You can look at our wedding photo albums on my Facebook and here, at Martin’s Den. Ian and I had a tea & dessert wedding reception and wanted the decor and favors to match the classiness of a traditional tea. We decided to have picture frames with art on each table. Some of our featured artists included Caravaggio (on whom I wrote my Senior Thesis), Baglione (an artist who despised Caravaggio), Velazquez, Fragonard, Pietro della Cortona, Gauguin, Monet, Ingres, David, Delacroix, and many more. Our large 60″ tables had framed biographies with each artist’s self portrait next to it, and a a framed copy of one of their paintings. I tried to keep the paintings to each artist’s most famous or controversial work, but we also wanted the paintings to be tasteful to a wedding reception, so, David with the Head of Goliath or The Birth of Venus isn’t necessarily something people want to look at while they’re eating! We also wanted the centerpieces to spark conversation and the exchange of information, which is why I wrote biographies of each artist and had their (self) portrait next to the biography, so that our guests could learn not only what these famous artists looked like, but also in some instances, the concepts and ideological driving force behind their artwork. It was incredibly difficult for me to keep the artists’ biographies short enough to fit in their frames, because (especially for Caravaggio) I just wanted to push all my knowledge about controversial or little known facts into these biographies and then watch our friends and family excitedly discuss them. Luckily, I was able to constrain my writing; and in retrospect, I had neither time nor the attention span necessary to listen to our guests’ conversations. (Think of a Mazda commercial - zoom, zoom, zoom!)

Our standing cocktail tables only had paintings on them – 2 on each, if memory serves me correctly. The wedding reception was meant to be spatially open, so that guests could walk around to tables that interested them or go visit with friends and specifically so that Ian and I could easily move around to visit everyone. We had a string trio (UCLA graduates!) playing classical music during the whole reception, something I remember vividly. They added such ambiance! Ian’s family and a wonderful woman named Alex prepared the food and the table flower centerpieces. I didn’t know what anything looked like or was going to look like on the day of the wedding, but Ian did. I was completely stunned when Ian and I were announced, and I came out to this absolutely gorgeous reception. I could never have imagined anything so in line with what I was hoping our wedding would be. So many of our friends, church and family helped us – thank you so much! We gave the centerpieces and flowers away, so our wedding art followed our friends home. I hope everyone learned something new, even if it was only what Ian and I looked like as young children!

This post is the first of two posts I am writing about our engagement and wedding. I also published this on my art history blog. Our photographers, Veronica Alba and Dan Hamrick were incredible and such fun!