Monica and Trevor got married in Essex, Massachusetts in a quirky wedding filled with bubbles, “yay” flags, a fire pit (perfect for making s’mores), and lots and lots of vibrant blue details and decor, inspired by circles and spheres. Plus they had the cutest owl cake toppers in the world. It was all beautifully captured by Leah LaRiccia Photography and there’s lots of inspiration to be had with this gem.

Did your wedding location and date hold a special significance for you?
The date and wedding location held no particular significance. We wanted to get married outside in a natural setting, and we loved the beautiful pond and forest at ECCR when we visited it.

Tell us about the details of the day.
Our wedding was a relaxed, outdoor, family-oriented celebration of our love.  We started with the signing of our custom ketubah.  The ketubah was made from a photograph we took on a special trip and contained a customized, secular text.

Our wedding party consisted of one best man and 3 best women, as well as our 3 nieces as flower girls and our toddler cousin bearing a Yay! flag.  We were married on a peninsula with our guests on the other side of the pond.  Our celebrant helped us created a beautiful, personalized ceremony.  

At the reception, our first dance had surprise choreography, we had dances for the children, and we had a great time doing the hora! We ended the evening eating s’mores around a fire pit!

We had a blue and green color pallet and our decor was inspired by circles and spheres.  There were pearls on the wedding dress, bubbles at the ceremony, circles on the invitations, and spheres on the cake!  We filled the tent with blue, green and turquoise tissue poms, and the name cards were in little spherical topiary card holders.  

We had goodie bags filled with toys and games for all the children (and babies) at the wedding.  In the end, it was a reflection of us and a wonderful party with our family and friends!

Did you create any DIY projects?
Our big DIY project was our monster card box.  It was a lot of fun to make it together, and it was a big hit at the wedding!

What was the most meaningful part of your day?
The ceremony was the most meaningful part of the day for us.  We worked with our celebrant to create a personalized ceremony that was a real reflection of us.  Our best man and three best women each presented readings and poems that we selected to incorporate our values and sense of humor.  Before we took our personal vows, we each read special poems to each other.  We ended our secular ceremony with the Jewish tradition of breaking the glass – except we each broke a glass. (And I got to walk down the aisle to Pearl Jam!)

Did anything funny or out of the ordinary happen?
There were lots of out of the ordinary aspects to our wedding (but they were mostly planned).  We had a camp fire with s’mores. We had a surprise, choreographed first dance that started off slow (to “Sea of Love”) and then switched in the middle to “Say Hey, I Love You.”  We had a crazy DJ who did a lot of fun dances for all the kids at the wedding. The best women wore unmatched dresses they chose (my only specification was that they were about knee length and blue). Since my father is deceased, I walked down the aisle part way with my mom, part way alone, and part way together with Trevor. Instead of the father/daughter dance, we had a dance with my father’s immediate family. Trevor’s three nieces ran in circles around the mother/son dance. (And I got to walk down the aisle to Pearl Jam!)

Do you have any advice for couples planning their wedding?
Choose vendors that you really like!  We selected vendors that we generally enjoyed collaborating with to bring their talents to our wedding.  From the staff at our venue, to our celebrant, photographer, cake decorator, invitation maker, seamstress, and dance instructor, having vendors that were easy and fun to work with helped us to enjoy the planning process and achieve exactly what we wanted for the wedding.

Don’t start too far in advance!  We had a relatively short engagement of 7 months but if the wedding planning had stretched out much longer than that, I think we would have lost our minds.  It can be get exhausting to spend so much time focused on one day.  It really doesn’t take that long to get everything set.  Google Docs is a life saver.  Keeping all my files online allowed us easy access from anywhere.

Vendors:
Venue: Essex Conference Center and Retreat – Essex, MA
Photography: Leah LaRiccia Photography
Flowers: Audrey’s Flower Shop – Gloucester, MA
Celebrant: Cindy Matchett
Cake: Cake, Lexington, MA
Dress: Filene’s Running of the Brides Sale!
Hair and Makeup: Samantha Allen
Dancing Lessons: J.J. Williams
DJ: Brian McCarthy from All-Star Entertainment
Earrings: Rental from adorn.com
Wedding bands: Wedding Ring Hotline
Bridesmaid Scarves: Indigio Handloom
Photo ketubah (our picture and wording – they did the calligraphy and printing): Peggy H. Davis Calligraphy
Engagement Ring: mastergoldcraft
Letterpress invitations: BlushDesignStudio
Yay! flag: joyfuljoyful
Cake topper: fliepsiebieps
Shoe Clips: TwistedCrystals
Birdcage veil and fascinator: VirginiaGeigerJewels
Tissue poms: Crazy4Tutus