A Bookish Wedding

On September 9, 2017, I married the love of my life.  The process of planning my wedding was an overwhelming experience.  It was completely out of the question that I would play the role of “bridezilla”.  I could care less about the trivial matters that come with a wedding.  Don’t get me wrong.  I absolutely loved my wedding but planning it was not enjoyable for me….except for the bookish details.

It was obvious that books would be a part of my wedding.  Books are my everything!  So how did I incorporate books into my wedding?  Here are three easy ways to subtly put a bookish spin on your wedding!

CENTERPIECES 

Each table featured a floral arrangement of vases filled with coffee beans.  In order to add height, the arrangements were placed on top of three vintage books.  This was a simple way to add personality, color and a conversation starters.  Most of the books were specifically chosen to compliment our personalities.   For example, the picture above features Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and a White House cookbook.  Like most bookish nerds, I adore Alice in Wonderland; I actually had two copies at my wedding.  The year before meeting my husband, I spent a year in the D.C area.  It was the best year of my life as a single lady.  When I found that book at a local antique store I knew that the blue cover with gold lettering would be beautiful on a table.

At least half of the tables I visited throughout the wedding reception asked me about the books.  Everyone knew that I am a librarian and books are my life.  It was obvious that the books had meaning.  For the most part, each title did in some way.  An orange copy of a history book on Catherine of Aragon connects to my endless knowledge of the Tudor monarchy.  The copy of Edgar Allen Poe poems and short stories represented the groom.  I loved that our guests dived in and looked through the books.  That was a fun and coincidental result of the bookish centerpieces.

All of the books were purchased from various antique stores and from a storage locker unit.  One Sunday morning my husband came across a Craig’s List ad for 150 old books for sale .  Within a few hours, we bought the lot for a hundred bucks.  My husband said he had never seen me so happy.  I am an easy bookish girl to please!  Some of the discoveries in that lot still send a shock of excitement through me.  However, that bookish thrill will be saved for a post for another day.  Finding and going through our book purchases was an absolute joy for me.  I found so many amazing things that will happily reside on my bookshelves for the rest of my days.

WEDDING BOUQUET

My wedding bouquet was my pop of yellow in the color theme and book page roses.  I am fortunate to have a wonderfully artistic friend, Cha Sutton of Blooming Books by Cha, who makes beautiful creations from book pages.  She kindly provided me with several book page roses for my bouquet.  They were the perfect touch and complimented my personality perfectly.

I am frugal as is my husband.  I had no desire to spend an outrageous amount on fresh floral arrangement from a flower shop.  Not to mention, the groom is sensitive to floral scents.  I did not want a groom sneezing through his wedding vows!  So fake flowers made sense for our wedding.  I am not a crafty person even though I would love to be.  As I was stumbling through arranging the bouquet, I realized that it was lacking something.  That was when I remembered my crafty, artistic friend Cha and her book page roses.  They completed the arrangement and then some.

WEDDING VOWS

During one of my first book shopping trips I came across this book at a local antique store.

For whatever reason, I was drawn to this book.  I immediately fell in love with it.  I picked it up, saw the price tag and put it back down.   I walked around all of the booths and found some other beautiful treasures.  However, I kept going back to this book.  Why on earth was it speaking to me? Because I Love You is a compilation of love poems published in 1894.  I hate poetry.  It is a little white covered book of love poems.  Was I really going to be the stereotypical bride and fill my centerpieces with love poems…when I hate poetry?  I carefully looked through the pages.  There were clovers and flowers pressed inside.  The previous owner was clearly a lover of poetry as so many of the words and phrases were underlined in pencil.  The more I looked through it the more in love I fell.  I could not and would not deny the overwhelming pull this book had on me.

When I got home I decided that this book would be a part of my wedding vows. I was going to use the book of poetry that had claimed my heart.  I included the passage below which was enthusiastically underlined by the previous owner:

“Words are small; tis life speaks plain: in twenty years perhaps you may know all”.

This book was not only included in my wedding vows but it also resided in the head table centerpiece right in between the bride and the groom.