When Bookworms Wed

When Alida told us back in January that she
and her boyfriend Josh were engaged,
and getting married in June . . . my mind kicked into gear:
how to take a fairly standard New Jersey style wedding
and make it special for these two young people?

Their major requests were pretty simple -- great food and a big dance floor.

Easy.  A good catering hall with an excellent kitchen and a savvy manager handles that.

But what about something different for the table centerpieces at the reception?

 Josh and Alida are both bibliophiles; they'd have their noses in books even if they weren't in graduate school.

So, my first thought was to use antique philosophy books and old books with romantic titles in the table centerpieces. 

But the thought of finding at least 3 dozen vintage books that weren't too icky to put on the tables was, well, daunting.

I looked around the house; we have zillions of books of our own, including some vintage, but not enough perfect ones.

If you can't find them, you make them.

Daughter Anne, the maid of honor and an artist, pulled 36 hardcover books at random off our shelves,

removed the original dust jackets, and substituted beautiful paper covers in fresh, clean bridal white.

Cheating here -- this is in our dining room, taken 3 days after the wedding, not at the reception.

The flowers are not only wilted, they've been abused.  We took them out to dump the water as we were leaving the reception, and just sort of shoved them back in afterward.  Not a careful procedure!

Anne wanted to write funny, pun-y titles on the book spines, but I decided that we were dealing

with siblings here, and you never know quite where that will take you.  They stayed blank.

Now I'm kind of sorry she didn't do it, but then I would have wanted to save the book covers, too.

The table numbers on the satin ribbon bookmarks?  Cheating again for the camera.

Anne made them, but we didn't get them to the catering hall in time to use them.  Bummer.

The books and flowers stood on a square of mirror, in the center of each big round table.

Tablecloths and napkins were ivory damask, nice and heavy and brand new.

I hope someone else got pictures of the tables, because I did not!

Scattered on each table, frosted white votive holders with long-burn candles (unscented) inside.

I have 83 of these votives (one broke).  What am I bid?   :-)

They do look very bride-y, and give a softer glow than clear glass.

But even I don't need 7 dozen votive holders.

Perfect centerpieces?  No.  I had asked the caterer's florist, who did the table flowers, to use a lower container, and use trailing greens, so the flowers ended up higher than I had wished.  But that's a small thing, and they were beautiful and looked as if they'd been gathered from someone's garden -- roses in creams and pinks, with pink Peruvian lilies and delicate ferns.  All good. 

Now someone come and force me to toss all the flowers in That Old House!  -- Cass

Our obligatory wedding pic of the day:

Josh and Alida, in the garden at Zeris Inn in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey