This wedding has the perfect amount of romance. Maybe it’s the gorgeous backdrop of The Morton Arboretum or maybe it’s all the sweet DIY details covering every corner of this sweet fête. But I am pretty sure what makes this gorgeous day captured by Just Love Me {Photography + Design} as romantic as they come is the new Mr. & Mrs. that everyone came to celebrate. They are what make this wedding favorite-worthy, and you can see all the reasons why right here.
And don’t miss their sweet film from Robert Cawthorne Wedding Films…
Lisa & Justin (Lisle, IL) from Robert Cawthorne on Vimeo.
From the Bride… Justin and I never knew we went to high school together until we met for the first time at our prom when I went with his best friend. Four years later, we met again through Justin’s college roommate, Andy, and the rest is history!
As soon as we got engaged, we knew we wanted to have an intimate and romantic wedding with our closest friends and family. It was important for the wedding to feel like “us” so we went the non-traditional route by having no bridal party, asked my sister to be our ring bearer, decided not to have a bouquet or garter toss and made it a point to play absolutely no cliché wedding songs. We also chose to do a first look and wrote our ten-minute ceremony where Andy officiated, making it all the more special because he’s seen our relationship grow from the beginning.
We had such a clear vision of the style of the wedding from day one as well. When we visited the Morton Arboretum we fell in love. Its natural beauty was the perfect backdrop for our “enchanted forest” theme. It boasted a unique space, breathtaking views and the convenience of housing the entire wedding in one location. We wanted to enhance the beauty of the Arboretum so we mixed a neutral color palette of white, dove grey, ice blue and blush with various textures. The style blended an ethereal romance with woodland details by combining lush floral arrangements, iced berries, birch accents, moss, twinkling lights and flowy chiffon and velvet fabric.
We made it a point to intertwine a ton of personalized details into the wedding. The word forever was the main inspiration because Justin told me he knew I was the one when the word forever suddenly had meaning. So it was incorporated into our save the dates, invitations, décor, vows and even the toasts. Because we got married in a library, our rings were tied in the first book Justin ever bought me, which he wrote an inscription in. So I wrote our love story on the cover and my vows on a page from the book, and inside I wrote my own inscription to Justin with the words, “Say You Will”. Everyone also knows we adore our rescue animals, so we added them to our cake topper and played homage to our cat Abe by getting Justin personalized Abe Lincoln cuff links. And as we expressed in our engagement shoot, coffee, particularly Starbucks, means a lot to us. So Starbucks was incorporated into our photos, cake topper, mini desserts and our favors which were chocolate covered espresso beans in Starbucks cups with a personalized logo I made. These were all little details, but were really special and truly made the wedding feel like “us”.
There wasn’t a lot of indoor winter wedding inspiration, so most of our ideas were from re-imagining various aspects of weddings we had seen on blogs and in magazines, as well as pulling from our own personal style and visiting my favorite Anthropologie locations for display ideas. Nearly all of the decor was DIY so we spent many long nights painting, crafting and putting together favors. I also designed and printed all of our paper goods and signage and hand drew the floral design that was carried throughout the wedding. It was a lot of hard work, but it was all worth it in the end because it was truly amazing to see all of our planning come together and we will forever cherish the moments of that day.
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Wedding Photography: Just Love Me {Photography + Design} | Wedding Venue: The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois | Venue Coordination: Denise Martinez of the Morton Arboretum | Cinematography: Robert Cawthorne Wedding Films | Floral Design: Town & Country Gardens | Event Design + Invitations + Paper Goods: DIY by Bride | Wedding Cake: The Cakery | Catering + Rentals: Classic Fare Catering | Drapery: Elegant Event Lighting | Ceremony Music – Justin & Jason Picchiotti | DJ: Toast & Jam | Wedding Dress: Jasmine Bridal at VIP Occasions | Veil: Sandra’s Designs + DIY comb (re-deisgned from a BHLDN sash, by Bride) | Shoes: Badgley Mischka | Earrings: Fossil | Belt: Diana by Enzoani
Garter: Handmade by the Bride | Hair + Makeup: Patricia Casolari (sister of the bride) | Groom’s Suit: J. Crew