A Hand Crafted Wedding Beside the Brooklyn Bridge, New York – Giordana & Justin

Justin and Giordana played hooky with their closest family and friends and married beside the Brooklyn Bridge in New York! The entire day was built around creativity and merriment, including a post-ceremony ice cream break before a happy ride on the world-famous Jane’s Carousel! (amazing) Giordana even wore her mother’s wedding dress from the 70’s and asked everyone else to show up in bright, festive colours! Every single detail was hand crafted by the couple and their parents or their favorite Etsy vendors! Talk about a personal and awesome wedding right?!

“We knew almost immediately that we didn’t want a traditional wedding—and we certainly didn’t want a big one. We wanted to spend quality time with the people who would be surrounding us and celebrating with us, and we knew we wouldn’t be able to achieve that with any more than our immediate family and best friends. We also knew there was nowhere locally (we’re from Baltimore) that spoke to us more than one of our favorite cities in the world, New York. So we planned a getaway and cherished the opportunity to bring our guests—some of whom hadn’t been to New York in decades, or ever—to the city that we so love.

We couldn’t have done this, of course, without a local connection, and one of my closest family friends who lives in Manhattan was instrumental in helping to pull the pieces together (not to mention offering a home base during multiple trips up to the city to square away details). It quickly became evident that it wouldn’t be our wedding–and so ideally “us”—without this same friend officiating. Other details fell into place: We loved the idea of renting a school bus to keep our small group together, since it spoke to our meeting in grad school. Our day of “hooky playing” with our friends and family involved treating them to ice cream, taking them on a carousel ride and topping off the evening with a flawless dinner at a neighborhood Italian restaurant in the West Village (a must in NYC) and a couple dozen divine cupcakes.

Our starting point for the “feel” of our wedding—although it’s hard to pinpoint that without saying that it was simply “us”—was my mother’s wedding dress from the mid-1970s. As soon as I knew it was still wearable, it served as the focal point of our planning. And because it is certainly vintage, we built the rest of our wedding’s look and feel around it, starting with the invitations, which we designed ourselves and had printed at a local letterpress shop where Justin had interned. Since we met in grad school for graphic design, we insisted on designing all of our printed pieces ourselves, selecting all of our paper stock, and tying everything into the identity we developed for our wedding, featuring Justin’s line drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge. We also thought of our wedding as an adventure, especially for a couple of world travelers stricken by wanderlust, and so emerged a message of “Away we go,” which made its way into the invitations and other printed materials. Finally, there was not a single element of our wedding that we didn’t craft ourselves—or that wasn’t crafted through someone else’s talent.

Even our apples (our flower girl was actually an apple girl) were hand picked by friends. We were dedicated to purchasing from local or independent artists or small businesses only. Finally, we wanted a photographer who could capture our creativity, and we were incredibly lucky to find Jessica Oh! Photography; Jessica herself offered unending inspiration as our plans developed.

Super Suppliers: Photography: Jessica Oh! Photography //Hair: Ciara at Geoff Merritt NYC // Dress: vintage 1970s, mother of the bride // Suit: SYMS // Ties: The Tie Bar // Flowers: Jade Vine Design // School Bus: Jofaz Transportation // Reception Venue: Villa Mosconi // Cupcakes: Dessert Club, ChikaLicious // Cupcake Toppers: Glam Hatter // Invitation Printing: Gilah Press + Design // Carousel: Jane’s Carousel //