Notes On A Wedding | North West Wedding Blog

Jonathan Steinberg sent us pictures from this romantic coastal wedding at the Oddfellows Hall on Orcas Island. We love how beautifully he captured the late

summer glow that the San Juans are known for and how perfectly the island theme was incorporated into the country style wedding.

Here are the details direct from event designer Rachel Bowes of Finch & Thistle Event Design….

On the apple theme… The bride, Chelsea, grew up on an apple farm in Wenatchee, WA and in her senior year of high school she was nominated Apple Blossom Queen. On a weekend trip to Lake Chelan, I found a pile of vintage apple label postcards in a roadside antique store and inspiration hit. We would design the day with a country, organic theme based around vintage apple posters.

On the ceremony…The ceremony took place on the patio of the Oddfellows hall in Eastsound, overlooking the beautiful Puget Sound and surrounded by native Madrona trees. Penny the Labrador served as flower girl and ate her corsage halfway through.

On the outfits…Chelsea wore a Nicole Miller gown, accessorized with a multi strand gold and pearl necklace from Macy’s, and carried a bouquet of white and orange garden roses, blackberries, thistle, dahlias, stock, freesia and green hypericum berries. Jamie wore a custom suit from Nordstrom. The bridesmaids wore dresses in different shades of blue from J.Crew and Kenneth Cole while the groomsmen wore grey slacks with white shirts and blue and orange checked ties.

On the DIY decor… Chelsea was a very hands-on bride. She made the burlap table runners herself, spent a weekend sewing pennant flags, collected crates and crates of coveted blue mason jars and vintage bottles and glued lace cutout blue paper onto recycled cans for centerpieces. We used white linens to show off the burlap and the blue mason jars and used the apple postcards in lieu of table numbers.

On the apple tattoos….Chelsea’s sister Erica had a *brilliant* idea. She had been to an event for the WA wine commission and seen apples “tattooed” with logos for a sponsor company. We had been tossing the idea around of using apples grown by Chelsea’s father as place card holders but this took things to a whole new level. Erica found a small indie sticker company in Seattle and commissioned them to design a small black heart shaped

sticker with a C & J cutout in the middle. Two weeks before the apples were to be picked, Chelsea’s dad and stepmother stuck the stickers onto the apples while they were still green. Apples turn red right before they need to be picked so the sticker blocked out the sunlight leaving a stencil in green on the red apple. They turned out perfectly!

On the flowers…I wanted to use seasonal, local flowers wherever possible and the predominant colors in all the posters was blue and orange so I used those colors as gentle guide. The bouquets featured thistle, dahlias, cherry brandy and orange unique roses, stock, queen anne’s lace and green blackberries picked from the shoreline that morning.

On the desserts…The cupcakes were actually made by the bartender at the wedding and the cake topper was from the bride’s grandmother’s wedding day!

On the grand entrance…The bride and groom entered the reception to a taped recording by one of the groomsmen mimicking the starting lineup for an NFL football game and guests danced the night away under a ceiling draped with pennant flags in vintage fabric while the sun shone through lanterns and aqua jars of flowers hung in the windows.

Photographer: Jonathan Steinberg/ Floral and Event Design: Finch & Thistle Event Design/ Venue: Oddfellows Hall, Eastsound, WA/ Bride’s Dress: Nicole Miller/ Bridesmaid’s Dresses: J.Crew/ Groom’s Attire: custom Nordstrom suit