Caitlin & Patrick’s New York City Jazz and Art Deco wedding

The Offbeat Bride: Caitlin, fashion designer

Her offbeat partner: Patrick, programmer/freelance filmmaker

Date and location of wedding: Jazz Standard, New York City, New York — May 25, 2014

Our offbeat wedding at a glance: Our number one concern was having delicious food. Our number two concern was not spending a large amount of money, which is tricky in New York City. Fortunately, a friend of mine had pulled this feat off a few years prior so we ended up stealing her venue, and I couldn't have been happier with the choice!

Since we were keeping the ceremony very short and secular, we decided to do it in the same space as the reception. We wracked our brains for something to delineate the ceremony space or make it seem special in some way. After going through a bunch of options, we ended up making an abstract Art Deco-style animation to project on a screen behind us. I drew the designs in Adobe Illustrator, and Pat made them move (his best man helped out some when it got down to the wire).

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We tried to keep most things pretty simple. The table decorations were tiny succulents that doubled as favors, we did a Spotify playlist rather than a DJ, and the food package at the venue came with lots of tasty desserts (especially the key lime pie!), so we didn't get an additional cake. I designed simple invites, and a friend printed them on her hundred-year-old letterpress.

Patrick's friends have been making movies together since high school, and they have a tradition of making absurd films for each others' weddings. I think the one they did for ours was their best yet. They even enlisted some of my friends to be in it. The whole thing can be seen here.

Tell us about the ceremony:
Patrick is a huge Jim Henson fan, so we opened with the wedding scene from Muppets Take Manhattan before transitioning to our background animation. We'd rehearsed the day before but hadn't timed out the processional song and it ended up being about twice as long as it needed to be. We had an impromptu little dance party while everyone waited for it to end.

We wrote up a single set of vows and read alternating lines, and our officiant stated that all of them apply to both of us even though we were taking turns saying them. Towards the end we were both teary, and I wanted to squeeze him so bad.
Here were our vows:

I vow to be your teammate, to be on your side and help you achieve your goals and dreams.
I will be your companion in all of the adventures ahead.
I will encourage you to grow as a person, and will continue to grow with you.
I will treat your needs as though they were my own.
I will remember the importance of the everyday things that bring us joy.
I will always appreciate how lucky I am to have you with me.
I will trust in you, and make myself worthy of your trust.
I will take great care, and spare no expense, to keep things silly.
In unison: I will be yours and you'll be mine.

Our biggest challenge:
As a crafty person it was hard to decide what was worth spending the time to create myself, or whether something was worth outsourcing to a professional. My first impulse with everything is to say, “I can make that!” Some people were surprised that I wasn't making my own dress, but I realized very early in the planning that I wasn't going to have the time or spare sanity for that much of an undertaking.

Then there were some things I tried NOT to DIY but ended up making myself anyway. I had my heart set on a headband from a specific Etsy seller, but she became ill and couldn't get it done in time. I ended up spending the last few nights before the wedding cobbling together a fascinator; after about half a dozen prototypes (one of which included a crocheted angora hyperbolic plane — I was getting a little loopy), I got something I loved using a silk flower, some quills, and an airplant!

My favorite moment:
Having one of my best friends officiate was a really great experience. She and her fiance moved across the country a few days after the wedding, so I'm glad we got to do this special thing together as our “last hurrah.” Planning the ceremony was also a convenient excuse to hang out together in the midst of her packing and me working on wedding things. We're trading officiant duties, so I can't wait to do the honors for them soon.

It was really great to collaborate with Patrick on so many things leading up to the wedding, and then to finally be able to show off all our hard work. We tried to make the whole process a team effort, and I think it showed in how much everything reflected our weird style.

My funniest moment:
We did all the portrait photos before the wedding to get them out of the way. After we were done with all the friends and family shots, Patrick and I struck off with our photographer to get some shots around town. We were posing in front of the Flatiron Building when a lady in a giant sun hat popped out of nowhere to shade us with the huge umbrella she was wielding and asked us frantically if we were using sunscreen. There was a few moments of us bemusedly telling her we were fine before another woman who'd been watching started berating the first lady to leave us alone on our “special day!” Sun-hat sheepishly explained that she was actually shooting a Coppertone commercial, and pointed at a few cameramen at the corners of the plaza. The whole thing was the New York-est situation I can imagine.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Photography: OhKarina Photography
• Bride's Dress: French Knot Couture
• Bride's shoes: Modcloth
• Groom's Suit: Bindle and Keep
• Food: Blue Smoke
• Rings: Little King Jewelry
• Guys' socks: Argoz
• Flowers: Blooms by the Box

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