Posted by Eunice Moyle, whose wedding is featured in the Spring 2010 issue!
The stage was inspired by a Tim Walker photo shoot for Viktor & Rolf, in which he placed a vintage-style stage in a field of roses. We designed the stage using motifs from the Joel Dewberry pattern we used throughout the wedding. Our good friends, Jillian and Jeffrey McGrew, who own Because We Can, were our champions here -- they listened to my crazy ideas and didn't even blink an eye! They cut and constructed the stage for us (they also made the shadow puppet animals, signs that we used throughout the wedding, photo booth props, the table markers, and the seating chart), and a gang of our friends helped us paint it.
The curtains were velvet and were sewn for me by Tricia Roush (who also made the ring pillow, pocket squares, and boutonnieres). Since we're very theatrical people, the rental stage, which was faced with pieces of reclaimed wood (courtesy of Zephyr Tents), became the focal point of the ceremony. And the hilly land surrounding the valley became a nice background.
1 The sketch of the stage.
2 The raw stage we rented from Zephyr Tents.
3 This is us starting to set up the tent.
4 Still setting up...
5 And here's the final stage!
Since the stage was over 7 feet tall and 10 feet wide, we needed a lot of helpers to paint it (along with the couple dozen wooden shadow puppets, photo booth props, and signs you saw in part 4 in this series). We held a couple of weekend painting parties to do just that, and this collaboration of our friends in the creation of our wedding was one of the most fun, memorable, and meaningful aspects of the event.
1 Here I am, painting away on a panel of the stage.
2 A close up of the painting in progress.
3 The side panel, much further along.
4 And here they are, pretty much done.
*To see the whole wedding, visit this gallery.*
From: Dognbird | 3/8/10 at 5:43 pm
This stage is beautiful and interesting!
From: Phyllis Cheung | 3/8/10 at 8:21 pm
I love outside of the box thinking. Beautiful job!
From: Jack and Jill Tickets | 3/8/10 at 11:31 pm
Thats incredible! The attention to detail is amazing, well done.
From: michael | 3/11/10 at 8:18 pm
As I mentioned on another post... it's *SO* difficult to be original for a wedding nowadays with all the blogs and mags ending up making most "creativity" a process of being derivative and copying others. This is certainly not the case here... so beautiful! Thanks for making Wilbur shine! =)
From: Because We Can | Hello!Lucky | 3/31/10 at 1:58 pm
[...] to the prop mustaches and word bubbles used for the photo booth, they also created the amazing stage that the ceremony was performed on. Inspired by Joel Dewberry’s Woodland Damask pattern (also [...]
From: Wilbur Hot Springs | Hello!Lucky | 4/15/10 at 1:34 pm
[...] house the couples family and friends, and the vast surrounding fields were perfect to set up a brightly painted stage, rustic farm benches and enormous white tent. Wilbur is located about three hours northeast of San [...]