Of the Jonathan Adler fans in the world, we consider ourselves pretty serious megafans here at SMP. Needless to say, when a wedding comes along inspired by Mr. Adler, we all sit in awe as we take in every image from Trevor Dayley Photography. The bride and Butterfly Petals did a phenomenal job creating a wedding that was perfectly fit for the couple – yet admired by Adler fans everywhere.
From the beautiful bride… Geary and I are both Arizona natives (a rare thing here!), so from the beginning we knew we wanted our wedding to showcase all the beauty our home state has to offer. The amazing Superstition Mountains of Gold Canyon was the perfect backdrop for our modern desert wedding. We loved that it was enough out of the city that even our local guests felt like they experienced a little getaway. We also lucked out with a beautiful year for wildflowers, which added a natural pop of color to the setting. Geary and I met in design school and are big architecture nerds, so we knew we wanted to blend our love of the desert landscape with our love of mid-century modern design. We were engaged in Palm Springs and that 60’s style architecture set the tone for a lot of our design decisions from the invitations to the vases.
With that framework in mind, we set out to weave in lots of personal details to make our wedding uniquely ours. My family collects handcrafted bronze bells by local architect and artist Palo Soleri, which over the years has led to Gearys family growing their bell collection as well. For our ceremony, we borrowed all our families’ bells and hung them in the paloverdi trees framing our ceremony lawn. The sound of those bells always makes me feel like I am home and to hear them softly ringing as we said our vows is an experience I’ll always cherish. We hung smaller Soleri bells down the aisle from shepherd hooks that Geary sprayed painted gold. We gave them to our parents and grandparents afterwards to thank them for all of their love and support. We also chose to honor our shared Irish heritage with a Handfasting Ceremony to literally “tie the knot”. I used washi tape to secure my late grandfather’s lucky penny into my strappy shoe for my “something borrowed” and wrapped the heirloom handkerchief Geary’s grandmother gave me for our engagement around my bouquet for my “something old”. We incorporated a lot of music by The Beatles to highlight our specials special moments throughout the day, because they were the songs of the soundtrack of our early years dating. We engraved “I Will” inside our rings as a nod to our first dance song and our take on the conventional “I Do”. I really love that we were able to create our own version of a “traditional wedding”.
The rest of our decor was a labor of love with our family and friends. My mom spent the entire year scouring discount shops for the perfect “Jonathon Adler-esque” vases and Geary’s mom sewed all our peach table runners. Over the past few years Geary and I have collected salvaged architectural letters in “K & G” so it was natural that we would include our monogram in our wedding. My mom and my bridesmaids stayed up well into the night the weekend before the wedding making hundreds of tissue paper tassels for garlands that I’d seen on Pinterest and just couldn’t live without. Our hotel guests welcome bags included an orange from a tree in my parent’s backyard, pistachios grown near Geary’s hometown in eastern Arizona, some of our favorite local chocolates, customized water bottles, and a “Greetings from Arizona” postcard listing the weekend’s festivities. We used a variety of Arizona postcards and mailbox for our guest book to add just a touch of Southwestern kitsch to the day. In lieu of favors, we surprised our guest with churros as a late night snack before our big sparkler exit.
Amanda Johnson with Butterfly Petals was a huge part of creating the simple, modern desert look we envisioned. She understood our vision immediately and added her unique point of view with amazing ideas involving loose succulents and air plants and interesting flowers to mix texture with soft volume. (She also, thankfully, talked me through a last minute panic of thinking I needed to add more flowers to everything) Im still in awe of the wild tendrils of blooming succulents she included in my bridesmaids bouquets. Drea Stickler of Desert House Productions was amazing and created the perfect mix of music from Motown to salsa and crooners to classic rock for our reception. One of my favorite parts of the night was our huge dance party. Everyone from Geary’s teenage cousin to our grandparents commented on how much they loved the music and it was wonderful to see everyone dancing together. Selecting vendors that you connect with and trust their style is so important and allows your entire vision to come alive. Our video from Caleb Alvarado and our photos from Trevor Dayley are more beautiful than we could have ever dreamed and will ensure that we never forget all the little details that made our day. Plus, they were just so fun to spend the whole day with, which makes such a huge difference. Geary and I couldnt have asked for a more amazing way to celebrate our next big adventure together filled with family and friends and a whole lot of love and laughter.
Photographer: Trevor Dayley Photography | Videographer: Caleb Alvarado Photography | Flowers: Butterfly Petals | Cake: Honeymoon Sweets | Brides Shoes: BHLDN | Bridesmaids' Shoes: Designer Shoe Warehouse | Officiant: Rev. Nick Martrain of Rev. Giovanni Ministries | Brides Dress: Atlier Diagonal "Oslo" | Brides Veil: Erica Koesler | Bridesmaids Dress: J.Crew | DJ / Music / Lighting: Desert House Productions | Dress Shop: Schaffers Bridal | Rehearsal Dinner Invites: Minted | Venue + Catering: Gold Canyon Golf Resort, Gold Canyon, AZ | Wedding Invites and Menus/Programs: delphine
