POUR L'PARTY

Much-a-do about a marquee.

Nothing triggered me quite like the tent. The word Marquee represents a club I would try to frequent at a way too young an age, not a place I wanted to gather with my nearest and dearest to celebrate my nuptials. Also, more than that, the tent I really wanted was way out of budget. Hope my kids enjoy school.

The fact that we had to have a tent also meant that it dictated a large portion of the wedding’s aesthetic, which we were very deliberate on, if you haven’t picked up on by now! For our colors we landed on electric blue, dusty pink and chocolate brown, the later saved it from looking like a baby shower. In addition to being favorite color combinations, they played off the natural beauty of Belcombe.

This was the mood board and vibe for the marquee. Things that went right include: whatever Matt did and the chairs. Things that went wrong, basically everything else.

just some of what we put Matt’s designs to good use for.

Matthew Adams Dolan, is… well a fucking genius. We named each table after restaurants and hotels that we love, so our head table for instance was Via Carota, the restaurant we live above. Ever the publicist, we had a number assigned for each table, for easy seating. Matt did all the calligraphy by hand for the escort cards to the name cards. My favorite element, would of course be the martini menu. We stay at Sunset Tower when we are in LA and I wanted to do a martini service menu based on the legendary Sundae menu at Tower Bar. I had pencils made in pink and blue that said Pour L’amour that I am presently looking at, at my desk wishing I had a martini menu to make a drink selection.

This is as close as I will get to showing the velvet table cloths and the mauve napkins, which, I did not order. Still debating outing my linen provider, and as instructed by my therapist and husband, it’s better to stop dwelling on the other things that went wrong, like that yellow fucking flower top right, WHAT IS THAT I HATE YELLOW.

The other man in my life, is our caterer Sam. Sam was essentially my co-pilot when I would fire (and re-hire) Owen on a whim. He also, made incredible food. I had some very fussy people at this wedding and while food is often one of my greatest sources of anxiety, this time it was on behalf of other people. All of these fussy people… cannot stop talking about how good our food was. And it was. We opted for family style because I think it’s a nice juxtaposition to the formality of a wedding event.

I changed into my second custom look designed with Christy Rilling of Guild of Hands for dinner. One thing that was great about the run of show for our wedding, is every event was very punctuated, so I was able to do quick changes that also made sense. I changed three times and all three of them were functional and speedy. The last thing I wanted was to miss the party because I was primping. Changing too many times is quite literally not a good look.

Music was incredibly important to us. While guests found their seats, our DJ blasted Grace Jones’ Le Vie En Rose. Owen and I ran into Just Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode and then in my one American tradition I was able to wrangle, we went straight into our first dance, Vivo. For two people that dance a lot together, we could’ve stood to practice once or more, but it was a moment I will remember forever. I told my father he couldn’t drink until after his speech, so he went first. His words were deeply moving, a bit cutting and of course, ever so cool. We danced to Danke Schone by Wayne Newton.

It’s true, when you know, you know and Owen and I knew right away we would have his brother Theo and my best friend Jen be our MC’s. They did a chemistry read and run-through but did not meet IRL till the Friday before. They were, in a word, perfect.

theo and jen taking a break, this was in their rider.

I know people think they have the best speeches at their wedding, but, we really had THE BEST speeches at our wedding. It was one thing that people keep saying to us when they reflect back on our wedding, and it’s a true testament to the incredible people in our lives.

A particularly incredible moment was of course when Jen passed the Gabby Torch to Owen, who very happily obliged.

The best moment of the night, was also, one of the best moments of my life, Owen’s speech to me. Look I’ll be honest; because I wasn’t romantically loved for so long, I still have trouble accepting this is my reality. But in that moment, I accepted the love torch.

i forced rachel to stand next to me and gripped her arm the whole damn time. me, her and taylor all had a big year, just saying.

I think the most fun dinner parties are the ones you already can’t wait to dance to. This was one of those dinner parties.

I think you can catch the vibe….

So in the end, I fucking loved my tent. My mother in law and her art club made 180m of bunting out of fabrics that resembled the tent that I wanted. It meant we were all dining under something made from love and, our beautiful Primrose Marquee (not an ad, they were amazing) became the only place I want to gather with my nearest and dearest.