From the bride:
Sam and I are quite untraditional. We got engaged over a bowl of pasta by deciding it would be fun to spend the rest of our lives together, and designed a ring together that week. There was no bended knee, only pasta. We wouldn’t have it any other way. We knew after we got engaged that planning a wedding for us would have to also be quite untraditional.
We knew (both living in Pittsburgh at the time), that the only place we could ever imagine getting married would be The Andy Warhol Museum. Pittsburgh was the place we first moved in together, and really began our lives together. We both enjoy the arts, and pop design. We wanted a venue that was us, and a wedding that we could define to fit our needs and wants, and that was The Warhol. We felt that it needed to be young, and modern like us have personalized details that reflected how we wanted our lives together to be.
Shortly after getting engaged, I left for London to pursue my masters in playwriting, so we planned the entire wedding via Skype from London to Pennsylvania. The wedding was even more special to us because it was the end of ever being long distance, and the beginning of our lives from where we started (Pittsburgh), to a new adventure (London). We now live in London (moving here following the wedding), and I work as an acting agent and an aspiring playwright, therefore, getting married on a stage was a dream.
Sam and I were married on August 6, 2011. Our ceremony was in the Andy Warhol Theatre on stage, with a projection of a city background behind us. We had an amazing reverend, Dina McGee, who embraced our creativity and helped us write and choose the ceremony to fit our needs. We wrote our own vows, and had readings from my favorite playwright, Sarah Kane’s play, Crave, and a reading from Farewell To Arms. Sam designed hard cover books on Blurb.com which included all of the contents of our ceremony in play format. We read from them during the ceremony and had the lights dimmed like a performance. It was only fifteen minutes long, but it was the most powerful fifteen minutes of our lives. My friend, Amelia Thornton flew from Seattle to play violin for our ceremony, which included Bad Romance by Lady Gaga as our recessional. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Not because it was a beautiful, elegant, traditional wedding, but because they saw so much of Sam and me in it, and we knew it could be no other way.
Sam’s and my first dance was “Marry Me” by St. Vincent, Father-Daughter dance was “What a Wonderful World” and we did a surprise dance that I choreographed to “Oops I Did It Again” by Britney Spears.
Sam and I felt that in order to really get unique messages out of our friends and family, we needed to ask them. Sam designed five different guestbooks on Blurb.com with questions like “When did you first know we were meant for each other?” to get the guests really thinking about the moments they first realized we were a match. It was an idea from MarthaStewart.com that was an instant hit.
The Warhol also had an antique photo machine downstairs, in which we gave guests envelopes of dollar bills to go down and take old fashioned photo snapshots. We then asked them to cut off one or two to place in a book for us, and take the others home as a fun reminder of our day.
I have always worn dresses and skirts so having a dress that fit my figure and my style was a must. Often I would see wedding dresses and never imagine myself in one. Luckily there is a designer that had my perfect, comfortable, and very dance-able dress; Dolly Couture. It not only felt great, but it fit the look and feel of the Warhol. I also wanted to make sure I still looked like me, so having my hair down, and my makeup quite similar to what I normally wear made me feel super comfortable.
Other great details that made our day us was designing a Brillo Box as our envelope box, having only Billy Buttons (Craspedia) as the only flower in the entirety of the Warhol, Caketopper designed by A Small Object.
