Browsing Tag

North Carolina

Karen and Michelle’s colorful (blue-centric), laughter-filled wedding

The Glö-Couple (tell us a fun fact about each of you):

Karen, Homeless Education, just learning about animated movies (find Karen on twitter) and
Michelle, Veterinary Technician, reptile lover

Celebration Date & Location:

April 12, 2014
Greensboro, NC
Our church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greensboro

Tell us how you got engaged:

No specific engagement story, we just knew over time we would be together. We initially exchanged rings in February 2012, while we were still living apart but committed to being together. By the fall we were finally able to live together, by the next spring we decided to go ahead and plan our wedding. We really wanted our friends and family to be there and didn’t want to keep waiting!

What’s the overall ‘feeling’ you’re aiming for with your celebration:

The overall feeling of the day was guided by the invitation from e.m. papers “Love Joy Happiness.” Everything was filtered through this lens: does it bring us love joy happiness? If yes, it’s in, if no it’s out. We had food that we loved and we knew our guests would love, we wore clothes we loved and looked smashing in, we hosted an open house the night before so our out of towners could meet our Wedding Team and already have friends at the wedding. Our choir was a big part of the wedding, both at the beginning and at the end. We included both a serious and silly reading. The whole event was incredibly joyous. Many people told us it was the most joyful wedding they’ve ever attended.

Are you adding any fun twists on tradition:

Instead of a bridal party we had a Wedding Team. We asked a couple friend of ours to be the captains about six months out then had a Wedding Team lunch two months out so people could understand the logistics and flow of the wedding. Instead of a ring bearer, we asked a child that my partner teaches in the Religious Education program to bring us the rings at the appropriate time. This way he could sit with his family and go sit back down with them.

What was the inspiration for your Glövite and Glösite design? If you made them yourself, tell us how you did it.

The design was definitely the theme of the wedding. We picked out the invitation design probably two years before we started planning. It was always our focus: Love Joy Happiness. E.m. papers designed a poster for us for people to sign and we had it hanging in our kitchen long before our wedding. On our glosite wedding website we worked to make everything as simple and user friendly as possible. We worked to make sure everyone felt welcome, beginning with our website.

Let’s show off your Glövites and Glösite

Any good planning tips and tricks for the couples who are just starting to plan?

Plan in advance as much as possible. Create a timeline and stick to deadlines. You will have much less stress in the time leading up to your wedding. Get as much done in advance as you can! I am a HUGE fan of A Practical Wedding and OffBeat Bride. Both have great spreadsheets that I highly recommend. Yes, spreadsheets. Use them! The only thing I wish I had done differently was tell a couple of groups of folks that I wanted pictures with them. Some people left before we could do this. Don’t make this mistake! Most of all have fun!

What’s the biggest “say what?” moment or funny story that’s happened since you started planning?

Our wedding clothes were custom made. To create the design for my now wife’s vest, we went all over town trying to find something that fit her right so we could tell our seamstress about it. Then we bought the reflective vest from IKEA for her to use when she goes out running in the morning. She came back from her run and said “This is the right design! Use this!” So we took the measurements from the reflective vest and sent it off to our seamstress. It was perfect.

There were the moments of frustration with people not rsvp’ing correctly or saying insensitive things like “I just can’t commit that far (two months!) out.” Whatever. Everything will work out.

Who are the magical partners who helped bring your celebration to life?

Paperless Invitation design, printed invitations, guest signature sign and other printables: e.m. papers
Photographer: Amanda Summerlin
Outfits: Miss Brache custom clothes

19 May 2015

Christina and Dean’s mountain weekend celebration of family, community, and music

The Glö-Couple (tell us a fun fact about each of you):

Christina, Executive Director of Quaker Voluntary Service and
Dean, Founder and Principal of the Kindezi School, an Atlanta Public Charter School, banjo player extraordinaire

(a fun fact is that we are both founders and directors of new organizations)

Celebration Date & Location:

10/06/2012
Asheville, North Carolina at the Swannanoa 4H Center

Tell us how you got engaged:

The short version is that I woke up to a note telling me to meet Dean at a certain state park at 1pm. When I got there, the woman at the gate handed me an envelope that had inside it a map telling me where to start my journey. It was all Wizard of Oz themed (I love the WofO). From there, I proceeded to follow a path full of notes, roses, and people along the way (the yellow brick road). At a certain point I was supposed to cross the river where the bridge had washed out, and suddenly his dad appeared with a canoe and took me to the other side. I kept going and then my dad was there (complete surprise, I had no idea he had enlisted my family) playing the role of the scarecrow, offering me sage advice about truth and wisdom. I kept going and there was my brother and his family and a couple friends, playing music and singing, playing the role of the tin man, and talked about love and joy. A little further, my mom, Dean’s mom, and two of my best women friends were in the path and offered a ritual of blessing from the women in my life and the women who have come before me. They talked about courage and were the Lion station. Eventually I came up a witch’s hat, with a note explaining how fear has been Dean’s wicked witch, but that he has finally conquered it. Finally my path ended at a beautiful rock overlooking the river–a spot we came to on one of our first dates. Dean emerged from the woods wearing a suit and holding a big bouquet of roses. We had our proposal moment, and then eventually headed back down the trail where everyone had gathered together and was singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow and toasting us with champagne. It was truly magical. I have never felt so sure that Dean is the one for me!

What’s the overall ‘feeling’ you’re aiming for with your celebration:

The most important thing is that our wide and wonderful community of family and friends can all be together for a weekend of laid back fun. My family lives in Asheville, which is one of the most beautiful places in the world, especially in the Fall. So, we decided to do it at a summer camp where folks can stay in cabins or camp, or stay in nearby hotels. We hope for lots of music to be played (he plays the banjo, I play the guitar and we both sing), good food, good fun. Simple.

Are you adding any fun twists on tradition:

A good family friend is our caterer and she is doing a combination of Southern (we both grew up in the South) and Italian (my dad’s family is Italian).

What was the inspiration for your Glövite and Glösite design? If you made them yourself, tell us how you did it.

I imagined the blue ridge mountains in the background with a banjo and a guitar–this pretty much sums up what we envision for our wedding setting. I asked my brother if he could work on something, and he created something even more beautiful than I had imagined!

My brother, Willie Repoley, did the design for us. He did an amazing job!

Now show us your Glövites and Glösite

Any good planning tips and tricks for the couples who are just starting to plan?

Google docs, the Glosite guest list, and Pinterest are all tools I am using a lot!

What are you look forward to the most about your celebration?

I’m looking forward to having all of these wonderful people in the same place at the same time for a weekend of joy.
Who are the magical vendors bringing your celebration to life?

Our friend Stephanie Wilder, runs a catering company in Asheville called Eat Your Greens NC. They work with at risk young people in the area to help them develop an appreciation of food and job skills for the future

Our friend Kara Johnson is a budding photographer, and she’ll do the photos. We’re still working out the other details, but it will all be a big group effort with our friends and family helping with lots of the details.

19 Jun 2012

Real Glö-bies, Real Glö-Vites & Sites

Kyle and David’s Global Fiesta of Epic Proportions

You all may remember Kyle and David who shared their clever trick for creating a “things to do and see” wedding map a little while back. I’m so psyched to now share the Glösite they’ve created for their Global Fiesta of Epic Proportions. I want to attend based on the name alone!

The Glö-Couple:

Kyle, an ESL instructor, and David, a tech support guru

Celebration Date & Location:

May 2011 in Topsail Island, North Carolina (USA) at the Surfside Center

Tell us how you got engaged:

We were snorkeling in Okinawa when he randomly popped out of the water and said, “Alright, let’s do this. Let’s get married!”

What’s the overall ‘feeling’ you’re aiming for with your celebration:

We’re having guests coming from all over the world, the US, Austria, Japan, and Australia, so we’re really trying our best to make everyone feel at home. The wedding is going to be on the beach and the reception is going to be a casual fiesta of Mexican food, margaritas, and everyone getting to know each other. Since a lot of our guests do not speak English, we will be providing bilingual menus, programs, etc. It’s adding a lot of extra work for me to translate everything but it’s worth it!

Are you adding any fun twists on tradition:

Rather than doing a bouquet toss, we will be doing a bouquet pull. These are very popular in Japan and are cool because it combines the ideas of a bouquet toss and the US Southern tradition of a charm pull. Basically you have a bouquet with lots of ribbons coming out of its base. But only one ribbon is attached to the bouquet. Friends and family choose a ribbon and on the count of 3 everyone tugs on their ribbon. The person with the bouquet attached to their ribbon is the “winner” but each ribbon has a charm attached to it. I figure though that these days most people aren’t interested in charms so I’m planning on attaching things like Amazon and iTunes gift cards to the ribbons.

I love the idea of a boquet pull, so I looked all over for some more info on this Japanese tradition, and found this great photo below on flickr

What was the inspiration for you Glösite design?

I want something that is easy to navigate and provides all the information people need in one easy spot. It’s fun, casual, and easy to use!

Now show us your Glösite!

How on earth did you make the crazy-cool wedding party images?

For my wedding party section, I made the template in Adobe Photoshop. I took a picture of a folder as the base. Then I used this tutorial to make the poloroid photo. Next I put a white box for the “paper” and wrote in the information about each person in the wedding party. Voila!

Any good planning tips and tricks for the couples who are just getting started?

MS Onenote is my savior. It helps me keep all of my ideas organized in one place. I really recommend that anyone with the MS Office suite open it up and take it for a test drive. It saves me so much time when I’m going through my wedding notes.

25 Sep 2010