Jenn and Sarah were featured back in 2008 at their outdoor fairy wonderland wedding, but now that New York has legalized gay marriage, they planned a second wedding to make it official.
Jenn and Sarah's second (and legal) wedding was held at Pullman Memorial Universalist Church in Albion, NY on September 30, 2011, four years (almost to the day) after their first wedding in 2007. This time around they wanted a rainbow theme, in honor of the gay pride rainbow flag, and fairies. Eventually, due to the decor and killer dresses, it became known as the “Sparkle Wedding.”
Jen made almost all of the decorations, including the giant tissue paper pom-poms and rainbow-colored signs.
Each sign was painted with different adverbs: triumphantly, blissfully, wildly, bravely, magically, gratefully, fervently, and sweetly.
The pair asked eight of their closest friends to be “rainbow bridesmaid fairies,” with two “ribbon fairies” to assist with the handfasting.
The pastor read “Life has Loveliness to Sell” by Sara Teasdale. The bridesmaids, flower girls, and ring bearer walked down the aisle to “Rainbow Connection” (natch!).
Jenn and Sarah walked down the aisle, hand-in-hand, to “Love Came for Me,” by Rita Coolidge from “Splash,” one of their favorite movies. The elements and the Goddess were invoked (they are both Pagan), and the pastor read an excerpt from Patience and Sarah. The ribbon fairies bound their wrists with ribbons in the eight colors of the gay pride rainbow.
During the ceremony, Sarah asked for a tissue. After she'd wiped her eyes, she stuffed it down the front of her dress, much to everyone's amusement.
Bubbles! Seriously, what could be more perfect for this theme?
The guest tables had a different color assignment, each with its own whimsical table name. They also wrote personal notecards for each of the guests as place cards. I love that these two fully embraced their theme and ran with it.
Since they were going all-out with DIY, why not include the food? With lots of help from friends, they tackled the enormous self-catering project the day before the wedding. Even the food got the rainbow treatment.
Jenn and Sarah's tattoo-artist friend, Cat, volunteered to make the wedding cake, which turned out to be a rainbow as well! Each layer was a different color. Plus a little My Little Pony and butterfly action is always welcome.
Their homemade photo booth with lots of things-on-sticks.
Jenn and Sarah left us with some advice:
Be present. At our first wedding, Sarah and I were so hurried and overwhelmed that we scarcely remember the ceremony at all, or much of the reception. This time, we made a conscious effort to not only remember but cherish every single second. There were so many beautiful moments. I wrapped them up in my heart as they happened.
GUH… cute! I heart these two and their super-duper rainbow, sparkly hearts.
“This time, we made a conscious effort to not only remember but cherish every single second. There were so many beautiful moments. I wrapped them up in my heart as they happened” – SO ADORABLE!
who could ever be against these two being married?
wishing you every happiness!
LURVE! It looks like so much sparkley fun! Any party that has My Little Pony caketoppers is a party I want to be at.
Yay! Congrats to two of my favorite sparkly ladies. SO GLAD you two got the wedding of your dreams!
Yay Sarah and Jenn! I was hoping you’d submit your wedding to OBB. 🙂
Awww, this makes me so happy! 🙂 I’m so freakin’ happy to be included–AGAIN! You guys are awesome!
Just a quick caveat–is there any way to edit the post with credit to our kick ASS photographer, Laura Vasilion? Every single photo is by her, and she made our wedding pure magic. Thanks so much, guys!
Hey Sarah — we had a naughty html issue on the caption for the first photo. HTML rectified and the credit is now *gasp* actually visible! Thanks for catching that.
You’re awesome, Megan–thank you so much! 🙂 <3
I love the My Little Ponies as cake toppers!
Such a beautiful wedding! The My Little Ponies on the cake: ADORABLE! Everything is soooo magical!
This has to be the cutest wedding I ever did see. <3
What a beautiful fantastic creative wonderland of a wedding you created! Reading this post was such a warm fuzzy feeling on this rainy Portland morning. Congrats on making it legal, ladies!
I love the rainbow food so much! The fruit kabobs in rainbow colors are making me downright giddy!
Gorgeous wedding!
just…yes. I’m completely squeeing at all the love and sparkle and rainbow.
Also, thank you so, so much for showing off queer weddings. It’s really awesome to see gay people with love and really happy looking lives everyday. And really frakking inspiring to me, as a gay girl only out on the internet. Yay real life happy gay people!
Ok, the first handfasting ceremony was beautiful and lovely–but THIS!?! OMG rainbow and sparkles and ponies! O my! AND it all looks so elegant together 🙂
Thanks for being yourselves and being an awesome inspiration ladies! 😀
Your dresses are simply to die for!
I’d love to be a fairy bridesmaid!!! What a beautiful, colourful, magical wedding!!!
OMG my girlfriend and I LOVE every part of this. The rainbows. The fairies. The PONIES! And where did you find the dresses? I love the purple-blue one sooo much.
How awesome is this? Daring to be different!!
Omg. I love this!! I am so happy for you two. 🙂
This made my day. It is so fun and magical!!
Sparkles and glitter and rainbows and ponies? Total win! Your wedding was made of awesome. Congratulations and much happiness to you!
Everything is so adorable! And the cake? Too perfect for words.
if I could get my lady love on board with the fairy thing, man I would wear the shit out of wings like those. FABULOUS. this so much awesome. I’m getting married next week- is it too late to change the theme? LOL……
I LOVE that they walked in to “Rainbow Connection!” The lovers, the dreamers and me…