Philadelphia Wedding by Laura Novak
I am breaking my strict “exclusivity” policy to show you this darling wedding that has been making me smile all afternoon. Since it included so many of our incredible vendors and since the style is unabashedly lovely, I thought we could overlook our little rule. Just this once. Photographed by the one and only Laura Novak (who is basically one of the best photographers in the world), this is French inspired style with the most charming, approachable details. And we love it. Love, love, love it.
{click here to see additional photos}
The Photographer…To begin, the most important detail was choosing the absolute best photographer we could think of – or what would be the point of any of the other details?! And so we did! I had Laura Novak in mind since I discovered her work when writing wedding pieces for Philadelphia Magazine’s Elegant Wedding (looonnnnnng before getting engaged). Once we got engaged, the phone call to Laura’s office was the first one we made. After that, it was all (wedding) cake!
The Venue…Charles is Catholic and is from Nice, France and I am Jewish and from Philadelphia. We toyed with the idea of getting married in Nice and even found some exquisite locations but in the end, we decided on Philadelphia. But we wanted to sprinkle a bit of Provence and European flair into the details and create a French country garden party. Greystone Hall was the perfect venue. A grandiose English Renaissance Estate, with beautiful grounds, and historic relevance. There’s really no place like it around.
The Food…The food was incredibly important to us. We are big foodies, and have worked in hospitality, so this was an area to which we gave incredible attention to detail. We didn’t even really speak with any other caterers – we bee-lined it to Peachtree & Ward. Jon Weinrott is amazing. Details we wanted to include were an amuse bouche (best part of any meal!), a cheese course, wine pairings with each of the 5 courses (at least one of which had to include my favorite, foie gras), and a croquembouche wedding cake. The croquembouche was actually made by Robert Bennett, owner of AHB foods and prior longstanding pastry chef at Le Bec-Fin.
The Dress…After a long hunt, we discovered Ever After in Miami, which is a little shop close to my Mother. We are so glad we did. I was so lucky to find Nathalie – my beautiful Vera Wang dress. She is a class act, Nathalie. Ever After has an amazing team, including Leah who even calmly told me we would figure something out when I came into my second fitting a month before the wedding, panicked because I thought I had fallen out of love with Nathalie.
Found things…Charles, my mother, and I spent the year and a half leading up to the wedding collecting vintage handkerchief from various antique stores which we then displayed at the ceremony site, inviting guests to take one for “Tears of Joy”. We used this adorable motif of two little birds sitting on a leafy twig for a lot of our materials from the invitation to the menus and thank you cards. I found the image on etsy.com and the woman who had used it directed me to a stamp-maker in Canada who sold the stamped image. I bought the stamp and some ink, stamped it onto a piece of cardstock and passed it off to the graphic designers who scanned it and scaled it for each piece. I love this image – I think we’ll use it forever. The bridesmaids’ gifts were Lauren Merkin bags, which I packaged to include the flower-bloom combs that I had designed for them on etsy.com by Beetle and Bloom. I also got the ring-bearer’s pillow with black-and-white French script fabric as well as my garter belts and custom stickers for the OOT bags, on etsy.com. Lastly, my own hairpiece was designed by etsy.com seller, Muscari.
The Flowers…The flowers turned out exactly as I envisioned. Table Art run by the amazingly talented and super-chic Kathy Patty, did the most exquisite job ever! There were mismatched jars and vases and a garden of flowers in the middle of the table, which included hyacinth, peonies, chartreuse roses, blue thistle. WE LOVED IT! For the ‘party favors’ we offered silver mint julep cups filled with flowers for “Madmoiselles” and miniature bottles of Pastis for “Messieurs”. This display turned out to be gorgeous – it was like a flower market, with each julep cup carrying either tea roses, bunches of lavender, chartreuse roses, etc… We hung little tags from each that said “Merci”. To continue with the garden theme, we had Honey Wheat bread baked into small clay flowerpots and served with pink-salted butter.
The Paper Materials…I knew I wanted Two Paperdolls to custom design Save the Dates, placecards, table signs, programs, and menu’s for us. They have this magical way of listening to what you want, waving their graphic design wands, and presenting you with, well…you on paper. And pretty paper, at that! They created the most beautiful paper materials for us, even little tags with our branded bird motif to hang on the guest’s take-away gifts that said, “Merci!”.
Photography: Laura Novak Photography / Cinematography: VideoOne Productions / Flowers: Table Art / Event Design: Table Art / Event Planning: I Do Wedding Consulting / Ceremony Location: Greystone Hall / Reception Location: Greystone Hall / Invitations: Two Paperdolls (Save the Dates and Weekend of Materials) and The Papery of Philadelphia (Invitations) / Shoes: Christian Louboutin / Dress: Vera Wang, The Nathalie (From Ever After in Miami)
48 Comments about “Philadelphia Wedding by Laura Novak”
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I love love love this wedding. I am having a garden wedding myself and was wondering where the bridesmaids dresses came from or what designer they are?
Thanks! Style Me Pretty is a daily blog I look at 2 or 3 times a day!
Any idea where the flower girl dresses are from? They're exactly what I have in mind for my little ladies.
I love the plates!!! Gorgeous wedding!!!!!
love the use of the billy balls! They look so cute on the table setting.
May I ask what Etsy vendor you found your lovebird image through? My fiance and I are looking for an image to use on our papergoods, and yours sounds lovely. Any other advice on a great place to find an image to use on DIY papergoods would be very appreciated!
Thanks, and congrats on your lovely lovely wedding.
What a beautiful garden themed wedding! I love all the flowers and the turquoise dresses/accents. So beautiful, thanks for sharing!
any idea where she got her veil!? Ive been looking for one just like it!
I've seen these plates used in quite a few weddings. Does SMP feature a lot of weddings from this location in particular, or are they just very popular plates?
What was the name of the stamp company in Canada? Would really appreciate if you could share. Beautiful wedding. Congratulations!
Thanks SMP for showing off our wedding - we wish we could re-live it over again so seeing it up on SMP gets us as close to doing that as I think we'll get!
In response to some of the questions:
The Bridesmaids dresses were from Priscilla of Boston
The Flower Girl dress was from Annie Girl Dress Up (www.anniegirldressup.com)
My veil was from Ever After in Miami and was made to match the lace of the dress by their uber-talented team
And the stamp was from the Old Island Stamp Company (www.oldislandstamps.com) - It's the 'Two Little Birds' stamp by Emily Hull.
"Total Obsession" is all I can think of to describe how I feel about this wedding...the croquembouche, the lavender, the insanely gorgeous china! This is one to save in my inspiration files for years to come.
Her dress is breathtaking! We love the hankies for "tears of joy" as well - how charming!
I know wedding days are all about self-indulgence for the bride, as is SMP and most wedding blogs, but the foie gras shout-out just put a bad taste in my mouth. "Foody" is not synonymous with "cruelty." It's too bad some geese had to be force fed for her five-course meal. I'm not saying weddings have to be vegetarian, but I don't know, free-range is in on the West coast...
This wedding is stunning. The bridesmaids dresses, wedding gown, colors, flowers, china. Attention to detail is right, this looks like the setting of a Garden Fantasy on a movie set. The photography is amazing as well. Thanks for sharing.
What a dream, that is what these images make me think of. I just saw 'Alice in Wonderland' and it takes me there. Another dimension, some very unique details and the wedding cake has me getting late night cravings. The photography is gorgeous. Wonderful share!
The pictures are too beautiful. I would like to have such a wedding. The arrangements are awesome and what is beautiful is made more beautiful by capturing them on camera for us to marvel.
Cute. I'm pretty sure I saw this wedding in a philly wedding magazine. I remember those BM dresses. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.
I absolutely love her shoes-they are listed as Christian Louboutin but I can't find them anywhere-anyone have an idea of their origin?
I am in l-o-v-e with the bridesmaid dresses- the color and the ruffled hem are to die for!
@ Lexie they are the Christian Louboutin "Bow T Dorcet" It seems like they are the "IT" shoe Everyone wears them...and I would too if I could afford them!
I found those shoes on this discount website...
http://www.louboutinshoesdesigner.com/Christian-Louboutin-D-orsay/Christian-Louboutin-Bow-Satin-DOrsay-White.html
Not sure if it is a scam or not, it almost seems to good to be true!
I love this wedding and everyone involved with it.
Such a beautiful wedding - the 'cake' is awesome! I also love the leaf that has been added to the menu. It always astonishes me how such subtle little touches can add so much to a wedding design - and it's those little touches that are always remembered by guests .... Lovely!
I'm completely curious, what do you mean by exclusivity.
I'm just curious what the "rule" is? I'm hoping to submit my wedding, which is going to be completely fabulous considering all the love and little details I'm putting into it, so I'm just curious. :)
I loved everything about this wedding - so romantic and beautiful. I used Laura Novak for my wedding photographer and she is the best in the world! Amazing photos Laura...
I'm also curious about the "exclusive" rule? Maybe people borrow stuff, but I see a lot of recycled pictures from blog to blog. Does SMP only use those that aren't posted on other blogs? Anyhow, you always have the best stuff! ;)
Where did those plates come from? Did you just collect them over time? SO LOVELY!
Regarding "exclusivity," on the SMP contact page, under wedding submissions, is this note:
A very important note: We do not publish content that has already been published on other blogs or magazines, as we like to offer our readers something fresh and new. If you have submitted this for publication elsewhere, please let us know.
LOVE all of these comments and I knew you would heart this as much as I did!
As for exclusivity, we work really hard to only publish work that hasn't been on other blogs (with the exception of the vendor's own blog) or in national magazines. We get it right 90% of the times. The web is so viral though that images are picked up really quickly so it's not always obvious that we got the first dibs. But, that's ok. As long as you guys feel like we are doing a good job at offering up original stuff, we are pretty happy:)
Spectacular - this is my dream wedding. I absolutely love every single beautiful little detail, thank you so much for sharing and congratulations to the bride & groom!
Very cool Abby. I never miss my daily visit (or 3+) to SMP!
What a beautiful wedding! I recently started assisting a friend plan weddings held on a historic property he owns in Virginia. I'm glad I found your site! It's so informative, and I will be back often!
I love this wedding! The bride's dress is beautiful and there is such a lovely playful element to the bridemaids dresses with their cute frills too. Then there is the flowers and those plates are just gorgeous - what a great day!
Some beautiful ideas and lovely photographs of the wedding accessories! Lovely!
Oh!! I get it!!! lol that is a good rule. As for posting things on other websites, well why would anyone do that!! If I may toot the horn of smp this is THE best website I've found since starting the planning of our wedding. I am addicted, addicted so much that I've told my husband when we get rich we will plan like 5 more weddings just so I can use new ideas and colors and styles and themes...it's endless!!
You MADE my day Jessica!!! XOXO
Love love love those plates! Anyone know where they are from??? Im obscessed!
I am in the business of making days :) glad i've got one more satisfied customer lol hee hee xoxo back
Can you tell me what month you got married at Greystone , and how the weather was? Was it under the tent? Warm enough?
Please let me know as I am trying to decide..thanks
Donna,
It was May 30th, 2010. The tent is a permanent structure where weddings at Greystone are held and we had PERFECT weather :)
These pictures are fantastic! Great work Laura! I could certainly learn from your style!
I'm planning my own wedding in the Limousin region of France, near to where my parents live, next July. This wedding has given me such inspiration for making it the most perfect day. One thing I'm really keen on is the table setting. Where are the plates from? They are so gorgeous. Are they Limoges plates? Please let me know!!
It is really my dreaming wedding party and the pictures are fantastic!
yes this wedding photography is the art of photography...
Today YouTube video tutorials quality is more improved and improved, thus that’s the motive that I am watching this video at at this place.