Erica + Collin’s 60s Wedding

I stumbled upon Jacob Pritchard‘s work the other day and had to share this quirky 60s wedding that I saw on his blog. Erica, the bride, shares all the tidbits about her wedding day:

Collin and I made the CD – the picture is the same one we used on the front of our wedding invitation, which we designed and had printed at a postcard place. We’re both sci-fi dorks and I use sci fi costumes and plotlines a lot in my artwork. The songs are all songs that Collin and I have made together or separately over the course of the probably 15 years or so that we’ve been making music.


Their wedding rings had each others’ fingerprints on the outsides.

I wear a lot of 60s/70s/80s clothes but was definitely feeling more of a 60s vibe at the time and thought that would be a good visual theme to the way we looked. I thought I would try on a million different wedding dresses, but I saw that one online and just bought it, and that was that. I had it tailored by this awesome woman Ann Hamilton, who specializes in vintage wedding dresses. She was excited that I was keeping the dress’s poofy arms (one of my fave features on a dress), as most of her clients have her remove the arms from their dresses. She took out the lining of the arms and also replaced the lining of the entire dress, which was this really stiff kinda cheap fabric that made a swishy noise when I moved in it. I also retooled my mom’s veil, replacing the lace and tool, and that felt kind of nice.

Cupcakes – we asked some friends and family to contribute one dozen cupcakes each of their choice. We did still have a small cake to cut – it was one that my mother made – my favorite recipe of all time. And we had a few dozen cupcakes made from the same recipe. so the end result was a nice assortment of different familiar flavors in a handy pre-portioned size. No plates needed!


I’m usually a natural light kind of girl, but I’m loving the use of flash on these photos:


For the dresses for the bridesmaids, we went shopping one afternoon at a few vintage/thrift stores I knew carried a lot of 60s/70s clothing and each of them got a dress within a 60sish palette I was looking to use. I tried to convince Collin to wear a wacky/hokey 1960s or 1970s suit but he preferred to rock a more sophisticated modern look. We had a hard time figuring out what to do with the guys, but ended up finding them shirts (at Express) that more or less matched the ladies’ dresses.

As for other stuff relating to the aesthetic – I designed some fabric that we used for the backdrop for our photos at the hotel. I had it printed at spoonflower.com. For centerpieces, we planted various plants in milk glass containers that we collected at various thrift stores and tag sales over the course of the summer – 3 per table. We found some really cool and unique pieces, and people seemed to enjoy bringing those home. Each group of 3 sat on a square of the fabric that I made. We also hung some big white lanterns in the barn to lighten up the space, though the barn itself did have a very excellent warm and homey rustic vibe to it. I also tried to aim for a bouquet that was sort of sixties-esque in that it had a cascade. We also had these cool floral bracelets for the ladies which were a nice touch on the florist’s part.

The band – Collin’s family is very musical – his dad has playing guitar for most of his life, his brother Scott is an awesome drummer, and his brother Kyle played guitar back in the day and picked it back up again for them to play at Scott’s wedding in April 0f 08. Collin makes music and has been in a band and plays the guitar and bass. I sing and make music, and my mom sings in the Hartford Chorale. My dad is a huge music lover and got me interested in a lot of music when I was younger. He bought Nirvana’s Nevermind before me – I think that helps to put it in perspective. Anyway…Collin’s family plays together and my family really doesn’t, so I thought it would be cool to join forces and make a supergroup of members from both sides. I sang on most songs and was joined by Collin, his dad Mel, my mom Elaine and my aunt Missy, who’s also a singer and musician. My dad also sang and played keyboard on Whip It (one of his karaoke faves). We were only able to practice twice but it was great fun and I think we did an awesome job.

This is my favorite part of their wedding story:

Also there is a cool story about our engagement. I wish we could just send you a video clip from the ceremony but we haven’t actually digitized it yet. I’ll just briefly go over what we did. My friend Sarah married us, and we worked with her to develop the ceremony and vows. We more or less wrote our vows the night before, which was kinda stressful, but worked out fine. For the readings, we had friends read poems and song lyrics that we wrote over time about each other, and we also had them talk about and demonstrate the Proposal Box, which Collin used to propose to me. He works with electronics and designed this cute little box to ask me to marry him. There was a “yes” and a “no” button and some LEDs. When the YES button was pushed, the Beatles “The End” started playing – right at the part where it goes “OH YEAH! ALRIGHT!!!” We’ll have to put up a video of that in the near future!

Wedding Vendors: (Wethersfield, Connecticut)

Venue: Webb Barn
Photography: Jacob Pritchard
Florist: Gordon Bonetti
Vintage wedding dress: Vintage Wedding
Vintage Dress alterations: Ann Hamilton (NYC)