Since June is a typical wedding month and I am still, years later, in awe of how creatively our wedding came together, I thought I’d write about it!

I got (re)married in 2021, and this was going to be an extra special occasion, since my husband to-be was in his fifties and never married, and has a HUGE family and good number of friends after living all over the country. (I will touch on relationships with your exact opposite personality in the future!).

I have travelled more in the ten years I’ve known him than in my ENTIRE LIFE, and it’s been a wonderful experience. Believe it or not, on our five year anniversary we got engaged on the top of the Eiffel Tower in PARIS! I still cannot believe that even happened, seriously.

The Paris theme for our save the dates segued pretty nicely into a travel theme for the wedding itself. We wanted to do an obvious but not a nauseating (overkill) essence of the theme. We worked with ideas of travel, family, the colors of the wedding (navy and maroon), and our homage to the city of Philadelphia. You can see some of the photos that give you a snapshot as to the level of the details-  it was work but so much fun to plan and do! Shout out to zazzle.com where we got our save the dates, matching invitations (complete with  all accompanying cards) and return address labels. Even an ink stamper with our names and wedding date. We used the stamper to put an extra touch on the back of cards and thank you notes.

Here are the clever ways we incorporated our theme into the evening!

• Signage. It was so much fun trying to fit different aspects of the evening into signs, that we played off of airplane travel. My husband is a playwright and pretty creative so this was up his alley for sure. Here were some:

• Travel Itinerary– schedule for the night
• First Class– reserved seating for bride and groom’s families
• Baggage Drop off– leave your gifts here
• Baggage Claim- pick up your gifts
• Passport Photos– this was our photo booth!

• Guestbook. Our Guest Check-in sign pointed guests to where they could select a postcard and write a special message to us- suggesting a place for us to travel in the future!
• Decor. Lots of ideas for travel! Old suitcases piled up gave the rustic feel I was going for. Small Eiffel towers were strategically placed around the room, along with  candles for elegant lighting. Even our wine glasses were customized with the Paris theme.
• Ceremony. Our ceremony was not travel-themed! We started by paying respects to the parents not with us. Fortunately my husband wrote out the entire program, because our officiant did not show up and his brother had to step in! A highlight of the ceremony was a unity puzzle.

I wanted to do something creative (not a unity candle or sand or whatever) and found an artist who hand makes these! It’s a wonderful idea, whereby the puzzle starts apart and each girl puts her name/piece into it, then we put ours last. We displayed it on a table at the reception. Loved it!

• Hotel Bags. For people traveling and staying overnight, it’s a fitting idea to have little gift bags with essentials like tissues, mints, Hershey kisses, chapstick. I did these myself using plain white gift bags and attaching a sticker “Thank you for traveling all this way to be with us!” (We got those at Zazzle too). 
• Food. As a snack between dinner and dessert, we put out soft pretzels in honor of our city. We got them in the shape of hearts, which was such a nice touch! The cake topper was an adorable couple kissing while the girl was standing on a suitcase!

• Favors. This was the idea that knocked it out of the park.  We had to think pretty hard on this one- you want to get something useful, that people won’t throw away and that isn’t junk. Coasters or bottle openers, glasses of all sorts- none of that thrilled us. Then my husband, in an incredible creative moment, found a company that made custom travel UMBRELLAS! We were able to put a map of the world as the design, and add our names and wedding date on each of the four side of the umbrella. I’m still impressed with this idea- and people use them! And get this, it rained during the ceremony. Good luck to us!!