Fresh off their two-week honeymoon to my home state of California, Corey agreed to do an interview with me and let me show some of her awesome pictures. The interview follows, but to sum it up: Best. Wedding. Ever.
All photos from Richard Nowitz
What was the biggest planning obstacle?
Ugh. The biggest planning obstacle was getting people to RSVP to the damn invitations. We went to great lengths to give people plenty of time to take off of work, get babysitters for the kids, etc. We got the majority of them back at the two week until the wedding mark, and that was after calling or saying, "Hey, you're coming right?” A lot of people just called back to say they were coming too. That irked me a bit, because that was just wasting a stamp on the reply envelope and stamps are freakin' expensive! Also, trying to please both families on the invites was a big obstacle. John's mom wanted X amount of cousins and friends and such and my Mom and Stepdad were the same. It’s tough saying telling your parents "I know Betsy and you go to the same church sewing group and you'd like her to be there but I’ve never met her, so tough crap"
Eww, cooties!
What was your favorite moment of the day?
Learning that our cake lit up! Not tripping down the stairs. Seeing John for the first time (it was also the first time I had ever seen him in a suit so that was an extra bonus). Coming into the reception with John as the "throne room" music from Episode 4 played. High-fiving instead of kissing when people annoyingly clinked their glasses. [Kay’s note: brilliant! That glass clinking thing is really annoying!] Seeing people’s guestbook entries.
Love love the color scheme!
Guest book page
Every bride worries something will go wrong – what went wrong on your wedding day?
Not too much went wrong thankfully. There was a bit of confusion in the beginning as to where in the hell the boutonnieres and corsages were. We found them eventually. We also didn't hire a DJ and just hooked an iPod up which worked flawlessly except for trying to get everybody together so I could throw my bouquet. After 40 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to wrangle girls inside, our photographer announced that he's only there for another 10 minutes and that if I wanted to do the bouquet toss it was "now or never" in the middle of this scene 2 people were asking me for directions, 3 people were asking for parking passes, someone broke a wine glass, 2 people were asking if I knew a number for a cab and that's when I lost my shit and had a mini-breakdown. John, being the saint that he is, took care of everything. Other than that unpleasant incident, all was right with the world.
Corey and John with their bridesmaids and groomsmen
On to the awesome cake! How did friends and family react when you told them you were planning a Halloween wedding with a geeky cake?
We tried to keep the cake a secret for as long as we could. That only lasted about a week and a half. Most of our friends are Star Wars nerds like ourselves or they are fans of "Ace of Cakes". There were many joyous cries when we told them what we were getting done. The best response was simultaneous screeching done by my Maid and Matron of Honor while we were dress shopping. In fact, most guests at the wedding made sure to let us know that the cake was one of the highlights of the day for them. They were also shocked to know that it was vegan. Surprise! [Kay’s note: You don’t have to be Vegan to love Vegan cake. Mmm…]
Black Forest cake! As Corey said Mmm, cherries and chocolate...
Out of all the things you could have chosen for your Star Wars cake, why Han Solo frozen in carbonite? Was it John’s idea of what married life is like?
Haha. No, John didn't think of it as a symbolic frozen-in-limbo-stuck-forever kind of deal. At least, he hasn't mentioned it so...
We had such a hard time thinking of what we wanted for our cake. At first, we were thinking of an Evil Dead cake, with the cake itself looking like the Necronomicon. Then I was thinking sugar skulls. Then some sort of jack o'lantern cake. Finally, we both decided we wanted a Star Wars cake. Why hadn't we thought of this to begin with?? So then we had an even harder time deciding what Star Warsian image to cakeify. We went from the Death Star, to Jabba's barge, to an X-wing. You name it, we thought of it. Then we thought...carbonite! Charm City cakes had never done anything like that before, let’s challenge them! Plus, that meant that Han Solo would be at my wedding, and I had been dreaming of that ever since I was three. He wasn't playing the exact role that I wanted, but he was there nonetheless.
I’ve mentioned many, many times on this blog that I wish I hadn’t chosen a white dress for my wedding – it’s not me. I loved your dress, and I understand it was a steal – tell me more!
So I’m not the normal girl (obviously) and I didn't want the normal white dress. They’re just too cliché for me, and it's the same reason I would never buy a white car...they get dirty too fast. I mentioned to my matron of honor that I was thinking of wearing a red dress. She thought that was fabulous and sent me a link to redhotbrides.com to get some ideas. That is an amazing website! Soooo many pictures of other brides stickin' it to the traditional wedding and doing it their way.
Pretty!
So I was on the hunt for a red dress. I found several in many different styles: Tudor, gothic, Victorian, but they were all hellishly expensive. So I finally found a dress on the David’s Bridal website. It was a bridesmaid dress but I decided it would be the perfect wedding dress. I went in later to try it on and I fell in love. It was the first and only dress I had tried on and I totally lucked out aaaaaaaand it was only $180!!
Where was the reception held? What made you choose that location?
The ceremony and reception were both held at Chase Court in Baltimore. We chose it because we both lived in Baltimore at one point and we love the city. Also it was one of the few places we could find that wasn't affiliated with any religion since neither one of us are religious. It also fit a Halloween wedding. It was built in the late 1800's and hasn't changed much since then so it still had lots of gothic elements to it that we really loved. The pond in the garden filled with Koi was one of my favorites too.
This place is really gorgeous! Great find.
I loooove the long dark tables against the white walls
The décor at your wedding was awesome! What inspired your flowers and centerpieces?
For the flowers, John and I wanted Fall colored flowers to fit in with the theme and especially the time of year. The only thing we knew as we walked into our florist appointment is that we wanted red, orange and yellow flowers, absolutely NO roses, and that I wanted Gerbera daisies and Asiatic lilies (my favorites). To sum up, we picked the best florist ever. They were super knowledgeable and had a dozen or so books for us to look through. For the bouquets, they came up with the great idea of using plants and flowers that looked like other things. for example, they used coxcomb (which kinda looks like brains), kangaroo paw (which looks like little paws-go figure!) and something that I can't think of but the tips of it looked like little blood drops. Well, it did if you squinted your eyes just so. For the scattered bud vases, they used the same flowers that made up my bouquet, but they added some ribbons and skeleton hands that I had provided.
Skeleton hands
Everything turned out better than I could imagine. As for the centerpieces, my bridesmaids and I had gone out on November 1st last year to clean up on the Halloween leftovers sales. That’s where I found some really cool tealight houses, Burton-esque trees, and yards upon yards of Halloween fabric (which my mom later used to make runners for all the tables). We also had jack o'lanterns on the head table and in the window sills. The bridal party, along with a few close friends, carved about 20 pumpkins the night before the wedding. We had a lot of fun doing that and it was a great stress reliever to stab the pumpkins and pull out their guts.
Orange and red flowers
Now that it’s all over, what would you do different?
Now that it’s over and everything is in hindsight, I would have used a DJ. it was really hard to get everyone’s attention at once, not to mention missing the whole bouquet toss. Other than that, I would do it all exactly the same.
This is not wedding related at all, but the geeks of the world must know…What’s your favorite Star Wars movie?
This is a very good question. It would be like asking Jon and Kate which of their 8 kids is their favorite. Being a true fan, you can eliminate episodes 1-3. So even though every episode of the original trilogy holds a special place in my heart, my favorite would have to be Return of the Jedi. I won't go off on a nerd tangent, wasting your time and list every reason as to why this is so...unless you start another blog totally devoted to star wars. John's favorite is the empire strikes back. I guess not every couple is perfect...
So, I take it Corey’s not a Jar-Jar fan. Color meesa* surprised!
Best wedding ever, right? RIGHT?! Thanks to Corey and John for letting me invade their privacy.
-Kay Banks
*I'm sorry. I can't help it. It's a tick.
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