New Mexico Weddings

Today’s featured photographers are our great friends and Little Black Book members Kitty and Craig Fritz, Twin Lens. If you’re a Style Me Pretty faithful, you’ll know that we absolutely LOVE every wedding they send our way! Renae & Alex’s is no exception. Kitty and Craig even said that this late August wedding, at gorgeous mountain hacienda in Cerrillos, NM (along the Turquoise Trail) was on of the most relaxed and downright fun wedding they’d ever photographed. See what you think!

Renae has sent us a little bit about their wedding details …  we’ll have that with more beautiful images from Twin Lens in a few minutes.

{to see the full gallery, click here!}

photography by Twin Lens Images

This looks like scenes from a great old movie that I’d love to see!

We’ll have Renae & Alex’s wedding story (sent to us by Kitty & Craig at Twin Lens) a little later on today … see ya’ then!

Thank you so much to Kelly and Christopher for sharing their absolutely beautiful day with us! I think that I speak for all of us when I say that it was, well…inspiring. And, a huge thank you to Kitty and Craig of Twin Lens for sending us these beautiful images. They speak volumes as to just how talented you guys are!

From Kelly, the bride…

We served cigars in honor of my late father who was an avid cigar smoker.  A photo of him next to the cigars became a great way for family and friends to remember him.  We had our caterer mix us 2 specialty cocktails- a Blackberry Mojito and a Lavender Martini that we named the San G- the local nickname of the inn- and The Contender- in honor of one of our favorite movie scenes from “On the Waterfront”.  Our 3 long family-style dinner tables were named after 3 of our favorite fictional and real-life couples- Nick and Nora, Lizzie and Mr. Darcy, and Paul and Joanne (Newman and Woodward), a couple we were both lucky enough to meet.

Our photographers, Kitty & Craig from Twin Lens, added to the spontaneous and organic feeling of the night by blending in completely.  We got the most amazing photos and hardly even knew they were there.  That was hugely important to us.   Our caterers, Marja Catering- from Santa Fe- also did an amazing job of serving delicious farm fresh food while dealing with crazy changes in weather and location throughout the evening.

We feature so many gorgeous weddings on Style Me Pretty. From chic and modern to elegant and traditional, each wedding seems to really have a personality of its own. And to be honest, that is exactly why I love today’s real wedding…the ridiculously lovely couple, the incredibly warm decor and the hugely personal details that the pair infused into literally every corner. It’s simply delicious.

the lovely photographs were shot by Twin Lens Images

From the bride, Kelly…

Herbs were important to me because they are simple, natural and each have a beautiful meaning.  We used herbs including lavender, sage and thyme for the table settings and wedding party flowers.  I wanted it to have a natural and fresh summer feeling.  The colors I chose were also organic to the setting.  I used lavender, sage and adobe to match the earth and the inn.  We pinned the place cards to oranges at each table setting as I am originally from Florida and wanted to pay homage to the Sunshine State. Our caterer and cake-maker used organic ingredients in the food and cake and for gift bags we gave local products, Mexican wedding cookies and New Mexico tin Corazon ornaments in canvas reusable bags.

We projected a homemade montage of our favorite film scenes on one of the adobe walls, throughout the reception.  I loved looking up periodically throughout the night and seeing flashes of our favorite movie moments.

I have a few more amazing details to come, so stay tuned!

I am just loving today’s featured wedding…mostly because of the quiet elegance that the couple exudes. But, also because of the wonderfully touching details that they brought into their decor. The photographs were all sent to us by Kitty and Craig of Twin lens…a hugely talented husband and wife team out of New Mexico.

From the bride…

I asked Christopher’s mom and sisters to make him a Yodel cake for his groom’s cake.  Not exactly organic, but definitely personal, his mother used to make him a Yodel cake every year for his birthday so he was so surprised when he saw it and loved that his family had made it for him.  The Yodels proved to be difficult as they are only sold on the east coast.  It’s basically a Ho-Ho but Christopher is a Yodel purist so I knew if we were going to do it, we had to do it right.  I ran around New York buying up boxes of Yodels to hide in my luggage for weeks before the wedding. 

Another important family element was wearing the 50 year old garter that Christopher’s mom gave me.  She and her daughters wore it at their weddings.  Christopher’s parents were both dancers in the New York City Ballet as well and the garter has been worn by dozens of ballerinas in their weddings since the 1950s.

Our band was close to home as well as it is the Texas blues band that my mother’s boyfriend plays with.  As we have lots of performers in our family and group of friends, many people sat in with the band to play a set or two.  I even got up to sing at one point with friends.  Christopher surprised me with a trumpet serenade of “It Had To Be You”. 

Another surprise was the two dimensional arrival of 2 of our best friends who were 8 months pregnant and living in Hong Kong during our wedding.  They sent along a life-size cutout of themselves toasting our wedding.  My maid of honor brought them out with her during her toast.  They hung around all night and wound up in more pictures than any other guest.

More to come!

We are featuring the loveliest real wedding today…two ballerinas, whose sense of style and creativity influence every single detail. And the team at Twin Lens Images captured the night to perfection.

More from the bride, Kelly…

We set out to create a glowing, cozy, organic and most importantly, personal wedding peppered with details that represented us as a couple.  As a motif, we used a stick figure drawing of us that Christopher created.  He uses stick figures in the pre-production process of choreography.  We used the motif on our invitations, programs and cake and he personally drew a stick figure on each guest’s dinner place card.  He also had a set designer friend weld a stick figure sculpture of us that he stuck in the grass to greet me as I walked down the aisle.  I didn’t actually get to see it until the next morning as I never quite made it outside, but it now hangs in our apartment.

Other personal elements included the wood we used from my mother’s 100 year-old barn on her ranch in Texas to make the signs that we staked throughout the grounds.  My mother also brought us a horseshoe from her barn that we displayed on the “altar” of our ceremony for good luck, as well as, 120 sprigs of rosemary from her rosemary bush that we inserted into the napkins with the menus at dinner.

I made all of the paper cones and stickers with a handwritten message.  I bought the paper and stickers at our local Kate’s Paperie in NYC, then rolled them up, affixed with glue dots and filled them with dried lavender.

Travel is one of our passions and we love in particular Route 66 and emblems of Americana.  We scoured Albuquerque flea markets and antique stores to find vintage postcards from Route 66 and New Mexico that we used as escort cards and hung on a clothesline.  This was one of my favorite projects for the wedding and the guests got a kick out of it too.

So much more to come!

Today’s real wedding is a lesson in simple, absolutely lovely romance. Sent to us by the amazingly talented team at Twin Lens Images, Kelly and Christopher’s wedding was all about intimate, organic DIY and as two hugely creative individuals, the wedding that they crafted…was perfection.

Here are a few notes from the gorgeous bride…

Christopher and I met working together on a show called “You Never Know”- how appropriate.  We are both dancers and choreographers.  He was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and now a choreographer, and I am a Broadway performer.  The first time we met, I actually auditioned for him but didn’t get the part.  A year later, I got a phone call from him.  He had remembered me and done some detective work through the casting agent to find out how to locate me.  He called to ask if I would assist him on the show.  We became great friends while working together and quickly fell in love.

We live in New York City but both have a real connection to New Mexico because of family members who live there and fond childhood memories of visiting.  We chose Taos because of its wild beauty and great energy and found the San Geronimo Lodge- a vintage adobe inn built in the 1920s with fabulous bones and character. We wanted our immediate family and wedding party in the same place and the inn provided us with that luxury.  With 19 rooms, we were all there together. We hung mini chalkboards on the doorknobs of each of the rooms to greet guests with their names and nicknames.  Other guests stayed down the road in the town square.

Stay tuned to see the lovely details that they infused into their wedding!

Hello and Happy New Year from the editors of Style Me Pretty’s Little Black Book Blog!

We are so excited for today’s post! We are going to start this New Year off RIGHT by featuring a glamourous evening wedding from our friends Kitty Clark Fritz and Craig Fritz of Twin Lens Photography.  From the bride’s incredible dress, to the whimsical ceremony, to the vibrant and colorful reception, this is a total show-stopper!

This wedding is overflowing with femininity and style… This is what the beautiful bride, Elle, had to say on what inspired her totally fabulous wedding style…

from the bride, Elle …

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, with a little Audrey Hepburn thrown in. I just love them. I am a romantic at heart, but try not to show it since I work on Wall Street and love that too! We didn’t want it to be too stiff. I always dreamed of having a white tie ball and so I decided the only time I could guarantee that would be my wedding.

Elle even had her good friend and hair stylist, Ken Bowling, replicate Audrey Hepburn’s hair style from the ball room scene in My Fair Lady.  And, as I’m sure many of you are wondering, Elle purchased her stunning Lazaro gown, hairpiece, and earrings from Klienfeld Manhattan. Take a peek at some photos from the traditional Medieval Christian Ceremony on the lawn of the stately Federal Courthouse in downtown Santa Fe.

I am in love. The soft pink and the scattered rose petals give this ceremony a completely romantic fairytale feeling. Kitty and Craig, the fabulous husband and wife duo of Twin Lens, did a fantastic job of capturing the whimsical charm of this wedding. They were also joined by Twin Lens team member, Lisa Krantz, who happens to be an award winning photojournalist. The team used digital 35 mm cameras with vintage, medium format Twin Lens Reflex and plastic Holga film cameras to take the seriously gorgeous ethereal photos.

By the way, take a peek at those incredible flowers! The rose and orchid theme was created by Margaret Bost, owner of Santa Fe Floral.  This is what our bride, Elle, had to say about her flower theme…

I love the traditionalism and simplicity of the rose and Kevin adores orchids. White is the most formal, so of course we went with that. I also think it is the most classy and elegant color for a ball. Gold was our wedding color, so gold and cream we felt would go beautifully together. Gold also feels old fashioned, and again, I am very old fashioned.

Elle also incorporated gold and white into her wedding reception at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, a distinctive (and totally pink!) building in downtown Santa Fe.  The results are just fabulous!

Talk about stunning. Between the warmth of the gold accents and the candles dripping with crystals, this reception had a totally luxurious feel. What a perfect ending to a gorgeous whimsical wedding that was nothing short of fairy-tale loveliness. Thank you again to our friends at Twin Lens! Happy New Year!

{to see the full gallery, click here!}