitarian partnership (we’ve both said this, at various points) is that we help to push each other to live according to our values. So when we discussed the possibility of hiring a caterer, we needed to talk to each other about what our ethical requirements would be for that (local business? locally sourced ingredients? plant-based foods? where is it ok to compromise and where is compromise off the table?) and how that would play out before we could look into any specific options. We aren’t either of us perfect, and our wedding won’t be perfect either.

But for it to be the best that it can be, we need to be doing it together.

• •

Readers: Are you and your fiancé/e splitting up the wedding planning tasks? If so, how?

[engaged in the d] Bride on Bride – Part One

April 23, 2013April 23, 2013 by Steph | 1 Comment

Bride on Bride: Patriarchy, Bride Culture, and Space to Be Queer
Part One

Engaged in the D blog post by Katherine

First, a confession: Sometimes I spend a lot of time on Facebook. It can be both a useful tool for staying connected with people, and a time-suck that drains all of one’s emotional energy and leaves one sort of generically angry and displeased with the world, and yeah, I use it for both. Now that that’s out of the way.

Last year, before I was engaged, nearly all the ads I saw on Facebook were for engagement rings. That’s not particularly surprising, I’m a mid-late twenty-something, and I listed myself as “in a relationship”, I’m sure without knowing anything else about me, that made me part of the prime market for such a thing as far as the algorithms were concerned. It did feel a little eerie, though, to see those ads all the time, while I was nervously ordering Chelsea’s ring and planning the proposal.

And then, I proposed. And then, yeah, we had to change our relationship status on the internet. It was easier than calling every single person we know.

And then, like magic, the ring ads disappeared.

What came next was an awful lot of ads to help us plan our wedding. I’ve never planned a wedding before (first and only time doing this!) and so I found myself wondering which, if any, of these sites that were being advertised would be helpful to me. I even clicked a couple of them.

And then the problem became apparent. Did I say “ads to help us plan our wedding?” because that isn’t actually correct. I meant “ads to help me plan my wedding.” That’s when I discovered what I now refer to as “Bride Culture.”

Bride Culture is the culture of immense pressure put specifically on engaged women. It was that the wedding is mostly about the woman, mostly about the dress. It says that everything has to be perfect, and by perfect, we of course mean perfect according to your 8-year-old self who watched too many princess movies, regardless of whether or not your values and goals have changed since then. Bride Culture assumes that your wedding is the most important day of your life, and that it is planned by the Bride (and maybe her mother) with very limited input from whom she is marrying.

And just in case it isn’t obvious, Bride Culture is definitely part of patriarchy.

• •

Now I don’t have a problem with how anyone else has their relationship, or how anyone else plans their wedding. If you determine that one partner has more interest in or time for planning the event than the other partner, cool, that person should probably plan it! If that person happens to be a lady, that’s cool too. The problem that I have is the cultural assumption that women are the ones planning weddings, and the implication that there are these crowds of disinterested partners (mostly grooms, but I found the same assumptions on plenty of gay wedding sites as well) just waiting in the wings for their blushing brides to finish making all the decisions.

Put quite simply, it just wasn’t us.

• •

Want to learn how Katherine and Chelsea have shifted away from the Bride Culture paradigm in their wedding planning process? Come back to LoveintheD next week to read more!

[real wedding] Alicia and Lee’s Unitarian Universalist wedding

April 18, 2013June 10, 2013 by Steph | 2 Comments

Today’s LoveintheD real wedding post is short and sweet.

In 2009, Sean and I attended the wedding of our friends Alicia and Lee. We became friends when Sean and I began attending services at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit at the time Alicia was on the board. Alicia and Lee had an intimate winter wedding… and the Christmas Eve candles were still up in the church. It was beautiful! One of the highlights was the yummy dessert bar. Another highlight was the way the officiant spoke about Alicia and Lee’s hope that the marriages of same sex couples would someday soon be legally recognized across the country.

From Alicia:

As a mature couple, we opted for a small, do-it-yourself (DIY) type wedding. We were surrounded by our family and friends with a style that was all our own. By having a small DYI service and reception, we were able to have the wedding we wanted; we avoided expectations of others…

The details:
Venue: First Unitarian Universalist Church (service) and old Victorian house (reception)
Officiant: Reverend Drew Johnston
Flowers: Eastern Market vendors
Reception: Dessert theme with sweets, treats, and warm drinks
Music: Recorded music from the 1980s
Photographer: William Townley of TVisuals (Lee’s uncle )
Tailor: Area Code 313 Blu
Hair: Curl Up & Dye

Tell me about your love for Detroit.

Like love, my affection for the city changes and grows over the years. The city allowed me to become my own person, taught me to stand on my own, and taught me that I can be the change I want to see in life.

Having a wedding in Detroit meant we could have a wedding that reflect us, our style and our love of independence, reinvention, and reclamation. Our officiant, Rev Johnston, made the ceremony that reflected us as individuals and as a couple while including our guests. The ceremony was something I will never forget.

How did you incorporate Detroit into your wedding? What socially or environmentally conscious choices did you make during the wedding planning process?

Our tailor provided us with a custom designed dress and a custom designed tuxedo. Our wedding was in Detroit in a historic church building known for social justice work. For the reception, we used local retail, shops and services. The dessert reception featured sweets from various local bakeries. We recycled where we could. The wedding planning was all-volunteer and our wedding incorporated many DIY elements.

What was your favorite moment of the wedding?

One of my favorite moments was seeing all the candlelight in sanctuary and the snow falling during the reception. Also, I really enjoyed the late evening festivities with few good friends sharing wine and scotch.

What words of advice do you have for those planning their own Detroit weddings?

DIY weddings are very possible! Having your style of wedding is also possible. Not every wedding has to be “by the book.” Design a wedding that reflects you, your spouse, and your future together!

[sneak peek] Vintage wedding inspired photoshoot at the Peacock Room

April 15, 2013June 10, 2013 by Steph | 1 Comment

If you follow LoveintheD on Twitter, you might be aware of the fact that we held the first LoveintheD photoshoot a few weeks ago! Many thanks to Rachel Lutz at the Peacock Room, bella moon Photography, Ethereal Beauty by Becky, and four fabulous friends-turned-models-for-a-day (Kezia, Lan, Lauren, and Marcia), there are several fabulous vintage wedding inspired blog posts coming up in the next few weeks.

Below is a sneak peek of the photos taken by bella moon Photography!

Can you tell which pieces are vintage?

[real wedding] Heather & Guy’s wedding: food, bikes, and invites

April 11, 2013March 30, 2013 by Steph | 10 Comments

Heather Earnley and Guy Samuels unleashed their creative minds on their October 2012 wedding weekend with the ceremony, dance party reception, and bike ride on different days. I love the multicultural combination of Detroit and Hamtramck caterers that Heather and Guy booked for their wedding. The photos of the bike ride and the printed materials that the bride designed herself show how this couple was able to make their wedding uniquely their own!

Originally, Heather and Guy were to be married a few weeks before the reception weekend. But when they learned that Guy’s father would be able to come into town from Miami, they decided to have the wedding ceremony during the same weekend so he could be present for everything. Heather said: “That made everything a little more chaotic, but I wouldn’t change a thing to be able to share that with Guy’s father!”

Venues: Ceremony at Belle Isle Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory / Reception dance party at Northern Lights Lounge / Post-bike-tour dinner: Motor City Brewing Works
DJ: Craig Gonzales
Catering: Jamaica Jamaica, Royal Kabob, Jacques Taco Truck, Sgt. Pepperoni’s, and Franklin Cider Mill
Invitations: Toboggan Run Stationery (run by the bride!)
Rings: Engagement ring by Ericia Bartels, bride’s wedding ring by Melle Finelli, groom’s ring by Minter and Richter Designs
Hair: Red

Tell me about your love for Detroit.

There is so much hidden culture and cool quirks about Detroit, that it always feels like an inside secret.

How did you give your wedding guests a “Detroit experience?”

Most of our family do not hang out in Detroit, and only about half of our friends do, so we wanted to have a few events that introduced everyone to the great things that we do all the time, and are unique to Detroit. We wanted to sort of use our wedding as a showcase to spoil our friends and family with cool experiences. We wanted to use some of our favorite local restaurants for our food instead of hiring a caterer. It was also important to us that we had an organized bike ride. Biking is such a great way to see the city and much more immediate than riding around in a car. A lot of people who did the ride had never ever heard of the Cut or knew about the new murals in Eastern Market and stuff, so it was great to introduce that.

Guy and I love to ride our bikes through the city, and we wanted to share that with our friends and family. Plus, we had a fair amount of people coming in from out of town and we wanted to make the trip memorable. We wanted to showcase the Riverwalk, the Dequindre Cut, the new Eastern Market graffiti, Belle Isle, and the Heidelberg Project.

Wheelhouse Detroit is a company that rents bikes right on the Riverwalk, which was perfect for all our out of town guests. I mapped out a route that was about 16 miles, that included all of the sights we wanted to highlight, and I felt was an easy, fun distance. Everyone had a great time, despite the rain that threatened to cancel the ride, and the sun came out by the end and all was well.

You had quite a lot of caterers! Tell me about the food.

Guy’s one request in all of the planning was he wanted Jamaican food to celebrate his heritage. We ordered Patties (both veggie and meat) and chicken wings from Jamaica Jamaica, a Jamaican Restaurant in Detroit. We also ordered a fatoush salad from our favorite Middle Eastern place in Hamtramck, Royal Kabob. I have had a major obsession with tacos for years and so having a Taco Cart come and serve tacos and enchiladas was a natural choice. The Jacques Tacos Truck was a hit, as was the fatoush and jerk chicken. We had pizzas delivered by Sgt. Pepperoni as a late night snack as well. And for dessert we had cider and doughnuts from the Franklin Cider Mill.

What was your favorite part of the wedding planning process?

Designing all of the stationery was definitely my favorite part of the planning. It was such a fun challenge to create a beautiful invitation that perfectly conveyed the spirit of our celebration. And then to expand that vision into a whole suite of cards was awesome. My other favorite moment was when Guy and I were choosing our Vows for the ceremony. We were both on our laptops, drinking a glass of wine and laughing over all of the saucy ones that we kept finding that were not what we were looking for, but so funny and inappropriate. I enjoyed all of the planning process, but that night was probably my favorite.

What words of advice do you have for those planning their own Detroit weddings?

I would say: Don’t be afraid to find creative solutions! Weddings have a magical effect on people and friends and family will come out and support your ideas or your vision, so don’t be afraid to do what you want.

Engaged in the D – Meet the LoveintheD guest bloggers!

April 9, 2013June 10, 2013 by Steph | 4 Comments

I am excited to announce that LoveintheD has four new guest bloggers! All of them are engaged people planning their weddings in Detroit. Katherine will be one of the guest bloggers, Roland will be another, and Chris and Melissa are planning to write some posts together as a team!

Are you as excited as I am to hear what they have to say about their wedding planning experience? I anticipate that you, the LoveintheD readers, will get to read all about making weddings as close to zero waste as possible, learning how to make a wedding dress, and ways to keep costs down and support local vendors.

Meet the “Engaged in the D” guest bloggers for Loveinthe D.

Katherine & Chelsea

Wedding date: Friday, September 6, 2013

Katherine tells the engagement story:

It was the end of December, the last full moon of the year. Shortly after Chelsea and I started dating, we started celebrating full moons together as often as possible. In the summer, sometimes we’d pack a picnic. In the colder months, typically we’d take a walk. So, two days after Christmas, I came home from visiting my family in Lansing, and I asked her if she would like to take a walk with me. The sky was perfectly clear. My heart was about to fly out of my chest. She said that sounded nice.

I mulled some wine and we set out. I am not very good at keeping secrets or surprises, especially with people I am close to, because I want to tell them everything. I was so certain I would give my purposes away at any moment, but somehow it didn’t happen. On the walk we talked about past full moons, about how we’ve grown together, about how funny it now seems that we were once shy and nervous around one and other all the time, and about the idea of building a future on this foundation of love and support. I steered us towards one of my favorite pedestrian bridges, so we could look at the moon. Then I took a candle out of my pocket, only to discover that my lighter was broken.

So I had to read my speech by moonlight.

I won’t reproduce it here or anywhere, but it was about how being with her has made me a better person, and I want to keep growing with her. She smiled, just thinking I was being romantic and sweet, until the end. At the end, I offered to spend all of my days with her, and asked for the favor of getting to share hers. I watched her hands creep up over her face. And it was at that romantic moment that I realized, I hadn’t got out the ring yet, and in all of my planning, I’d never decided if I was going to kneel! The ring is beautiful (plug for Emily Wiser, who made the ring and is making my engagement ring, and our wedding bands as well) and also ethical and personal. It’s all recycled gold, and the stone is a small moonstone. One of the old legends about moonstones is that, if you give one to your lover on the full moon, it will strengthen your bond and make your relationship more enduring.

She said yes. We’re getting married on September Sixth, Two Thousand Thirteen.

Chris & Melissa

Wedding date: Saturday, July 20, 2013 at the Detroit Yacht Club

Chris tells the engagement story:

I didn’t propose to Melissa. We arrived at a consensus. Melissa Damaschke, enivronmentalist, feminist, progressive, and protector of the Great Lakes, did not want to be “asked” to be a man’s wife. I knew this and other things from the many discussions we’ve had on the subject for the last six years. However, the term “consensus” was a recent development. Nonetheless, in October 2012, recognizing a marriage would be somewhere in our near future, we fell into a life of Sinful Living with all its temptations: sharing an address, splitting bills, and passive/aggresively leaving dishes in the sink. I don’t make enough money as a piano teacher and part-time art teacher to have surprised her with a really nice diamond ring. This is acceptable, however, as Melissa didn’t want a diamond given the complicated and violent world of the diamond trade. Infact, lucky me, she’s not really into jewelry.

Saturday morning, November 3rd 2012, Melissa and I were running errands one of which was a stop at SOCCRA (the recycling center in Troy/Royal Oak on Coolidge). After we dumped a few boxes of paper, plastic, and glass we returned to the car. I turned down the volume of the stereo and reached for her hands. I said, “I’d like to put forth a vote on us getting married.” She laughed and said, “Seriously, Holt? You’re doing this here?!” I replied in the affirmative. “Where else does one reach a consensus with Melissa Damaschke?” She laughed again and said yes. No ring, just a simple question put forth to the vote. When we got home, I pulled-out a twist tie. Wrapping it around her finger I said, “This is what you get for marrying a poor musician. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Now, we’re looking forward to our Green Detroit wedding!

Roland and Matthew

Engagement story coming soon!

Engaged readers: What are the highlights from your wedding planning process thus far?

LoveintheD

Socially conscious Detroit weddings and happenings

Tag Archives: detroit wedding

Vintage bridesmaids looks from the Peacock Room

4 reasons to go vintage … and a bridal photoshoot!

[photography] Ashley & Scotty’s engagement photo shoot in Palmer Park

[real wedding] Ana and Joel’s sustainable Belle Isle wedding

[engaged in the d] Bride on Bride – Part Two

[engaged in the d] Bride on Bride – Part One

[real wedding] Alicia and Lee’s Unitarian Universalist wedding

[sneak peek] Vintage wedding inspired photoshoot at the Peacock Room

[real wedding] Heather & Guy’s wedding: food, bikes, and invites

Engaged in the D – Meet the LoveintheD guest bloggers!