Bride’s Eye View: Part I

Hi everyone,

I am so pleased to share the details of our upcoming wedding with you all! So here goes…

Jamie and I are getting married August 28th on Orcas Island, in the San Juan Islands in northwest Washington. We got engaged last summer (three minutes before we took the picture below) and have spent over a year planning our wedding, so I’m excited to share some of what we’ve learned in the process!

As I set out to plan our wedding, I turned to the dozens of wedding design blogs for inspiration, including this one. I found great ideas for dresses, décor, beautiful locations and reception entertainment. However, the problem was that I found too many great ideas! Overwhelmed by all the shiny pretty wedding things, I realized I had to first think big picture before dealing in the details. So, Jamie and I asked ourselves what I think is the most important question as you start planning - “How do we want our wedding to feel?”

If you’ve ever visited the San Juan Islands, you know it’s a laid back place, and that’s how we imagined our wedding from the start. Our wedding slogan, so to speak, became “organic, coastal barbecue.” We wanted our wedding to feel like a more dressed up, organized and beautiful version of the parties we throw at our home, surrounded by friends, with tasty and healthy food, and plenty of Northwest wine and beer. We wanted our guests to remember our wedding as part of a memorable weekend when they relaxed, unplugged, and enjoyed the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

Once we knew how we wanted the day to feel, I was finally able to contemplate a specific location, décor, and the many details we’ve since planned. The hardest part of the process was editing down all my ideas into a few manageable DIY projects. Rachel and I discussed everything I was thinking of doing and then she put together this design board:



I loved it! Not only did it help me tie all my ideas together and visualize the mood of the wedding, it gave me something tangible I could show other vendors and friends.

And so…our wedding colors became many shades of blue (the “coastal”) with some orange and peach thrown in for contrast at Rachel’s suggestion. We bought a bolt of burlap and used it for anything and everything we could, and started saving and re-purposing glass and tin jars for flowers and candles (“organic”). And we chose food and drink vendors we were confident could deliver a delicious but casual menu (the “barbecue”).

Throughout the next couple weeks, I’ll share some of the specific projects we took on to make our wedding concept a reality, and how it all unfolds in just 25 days from today!

~ Chelsea