Ceremony of Love Part I

OK, so this is the very beginning of our Ceremony of Love entry. Remember way back at the beginning of summer, Elijah & I had the most magical of moments and I finally have put it all together to start sharing. I emphasize finally because it was so much work; the whole 8-10 months before our big day was all work and very little play. It takes a lot to plan such an occasion, especially if you're bringing 20 of your closest friends along with you to the French countryside! Elijah and I had to check out some farmhouses to make sure we could all sleep under one roof + organize airplane schedules, trains + pickups. We ended up also having to use my dear uncle Michel's house in Gien (merci encore, cher Michel).

All that said and done, we still had save-the-dates + invitations and pre-wedding props to make, a vegetarian menu to create, and finding the dress + suit! Haha! It was so much fun and felt very much like an art installation in the works! I had so much help from close friends + family, and it really became a commune-for-the-ceremony. Looking back, that is pretty priceless. Everyone really pulled through in the most major of ways. I had little teams of workers here and there, and
thanks to everyone's hard work we pulled off quite the event. It was like the best summer camp + magical wedding held in a whimsical forest + European trip full of adventures rolled into one. And the best part was that Elijah and I were able to share our dearest and closest from here with all of my French family members in a very nostalgic part of France where my brothers and I grew up and spent many a summers together. Sigh, it all came full circle in such a delicate and incomparable manner. Really and truly.

All that to say that is has taken me since then to re-enter the earth's atmosphere and get my feet back on the ground (this took waaay longer than I expected, and I didn't expect the little post depression I felt once it was all over), plus to go through all the pictures and I still have my thank-you's to make...oh dear...

So I hope that you enjoy the following entries this week and excuse my overabundance of pictures & words, but there is just too much goodness to share! If you'd like to see a sneak-peek before I post, have a look here. Thanks so much and I look forward to your thoughts!

(The above were the 3 postcards I made to be included with the invitations. The first is a picture of a car with tulle in the backseat that I took while researching and scouting for our ceremony in France. The second is the RSVP that I created using old illustrated flowers from old books found at the library. And the third postcard is a map that I watercolored so that guests wold know where to go and in what order).