Park Chelsea Wedding

The first thing to catch my eye about this New York wedding was Pat Furey‘s imagery. Then we fell in love with the bride’s amazing headdress, created by Polux Fleuriste. Doesn’t it bring such a transformation to the bride’s overall stylish look? Of course, we also have to give a huge gold star to the reception venue, The Park in NYC – such a relaxing pause amidst the city chaos.

From the bride, Denise: Being old souls and fans of literature, we wanted our wedding to have a Prohibition/Great Gatsby garden party theme with a modern twist. After exploring amazing venues like The Bronx Zoo in NYC, we found a perfect venue in The Park in NYC due to its cosmopolitan vibe, modern tendencies, but nods to the past like the Red Room that looked like a Prohibition room with Shanghai/Chinoiserie influences complemented by an open space in their Garden room, complete with kitsch wooden deer, live birds, vintage lights, and garden seating.

We wanted a vintage look, with a modern/eclectic feel, so of our 12 tables, about 7 had different vintage candelabras that we found at the antique malls in Duncan, Oklahoma (where my mom’s family is from) and we drove them cross-country. We wanted to give a vintage feel with modern/eclectic tendencies, so mixed those candelabras with modern black and gold lacquer vases, and white flowers to unify it all.

We had plenty of DIY projects, frankly to save money where we could. Those included the escort cards, which were Chinese fans ordered online with beautiful colorful designs. We tied them together with gold elastic bows we bought online, and attached to the bows scalloped tags from Staples ($3/100) on which we printed our wedding monogram, names/tables. We also printed up our own menus on small paper purchased for $4/150 sheets which we cut in half to be more dainty, as well as our wedding programs.

We also printed up pictures of our grandparents with wedding dates and framed each in vintage-looking frames from Michaels. In order to conserve money we also made our own bridesmaids bouquets out of white roses, eucalyptus, and apricot-colored ribbon, as well as making the church pew decorations with the same elements. All in all, that saved us a lot of money, and not where people would necessarily notice or focus on.

See Also

A Bold Berry-Colored Vallejo Wedding

Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? I would say that bridesmaids and bridesmaids dresses are a thing of the past. If you can get by with a maid of honor and best man, do it. Not only does it make your wedding more elegant, but it’s just more streamlined. If you want bridesmaids (like I did), let them pick your dresses. Give them a general color scheme like I did, and then leave it to them. The variation in style and color will make your wedding more appealing. Also, after having our DJ with some apprehension initially, I would recommend a DJ over a band. Rocking out to Nirvana and Pearl Jam as we did at our wedding cannot be recreated in my opinion…..

Wedding Music:
Bridal Party Processional: “All My Life,” The Beatles
Processional: Pachelbel’s Canon in D
Recessional: “America,” Simon and Garfunkel
First Dance: “Just Breathe,” Pearl Jam
Since we are huge Pearl Jam fans, our first dance could be to no other than Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe.” And because we’ve been to countless of their concerts, our last song could be no other than their “Yellow Ledbetter.” Those who knew us well got a huge kick of it as an inside joke 🙂 And I’ll never forget to jumping up and down to “Smells Like Teenspirit” – one of my favorite Nirvana songs ever!

Wedding Location: Chelsea, NYC / Wedding Photographer: Pat Furey / Ceremony Venue: The Church of the Incarnation / Reception Venue and Caterer: The Park / Wedding Planners: Frances Stockton and Bonnie Goodrich of the Park / Wedding Flowers and Headdress: Polux Fleuriste / Wedding Dress: Carol Hannah “Church St.” via Lovely Bride / Alterations: Adrienne’s Bridal / Groomsmen’s Suits: Vera Wang from Men’s Wearhouse / DJ: Jason Blends / Wedding Invitations: Exclusively Weddings / Paper Good Design: Type Ten Paperie