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A handcrafted wedding in the Marin Headlands: Jenn + Eric

August 8, 2011

If there’s any reason for us to love Mondays, it’s because we get to share a bundle of new weddings with you! All you Northern Cali brides out there looking for a venue, this next one is quite the gem. Just a hop, skip, and jump past the Golden Gate Bridge to the Headlands Center for the Arts and you’re instantly transported to a naturally picturesque scene, perfect for a wedding. That’s what Jenn + Eric, two passionate architects, had in mind when they were planning their artistically beautiful wedding. We instantly fell in love with them. They’re that couple that will pull an all-nighter just to finish the details of their Ms. Pac-Man & Blinky costumes for Halloween, so it was without a doubt, when it came to their wedding they would put as much heart and thought into every detail.

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As part of our wedding invitation suite, we included a little manila tag with a note “Send a wish for love & life.” Little did our guests know when they returned their message with the RSVP that their wishes and blessings would be transformed into the mobile that would hang above our heads on our wedding day. This was an excerpt from our wedding ceremony itself, spoken by Eric’s dad, who came out of pastoral retirement so he could marry us: “The mobile which you stand beneath, is composed of our individual wishes, and our collective hope, for your happiness in life and love. Friends, this mobile of wishes, like their relationship and many previous projects, is a joint creation – making something together.”

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Their favors (Moleskine notebook, pencil, & tea towel) couldn’t have suited them better, considering an architect can never have enough notebooks to sketch in. To personalize them, they hand stamped and xylol transferred a special message onto each Moleskine and placed engraved golf pencils at the tables for everyone to grab. As an additional piece to the dinner table, Jenn + Eric fabric gocco printed tea towels in lieu of napkins for everyone to take home with them.

handcrafted outdoor wedding

The combination of homegrown flowers from her mom’s garden & SF Flower Mart, plus the eye of close friend Liz (mastermind behind one of our favorite floral/design studios, The Nouveau Romantics), took Jenn’s initial “pick some wildflowers from the side of the road” vision to a whole other magical level.

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From day one, we knew that we were going to resort to the iPad and our home music list. This was one cost that we were not willing to splurge on, and since day one of our relationship we were always creating a “Soundtrack of the Day” so how hard could it be right? We were very lucky to find an audio/visual rental place that explained everything and included a DIY setup guide. Needless to say we were making the playlist(s) almost to the day of. We needed a playlist for the pre-ceremony, one for the ceremony, another for the cocktail hour, dinner music, and dancing of course! It was a lot of work, but so incredibly worth it. A couple of our favorite photos are of me going over to the iPad and fast forwarding a song or two.

Instead of the traditional Mother/Son, Father/Daughter dances, they opted for a Friends and Family dance to “Home” by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.

Listen to it here:

handcrafted outdoor wedding

A little fact about these two that you might find motivating – Part of their wedding journey included packing up their Brooklyn apartment of 5 years and making the move back home to California. “It was the cross country move, combined with wedding planning & quitting our jobs that really spurred us on to tackle a lot of the DIY projects and gathering of materials very early on.”

See, handling a zillion things while also trying to plan a wedding can be done! Congrats Jenn + Eric!

Photography: Christina Richards /Venue – Headlands Center for the Arts / Bride’s Dress – J.Crew Sample Sale / Bride’s Shoes – Seychelles / Groom’s Suit – J.Crew / Bridesmaid Dresses – Anthropologie / Groomsmen Suits – Express / Wedding Party Ties – Cyberoptix / Gocco Machine & Supplies – printaddictjapan & Gocco Shop on Etsy / Paper Supplies – Paper Presentation / Table Numbers – 30 one / Hair & Makeup – Triple Twist / Florist – The Nouveau Romantics / Catering – Katie Powers Catering / Sound System Rental – Avista Rentals