A few months ago I mentioned I was starting my own wedding planning and coordination company. Take a peek at my first wedding with Rachel & Joe at Vineapple Cafe in Brooklyn Heights a few weeks ago! (Check out the rest of the website, too!).
Photo by Zack DeZon.
A few more pics from the big day as we near our seven month anniversary.
It was smooth as far as I could tell, except for hearing afterward that our flower girl went around twice (!) to make sure she tossed the petals after forgetting the first time around. I love that.
A family friend officated the ceremony and started by asking everyone to pause, close their eyes, and really take in the moment. We had everyone stand around us on the hall off to the side of the hotel. We tied in a tradition from my Mexican heritage by using the Mexican wedding lazo ("bow") where two of our aunts wrapped an elongated gold rosary around our shoulders in a figure eight, symbolizing the responsibility we share in love and marriage.
With weather at 70 degrees, it was a peaceful and memorable ceremony.
Photo credit: Eleise Theuer Photography.
Among the many decisions about the flow of the day's events was the one to do a "first look" portrait session -- a chance for us to see each other and shake some nerves prior to the ceremony. Not only did this session provide us an opportunity to spend some private time together (albeit captured on film...er...pixels), but it was actually a very practical move that enabled us to join our guests that much sooner after cocktail hour. I just love the variety of images we have from this special time just prior to the vows; celebrating our last moments together as an engaged couple. Highly recommended! Just be sure to have some tissues on hand (for both of you!).
Photos by Eleise Theuer.
I started this blog in fall of 2009. I can't believe that was two years ago. We are nearing the 6 month mark of our wedding day, and I've been looking at these wedding pictures for months. It's been SO HARD picking out my favorites, but I've narrowed them down to a few...hundred...or so.... :)
Way back when I was thinking about what it might all look like I created a mood board. Okay, many mood boards. I worked with the colors already present in the Cavalier Hotel. Teals, blues, golds. Pinks and whites. Amazing fabrics and wallpapers. Black and white tiled floors. It didn't take much to turn it into a fabulous party space. Especially when our focus was on keeping it classic and insuring our guests ate well and had fun!
Let's just say we were both absolutely amazed with how everything looked, felt, and how much fun it actually turned out to be. Here are a few detail shots from April 30, 2011, including glimpses of my dress and "something blue" shoes, the cake, the vintage owl bank that we used as a place for our guests to leave us a bit of advice for our married life ahead, the vintage chalkboard we used at the bar, and oh, the gorgeous flowers!
All photos by Eleise Theuer.
I am taken with this little number. Short and simple on one hand, but the intricate detail pushes it into stunning territory. Chantilly veil from JCrew.
No matter what you choose, be sure you consider the weather if it will be an outdoor affair -- mine ended up sideways due to the wind!
Among the many varieties of ceremony and reception sites in town we happened to find a location that had so much romance and personality built into it. The Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach is grand on the outside yet sweet and full of vintage charm on the inside.
This is an unused postcard from the 1940s that I just snatched up as a special keepsake from VintagePlum on Etsy.
I never had an image in my head of what the ideal space would look like, but as with many things "wedding" I knew it when I saw it. What kinds of spaces do you dream about for events in your future -- wedding or otherwise?
Note -- the guest rooms in the Cavalier Hotel are well-appointed on both sides of the road. On the hill you can book a vintage-styled room between Memorial Day and Labor Day and the oceanfront, beach-styled location is open year-round.
While we were visiting with Liz, the wedding cake designer at The Magic Cupboard in Hampton, VA, we were discussing the theme or words we would use to describe the feel of the wedding and reception. Because it is being held in a hotel that was built in the 20s, the question arose about what 1920's wedding cakes looked like. I decided to do some homework on the subject and stumbled upon the below image from a special wedding back then. Can you imagine?
At least the groom looks happy! Think I'll keep looking.
Most of the attention on paper has to do with stationery. Save the dates. Invitations. Place cards. Menus. Programs. But I just loved the beautiful work of Madebyjulene: custom cut paper that tells a different story. From a bride to a groom or vice versa. For the wedding day or a special occasion thereafter. Love. (Paper is the gift for your first anniversary, by the way.)
I guess I wasn't surprised to find a story about our beloved southern hotel being haunted. Aren't they all?
From RealHaunts.com:
Overlooking beautiful North Beach in the bustling city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, this elegant hotel features far more than a stunning view and its dramatic chandelier-hung lobby with glossy checkerboard floors and sharply contrasting paneled walls. This, the original Cavalier Hotel, has ghosts. Elevators run when no one is riding in them, toilets flush of their own accord and guests report that their room towels change color from time to time. But these are only little oddities compared to the tragedies that began only two short years after the Cavalier opened on what was then a rather secluded strip of beach.
Many guests have remarked on architectural similarities between the old hotel and the Overlook hotel featured in the movie “The Shining.” Perhaps it is also the creepy feeling of something always lurking that causes visitors to draw such connections. Guests have reported they feel like they are being watched in both the Pocahontas room and the Hunt Room. Perhaps it is the waiter who supposedly walks through the walls of the Pocahontas room or the lady followed by a ghostly dog crossing the hotel lobby, or perhaps it is merely someone who still broods about the misfortunes of their lost life…
Opening in 1927 (after 13 months of steady labor), the Cavalier was once the haunt of the movers and shakers of society, hosting such guests as Adolph Coors (of the famous brewery), author F. Scott Fitzgerald, and actors and actresses includingJudy Garland, Will Rogers, Bette Davis, Betty Grable, Mary Pickford, Ginger Rogers and Jean Harlow. For three decades the Cavalier hired a wide variety of big-name bands. Performers included such greats as Tomy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, Glen Miller, Lawrence Welk and Bing Crosby. Now guests report that the piano in the ballroom sometimes plays by itself—maybe wishing for the raucous music of the Twenties.
Nicknamed the “Aristocrat of the Virginia Seashore” the Cavalier was the spot to see and be seen, so it’s no wonder some guests are reluctant to depart. Ten US Presidents have also stayed or spoken at the Cavalier, bringing with them the rumors, speculation and debate that guests, both living and dead, seem to feed on.
During the Roaring Twenties, the Cavalier skirted Prohibition by driving well-to-do guests on discreet trips to the local speakeasies. This evading of the law was not enough to keep brewery owner Adolph Coors from a mysterious fall that ended his death on June 5, 1929. Whether suicide because the brewery was forced to make cement and pottery rather than beer during Prohibition, or murder (as some feel Coors was pushed through a closed window on the hotel’s 6th floor), people have reported sensing someone still lingering and cold spots appearing randomly throughout the 6th floor. Many have even reported the sickening sound of flesh slapping concrete—could it be that Adolph Coors relives his tragic plunge on a regular basis?
Local lore claims that the hotel’s first owner shot himself on the premises, but it seems unsubstantiated as a hotel staff member said the initial owners of the hotelwere a group of people investing in a business venture and they held it until the Dixon family purchased it. So, although the rumor can’t be attached to a specific person through my research, perhaps it was one of the original owners or one of the Dixon family members who committed suicide on the property. Or, perhaps (as is the case too often), this “fact” is merely a case of rumors evolving and growing.
The hotel’s front desk is occasionally plagued by guests calling to report a cat meowing and scratching at doors in the hotel’s grand hallways, though no living cat has been seen roaming the halls in decades. Rumor has it that a young girl’s pet cat escaped one night and drowned in the swimming pool—the little girl also drowning as she tried to save her precious pet. Though the girl’s ghost has not been sighted and people only occasionally report strange sounds from the pool, perhaps the cat still wanders the halls trying to find his worried young owner.
Visitors report mysterious orbs showing up in their photos and hearing footsteps where no one is seen walking. A popular tale revolves around sightings of an older African American gentleman dressed in the hotel’s old staff uniform. Guests report that he stands on the staircase of the sixth floor and warns people of ghosts ahead. Unfortunately, it seems he himself is a ghost, as there hasn’t been any staff to fit his description working at the hotel in more than a few years.
Today the Cavalier Hotel is truly two distinct hotels—the Cavalier on the Hill (the original and still haunted) and the Cavalier Oceanfront (beautiful and at peace except when tourist season begins).
