Michelle & Grey: A Victorian Wedding

We were married on Saturday, November 10, 2007 at the Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Denver, Colorado. We chose a Victorian theme, and all of our wedding guests dressed in costumes suited to the 1874-1888 time period.

Our wonderful photographer was Dona of Foto di Vita, and she brought along her colleague Greg, to make sure there was total coverage. They shot 3,000+ pictures over the course of 8 hours. All these images are copyright to her. Please do not use them without permission.

Note: This page looks not-so-great in Firefox. Maybe I'll work on that in the future. Sorry for the ugly if you get it.

About Us

Grey and I met online prior to the Internet. We talked a lot online, and when he graduated, he decided he would come out to Denver to visit me, to see if we got along as well in real life. He told his mother that he was moving to Denver. He told me he was only going to visit for a week. Apparently he knew something I didn't. We met on a Saturday morning, and he never left. We lived together from then on. We got engaged in our 12th year together, and were married in our 13th (an auspicious number as far as I'm concerned). We waited to have a wedding until we could afford to have the one we really wanted. It was absolutely worth the wait!

Preparations | Ceremony | Gallery | Reception | Favorite Things | DIY | Vendors

Preparations

My Matron of Honor was with me in my hotel suite along with my Mom and my future Mother-in-Law to have their hair done by Leslie on the day of the wedding.

Jo (my "brother") and "Dad" (long story!) got me dressed. I'm usually with them when I have reason to dress up, so they have helped get me into a lot of different costumes. Dad did up my corset, and that's Jo attaching the long ceremony train to my dress. Marna Jean, who made my dress in Oklahoma entirely by remote, was so very sweet and thoughtful in the ways she made my dress go on. The two trains buttoned and hooked to the sides and waist of the dress, respectively, and were literally interchangeable in under 5 minutes (3 hooks, two buttons on each side). Each train was edged in white lace which just peeked out, and the dinner train put only a couple of inches of fabric on the floor, which made it easy to manage when seated. The dress is made to mimic that of a paper doll I found on my search. The dress is dated 1884, and had the bustle I was looking for, along with lace, a long train, and orange blossoms, which the Victorians revered for weddings.

I had a silver sixpence in my shoe from 1880, which was my something old. Everything else was new. I borrowed my dinner necklace from our wonderful jeweler, Tony, and Jo tied the little blue ribbon through the eyelets in my petticoat for something blue.

Ceremony

Our ceremony started late. All that hair and makeup for the Moms ate up a lot of time, and we shifted the schedule around with pictures so that I had time to actually get ready. I had only one attendant, Alex, my Matron of Honor, so the walking in was really quick. Grey says it was too fast, but it was a fairly short aisle.

Alex's bouquet was beautiful, and contrasted with her emerald green silk dupioni dress, made after another paper doll (second row middle). The sleeve detail was especially lovely. My bouquet was all true red and red-black (Black Magic) roses, and set with little pearls in golden holders. It was precisely what I wanted, I had asked for something that cascaded all the way to the floor from my waist and had a teardrop shape. I learned my lesson the minute I picked it up. It contained over 78 roses and weighed about 13 pounds! Still, I got it for the drama, and it was totally dramatic.

Jo gave me his pocket square as a hankie, because I didn't remember to get one (oops!), and it was tucked nicely into my right glove. I was hoping I wouldn't need it, but the minute I turned the corner for the walk down the aisle, Grey's eyes were red (he wasn't crying, but he was really happy to see me, he probably thought I would never make it!), and it started the water works for me. Grey actually borrowed my hankie at one point, which I thought was funny.

Above: Our wonderful group of family and friends. Dad is not in this picture. After spending all his time helping me get dressed and being my day-of coordinator, he forgot to bring the chocolates that he handmade for our wedding gift. We realized it just before we walked into the ceremony, so he bolted back to my house afterward to get them. My photographer's post production guy asked me just recently if he should take another picture of Dad and superimpose his head. Apparently another bride he was doing work for asked that of him. I couldn't believe it. I love our group shot, but the stories are more amazing than the end result picture when someone is missing.

The Photo Gallery

From the moment we decided for sure we were going to go Victorian, I wanted the equivalent of a photo booth for our guests. This served two purposes. The first was to make sure we got at least one good picture of every single person at the wedding. The second was to get great shots we can send out with Christmas cards. Voila! Instant Christmas gift.

The Gallery was set up in the Gold Room (very appropriate!), which has a gorgeous fireplace and mantle which we had decorated with flowers and candles. We had the hotel relocate some furniture pieces for us -- a leather wingback chair, a settee, some potted plants -- and the marble pedestal which had held the flowers for the ceremony. The pieces made for really wonderful shots of our guests, and of us.

Photographer Greg did a lot of the directing of the Gallery shots, while Dona captured all the side shots and true candids of everyone while they were standing around watching, or in between formal shots. Greg would say "okay, serious faces" and then "smiles" and then "real smiles," which cracked everyone up. We got into a rhythm, so most pictures came out in just that order -- serious, small smiles, laughs. It was hard to choose between them when we got the pictures, because the serious ones were so period-correct, but the smiling ones are the image we really have of all these people.

Above: Three shots of my MoH's gorgeous baby, to whom I am a very proud, completely doting, official Fairy Godmother. She did not get to formally attend, but the nanny that Alex hired brought her by for pictures after the ceremony. Unfortunately she was really tired by that time, and quite done with being all dressed up, even if she did get handed around to all the want-to-be Moms and Grandmoms. She was with us all day while we were getting ready, and she is just the most adorable little princess in the world.

The Reception

The reception was designed to be the Victorian equivalent of a couple's first dinner party, which, following a wedding, was a really important social event. Wedding dresses of the Victorian era were usually re-tasked as dinner dresses, with some amount of change to the bodice or the skirt to allow it to be worn in public, and women often appeared in their dresses at an event within the first year of their marriage. My seamstress, Marna Jean, worked with me to design a dinner bodice for my dress, which incorporated the same material as my veil into the bodice. It also had a shorter train so I wouldn't have to sit on so much fabric. It was remarkably comfortable, and I loved it.

Our guests were seated at one 30' long table, and we sat side by side at one end. We had tall candelabras with even taller candlesticks in them, surrounding gorgeous flower arrangements. Dinner consisted of a six-course meal served a la Russe, which meant that every main dish, side dishes, etc., were brought person to person, and guests could choose to have some of everything, or just a little bit of a few things. The menu was custom-designed by us based on recipes which appear in an 1888 cookery book we ordered from England. There were two main dishes served for each course, and one or two sides for each choice. Five courses had wine/port/champagne served, three had beers chosen by my beer snob of a husband. We had attended a tasting with Kevin, the Assistant Banquet Chef, about two weeks before the wedding, and we loved everything he served. On the wedding night, though, I think he actually improved on perfection. The food was incredible, and he had added some delectable side dishes.

The Courses: Soup, Fish, Entree (chicken and turkey), Roast (buffalo and beef), Cheese, and Sweets, all before champagne and cake. We received thousands of compliments on the food, and we were able to sneak out during the Roast course to take some couples pictures together.

I chose lavender and sage for the table, with the sage in abundance and the lavender appearing mostly as fragrant Sterling roses in the bouquet. All the flatware was gold, as were the urns for the lower flowers, and the votives at each place setting had gold rims. When we sat down, our table contained over 150 pieces of crystal, and nearly 400 pieces of flatware.

Grey's aunt made our cake with the assistance (and space) of a local bakery. There were actually four cakes -- his hat was chocolate with chocolate fudge filling, the hatbox was white chocolate with strawberry filling; my hat was lemon with Bavarian cream filling, and my hatbox was almond poppyseed with Amaretto filling. They were so good, after the first bite we fed to one another, we both really wanted to have another. The staff at the hotel not only put together a cake plate for each of us to go, they also boxed the remainder of each cake, which it took us the rest of the week to consume with family, friends, and in front of the television on our own. Yummy!

Favorite Things

Our wedding day was really everything we could have dreamed it would be. We both had enough time to enjoy talking to and hanging out with the people who had come in from out of town to attend (which was mostly everyone). Despite being late to get started, the rest of the evening went off brilliantly, and the things that we noticed "went wrong" were things our guests had no idea about, and which did not ultimately change anything major about the day. We received hugs, and love, good wishes, beautiful gifts, and the presence of the people who matter most to both of us.

These pics represent some of the little details that photographers capture during their time with you that you look back on and remember, or that you missed entirely.

DIY

Almost everything about our wedding was handmade or custom made. Custom items included my veil, shoes, dress (all 40 yards of fabric it involved), and the Matron of Honor's dress. The rest was largely DIY.

SAVE THE DATE: As we wanted to start with Victorian flair, we sent handwritten, two-page letters to every guest/couple who would receive an invitation to the wedding. They were personal notes, and were embossed by Grey using a brass plate and embossing tool. At that time, they contained my R monogram. When we sent Thank You notes, I used the same stationary but used the married H for the monogram, and hand wrote each one.

FAVORS: I took a year and a half off from work to plan and execute the details for this wedding. I had decided that I wanted to do favors of toiletries, and looked for anything and everything related to making my own. I ordered materials, tested formulations, and contributed to a forum about the subject. My friends locally had to put up with a lot of test batches of lotion, scrub and other products before I narrowed the list down to the particular items I wanted to package for guests. I also began preparing the 9" hat boxes which would hold all the toiletries. I chose paper maché boxes -- square for men and round for women -- and used mostly fabric I had on hand and fabric remnants that I purchased to cover, pad and line them. Every one was a unique combination of exterior fabric, lining fabric and trims.

The women's boxes contained a rose-flavored lip balm, a sugar scrub (which turns to lotion on the skin in the shower, it's one of my favorite concoctions), a luxurious body cream, a spray-on moisturizer, a liquid soap, and a hand-crocheted chenille washcloth made by my brother-in-law (that's him peeking through the door above). Every woman received a different scent in their products, and different colors.

The men's boxes contained a peppermint lemongrass lip balm tin, a ceramic shaving mug, a shaving brush, shaving soap, after-shave gel, a massage bar of soap, a hemp lotion, and a chenille washcloth. Again, most of the scents were different, and the colors varied as well.

Every container was hand-labeled by me, Dad, Jo and Grey Thursday night. I had chosen a design theme for them, and Grey didn't like it, so we changed the branding. We arrived at Roger O'Hare's, in reference to our pet rabbit, Roger. Once we had a brand, I cranked out label sheets through our printer, and the guys cut and labeled all the products.

They turned out beautifully. I will have pictures of them soon, they are going to be taken separate from my wedding photos, mostly because I forgot to mention to my photographer that she should take the product out of the baskets. Oops! I have found a new love in making these products, and plan to continue doing so for friends and family.

MORE FAVORS: Dad made over 15 pounds of chocolates for each guest just for us. He made dark chocolate top hats filled with milk chocolate and white chocolate bow ties for the men, and rose-flavored white chocolate solid teacups on saucers, hand painting the flowers for the women. He even made a special sugar-free version for Alex.

WELCOME PACKETS: Grey and I bought 11x17 cardstock paper and used Publisher to design the cover logo. We cut an inch out of the bottom, scored the folds, and folded the right side into a pocket to hold information booklets about Denver that we got from the local tourism boards. The books themselves contained a welcome statement from Grey and me, a detailed schedule of events for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a list of wedding attendees and who they were to us, a detailed version of our dinner menu (so people knew what they were eating and drinking), our thanks to our standout vendors and family, and maps and reference for all the places we were going. The inner pages numbered 16 and were printed four pages per piece of paper. Jo assembled them for me, using a rectangular (ribbon) hole punch and tying them with lengths of gold rattail ribbon.

MENUS and PLACECARDS: We printed menus on the same 11x17 cardstock, four half-page sheets to one 11x17 sheet, printed both sides. Jo cut them for us on Friday. We printed one for every other person, and they were put into the napkins on the table. The placecards were ordered when we placed our invitation order, and they arrived blank. I hand wrote them.

Our Vendors

Sidney Stoper, The Brown Palace Hotel - Sidney is awesome. From the moment I spoke to him on the phone, he went out of his way to pamper and take care of me. He met me outside the room on the way to the ceremony, kissed my hand and told me how beautiful I looked. When we did the tasting, he said he normally doesn't taste food with guests, but because we had a custom menu, he joined us, and he was so wonderful about really saying how the items tasted and making suggestions, taking notes, and making sure everything was right. He had our suite cleaned while we were downstairs, and sent chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne to our room. Better still, he got us a gorgeous penthouse-floor suite for the most reasonable rate for a regular room at the hotel. A+

Barry Jones, Denver Design Works - Barry had one of the single largest jobs for the wedding. He was responsible for everything for the table: linens, china, flatware, glassware, candelabra, votives, serving utensils, chairs, and every single flower. They provided the pillars and florals for the ceremony room and the candles and votives used in the Gallery. They did a wonderful job with two exceptions: there were two pieces of flatware which did not make it to the table, and the china pieces we had specifically chosen were substituted with some I had said I did not want. I have the feeling those did not arrive in time from California, but only I really noticed. I would work with him again, certainly, I just would be a bit more specific in writing and pictures of what everything should look like. B+

Dona Laurita, Foto di Vita - If you got this far, and waded through all these pictures, you already know how amazing Dona is. I asked for the moon: shoot a November wedding, and then give me choices to send my guests for Christmas gifts. That's a quick turnaround, and I suspect I'll have pictures back by the 15th. Dona worked with me to alter and craft the perfect gifts, getting sepia tones and black and whites, cropping to sizes, cleaning up details. When we first met, she told me that the relationship with the photographer is the only one with a vendor that a bride keeps after her wedding day. I am beyond thrilled to say that I am looking forward to working with her again and more in the future. She went out of her way to make sure we had all the best shots. I suspect we will have her taking our anniversary photos ten years from now. A+

If you are considering the cost/benefit of wearing silk, pay a bit more for it. I wore over 40 yards of fabric, and never got too warm, and it's because I chose natural materials versus synthetics. If you have a choice, go natural.

Marna Jean Davis, Shooting Star Enterprises - Marna Jean is my dress angel. She banged out both my dress and Alex's in record time. And she was easy to work with. She knows what she is doing, and made changes with ease, added and subtracted and altered brilliantly. My only note is that I wish I had had the time for one more fitting before the wedding. Unfortunately, time ran short because it took me so long to find the right fabric, get it sampled, and get it in. To have made all those dress pieces (I had 9 separate pieces, Alex had 5) in the span of less than an actual working month is just amazing. Based solely on the cost of having the dress made, I spent less than many brides for the dress. The cost of the fabric was high, but it was exactly what I wanted. A

Leslie Snyder, LesliesArts - Leslie is the best!! She is my makeup artist of choice now. Leslie worked like a dog the day of (she did it all by herself!), and managed to not only style Alex's hair and mine, she added tons of hair to both Moms so they had a period style for the wedding. They ended up with curled fronts and spiral ringlets, and my Mom had a braid which visually tied the front hair into the back. The styles were beautiful. I loved Alex's, which looked so intricate, and I loved the three draping curls Leslie put into my hair. We only did half of my hair at my trial to make sure that we could do what we wanted, and we changed things on the fly to accommodate the headpiece, which was not yet done when we did the trial. Her prices were reasonable, her work exceptional, she was friendly and knowledgeable, showed up on time, and was capable of taking on anything we threw her way. Book her in advance, though, she is a busy woman! A+

Brenda Farney-Merrill, Winterset Music - Brenda helped me get a trio of Victorian strings to play at the wedding. They kept the guests a bit satiated while everyone was waiting, and even my Mom commented that she loved the atmosphere at dinner. It was like having a true group of artists play music you love, just for you. Plus, Brenda's local contact, Anna, called and actually listened to the tempo of the song I wanted played for our Recessional, to make sure it was timed like the version on a CD I own, rather than the one on another reference sample. How's that for personal service? A

Rachel at Sara Gabriel Veils and Headpieces - Sara's shop made both my veil and my amazing pearl headpiece. I wondered what to do with the headpiece, and it was so fabulous that Alex asked me to save it for her daughter's wedding. Of course I'll do that! My veil was exactly as I wanted, and they allowed me to supply the ribbon for the edging, so I got it to match the dress perfectly. It was nice to get to have that level of hands-on service, and it was fun to choose a veil color not many brides would even consider. The only note I have is that my headpiece ended up taking way more Swarovski pearls than they estimated, and that raised the price. It was fine, but the timing meant I did not find out about the charge until I went to pick it up. B+

Anthony Mohr, Anthony M's Visions in Gold - Tony is our jeweler. Grey found him based on a co-worker's recommendation for his work. He made my engagement ring in the gold that I wanted, and when I wanted to change the size of the stones, he reset the entire ring for me. He's one of those lovely people who will do something until it's right for the buyer. He also let me borrow the beautiful set of pearls that I wore with my dinner bodice. They were set with small gold roundels, and matched perfectly. Our rings are exactly as we wanted them, and Grey's was made based on his drawings and indications. A

Judge Alfred Harrell, Denver District Court - We interviewed 4 different potential officiants. We loved Judge Harrell's sense of humor, his laugh, and his welcome smile. Our ceremony was dignified, intimate, lovely, and I know he had a great deal to do with giving it that level of character. Plus, we had an opportunity to see him again, and were reminded why we liked him so very much. We wrote all our vows based on quotes we both loved, and we each read a quote to one another during our vows. Judge Harrell was one of the few people we met with who really was flexible with the topic of our ceremony being non-religious, but spiritual. A

Joan at My Vintage Sole -  I wanted period-correct footwear, and I chose shoes I thought would be perfect. I ordered them about 5 weeks before I needed them. Unfortunately something got miscommunicated between MVS and the actual shoe maker, and I got an email saying that my shoes had been made in the wrong size 15 days before the wedding. I didn't have a back-up plan, and pleaded with Joan to contact the manufacturer to see if they could rush them. They did, and the shoes arrived the morning before the wedding. They are exactly what I wanted, but they certainly caused a lot of stress! They were comfortable and beautiful, and are now probably permanently imprinted on the interior by the sixpence I stuck in there for luck. B-

La Crasia Gloves - They made my kidskin leather debutante gloves. I had to stretch them out at the upper arm (I apparently don't have debutante arms!), and the leather was so supple, it was easy. I paid a lot for them, but they were worth it. Very Victorian. B+

The Woodhouse Day Spa - We got engaged here, so it makes sense that we came back for a day of pampering for the women in the wedding. We had a lovely lunch on the heated sunporch in our robes, and we all chatted during manicures and pedicures. It was a great morning, and I know everyone enjoyed their treatments (and wine!). Apparently it's a popular place for wedding parties, we ran into another two that morning. It's a lovely treat, and a nice way to relax before the day. B

Tall Men Shoes - Most men would never admit it if they chose to get lifts in their shoes. I thought it was absolutely essential for Grey. We are both the same height, 6'1", and we look good standing together as long as neither of us is wearing any shoe with height. When I knew my shoes would have a 1.5" heel, I went looking for something that would even the playing field for Grey. I found it at this site. The shoes he wore were purchased here, and were standard dress shoes. He looked great, and despite it feeling weird for him to walk in at first, he carried them off well, and the resulting images of us together do not look as though there is a big height variance, and most of what is there is my hair. :) A