Modern Geometric Wedding

Newlyweds Trish and Michael met while working at a local newspaper agency in Seattle, and both went on to careers in design — so it seems like a logical jump that their wedding day would incorporate a love of paper, bold graphic design, and a color palette described by the bride as “sophisticated Lego.” After receiving many recommendations from friends, the couple hired photographer Jenny Jimenez and the amazing talents of Matthew Parker Events who sent these lovely images our way. We adore that the couple picked a venue only four blocks from their home, so that their guests were able to get a taste of the couple’s own neighborhood life!

From the bride, Trish: Our hope was for the wedding to reflect our personal style and to include things in our everyday life. The colors that we chose were the same as bowls and French serving plates that we have in our kitchen. We have lots of friends and family who live far away and who we don’t get to see as often as we’d like so, as much as possible, we wanted them to feel like they were visiting us and seeing our lives when they came to our wedding. Also, we go to a lot of parties and celebrate often so we wanted the guests at our wedding to have fun and feel like we were celebrating them and showing them how grateful we are to have them in our lives.

We both work in the design industry; Michael as a founder of creative agency called Dumb Eyes and I’m a recruiter for Filter, working with web and graphic designers. We met while working at The Stranger, an alternative weekly newspaper in Seattle. When Michael proposed, it was with a ring that he made out of paper that had lorem ipsum printed on it, which is used by web designers as placeholder copy in comps. This would be the placeholder ring until I picked one that I liked.

Because we met at a newspaper we really wanted to use paper as a theme. Since we had a pretty limited budget, we wanted to keep the paper décor simple and bold to avoid an overly crafty look. As we sought inspiration, a friend introduced us to a book on paper folding techniques “Creating With Paper” by Pauline Johnson. We also watched the documentary “Between The Folds”. We enlisted the help of artist Matthew Parker, who shared our admiration for geometric paper shapes, to bring these shapes to life. Our ring bearer carried our rings down the aisle on a paper sculpture created by Matthew. Rather than flower petals, our flower girls dropped “petals” of colored tissue paper that Michael and his mother cut into geometric shapes.

Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? Michael and I were really fortunate to have supportive families who didn’t impose their expectations or wishes on our event. In that respect, we could do almost anything we wanted and this became daunting sometimes. We tried to focus on the top things that were important to us and remind ourselves of those things when our attention would start to become divided. This ended up being really helpful when I’d find myself obsessing over some minor detail that wasn’t on my list. If you’re lucky and have wonderful friends like we do, they’ll offer to help you. If you’re organized enough, graciously accept!

Wedding Music:

Flower Girl Processional: “Here She Comes,” The Velvet Underground
Bride’s Processional: “Terrapin,” Syd Barrett
Recessional: “All My Loving,” Almighty Defenders
First Dance: “I’m Sticking To You,” The Velvet Underground
Father/Daughter Dance: “‘Til There Was You,” The Beatles

Wedding Vendors (Seattle, WA):

Wedding Venue: Rainier Chapter House / Wedding Photographer: Jenny Jimenez / Officiant: Wazhma Samizay / Event Design: Matthew Parker Events / Wedding Flowers: Katherine Anderson of Marigold and Mint / Wedding Dress: Neiman Marcus / Wedding Veil: BellaBridalVeils / Wedding Hair: Beehive Salon / Wedding Rings: Greenlake Jewelry Works / DJ: Mark Gockley, DJ Buttontop and Chris Sutton / Wedding Caterer: Long Provincial Restaurant / Wedding Invitations: Designed by groom, Dumb Eyes / Stationery Printer: United Reprographics