Green Building Brooklyn Wedding

As teenagers, Matt and Amy listened to Louis Armstrong’s “A Kiss to Build a Dream On” as they shared their very own first kiss. Years later, just as if it were a movie, the couple shared their first dance to the same song in front of their family and friends in Brooklyn’s The Green Building. Luckily for us, Paper Antler was there to capture their wedding day to sheer perfection!

From the bride, Amy: Both Matt and I have design backgrounds, so right away we knew that we wanted to personalize as much of our wedding as possible. We also love things to be quirky and fun, mixing things that don’t traditionally go together. We envisioned an urban vintage feel; set in a warehouse with farm tables and vintage china, but also with neon accents, tongue in cheek handmade signs, and food trucks complete with milkshakes.

We did not have a color scheme, much to our families’ dismay at matching things for us. We started with a palate of four colors for our invitations- grey, yellow, deep red, and slate blue, but soon we were overtaken with sparkly silver, neon pink, and an amazing peach satin flowergirl dress that ended up determining the flower colors. It had been made by my mother for a cousin’s wedding in the 80s, and had many fond memories attached to it from my childhood. I was thrilled that it could be a part of my wedding day, and it influenced the grey of the bridesmaids dresses (as a contrast) and the peach and white ombre of the flower bouquets.

The groomsmen wore neon pink socks, a color which found its way into random decorations throughout. I added a sparkly silver ribbon belt to the bridesmaid dresses, which in turn ended up deciding the confetti choices. Since we designed the invitation suite ourselves, the ever changing palate made its way through as neon pink reply cards (which we then recycled as confetti for the table tops) and silver and gold ink addressing grey envelopes for our pale blue invitations. Some of the DIYs that we did included the bridesmaid and groomsmen gifts, the various signs at the reception, the chocolate mustache favors, and the invitation suite. All of the plates were antique china collected by family and friends throughout the year.

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Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? Remember to step back and really enjoy the process. It gets very stressful, especially if you are trying to balance time for DIY projects and vendor coordination, but don’t let yourself get lost in the details. I found that my best decisions were the quickest ones- the more I agonized over something and changed my mind, the less likely I was to like it later. Also, I think the best decision we made was to hire a day of event coordinator. She took all of our projects and put them together for us into the beautiful, cohesive reception that I had dreamed of (but was never sure was going to happen). I was able to focus completely on my family and my new husband because I felt secure in that she was taking care of everything. Also, despite creating/making the decisions on every decoration, plate, and morsel of food that went into our reception, it still felt like a wonderful surprise when we saw it all together for the first time.

Wedding Music:
I was thrilled to be able to use the “Wedding March” by Wagner for my walk down the aisle- it is used in many movies and is the tune used to sing “here comes the bride,” but it is not typically allowed in a Catholic ceremony. The 5 year girl in me was so happy that our priest had no problems with it. The recessional was “Wedding March” by Mendelssohn, another widely popular wedding choice that I couldn’t resist. Matt and my first dance was to Louis Armstrong singing “A Kiss To Build A Dream On.” This has been our song since we were 18, soon after we first met. We were listening to music while hanging out, before we had ever kissed. “A kiss to build a dream on” came on and both of us just looked at each other and then we kissed for the first time. For the cake cutting we played “You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson, such a fun quirky love song.

Wedding Location: Brooklyn, NY / Wedding Photographer: Paper Antler / Ceremony Venue: St. Agnes / Reception Venue: The Green Building / Day-Of Coordination: Ruth of The Event Shop Ltd / Wedding Flowers: Kimberly of Rose Red and Lavender / Wedding Dress: Pronovias / Wedding Shoes: Vivienne Westwood “Melissa” / Hair: Krista of Foxy Salon / Makeup: Anni of NYC Faces / Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Bari Jay / Groom’s Suit: Zara / DJ: DJ K Ross of Scratch Weddings / Food Trucks: The Milk Truck and Cooking With Fire / Wedding Cake: Marisa of Sugar Coated Bakery / Edible Butterflies: Sugar Robot / Cake Topper: Simply Silhouettes / Wedding Invitations: designed by bride and groom / Wedding Paper and Printing: Paper Presentation