Art & Design of Kelli Murray

The deal is sealed.  I am now officially Kelli Larson! November 15th was an amazing day.  It is funny how people give you so much advice prior to your wedding day….like to eat enough beforehand because you won’t have a chance to take a bite of your meal….to make sure to stop and look around you every half hour and take in the beauty of the day….to be prepared for at least three things to go wrong during the night because it is bound to happen and to just laugh as they come…to relish in the moment because it will be over before you know it………well yes.  I realized everyone knew exactly what they were talking about!  I wish that day could have lasted all week.

From the very beginning of our engagement Sam and I talked about how we wanted our wedding to be one where every single person we ever loved and cared about could be with us to celebrate.  We wanted to have the biggest party of our lives….surrounded by all the people we loved.  Well it was that and more.

It hit me as I stood there on the alter, hand in hand with my “almost” husband, how incredibly blessed I am.  To look around and see the face of nearly every true friend I have ever had, to have the support of 7 of the most amazing women standing up beside me, to see family who had traveled from near and far to be with us, to have parents who have shown me nothing but love, and to look into the eyes of the man I knew would stand by me forever, in sickness and in health, til death do us part….(gulp).  It is a bit hard to explain in words the depth of love I felt that day, but it is something I will never forget.

I wanted to share a handful of my favorite pictures from the day. Shot by Erica. The wedding and reception were both held outside in the backyard of a friends house in El Cajon, CA. And although it was the middle of November, the sun decided to shine on us.

My dress is by Pronovias – San Patrick, and I wore ‘pearl’ flats by Jeffrey Campbell. My amazing sister did my hair and my good friend Janelle, who works for Laura Mercier, did my makeup. Sam’s suit is from H&M.; Florals were by Brenda Davis Landini.

And even though I am a little embarrassed to say it,  I found my bridesmaids dresses at Charlotte Russe for only $38 dollars?!  (I know…what!?) Well, it’s true.  I had my eyes set on this $400 Alice & Olivia dress that I just LOVED.  But when that didn’t pan out, I looked EVERYWHERE! And low and behold, Charlotte Russe cam to my rescue! haha!  I altered the dress myself, removing the ric rac that was on it and adding my own trim below the bust. I used the same tattered tool on the top of my own dress to tie it all in.  My friends are the most beautiful people I know.  How I love them!

Finally! I finished our wedding programs!!  I created it to be some what of a “mini book”.  Thanking our parents and guests….and writing a little something special about each person in our wedding party. I am also making a little bookmark (a picture of a painting I did) to put inside the program for everyone to take home. Hope you like it!

Labor of Love.  Photos by Sarah Shreves.

I am lucky to have a cousin who is the “queen of crafts”.  Ask her how to do anything creative, and she will most likely know.  Well I went to her with the idea of creating custom accessories for my bridesmaids.  I didn’t want them all to wear the exact same thing, but I did want it all to coordinate in one way or another. And because their dresses are very simple….I wanted to make more of a statement in jewelry.  I was inspired by the work of Marquis & Camus, a collection of jewelry that offers a truly unique look into the future of remixed couture.  I am SO IN LOVE with all of it!  In a dream world, i would have bought each of my bridesmaids a Marquis & Camus original…..but I decided to get crafty instead.

My cousin and I went out and bought a handful of odds and ends: charms, pearls, chains, elastic, feathers and flowers…….as well as a few “base necklaces” from forever 21.  (Yes, I admit it)  She hand made silk roses and coffee stained tattered tool to add as needed. After much thought on what to create with all this “goodness”, we decided on 3 necklaces, 2 bracelets, and two flower hairpieces.  A little something different for each girl.

Here is the outcome!

I always go into projects thinking I can do them “real quick”.  I kid myself every time.  This was one of those projects!  ”Oh yeah, our wedding invite.  No problem…just give me a few hours and i’ll whip it up.”  Not exactly.  But it was well worth the time invested to get it just right (especially after we factored in how much money it saved us by designing and printing our own!)

I wanted to create an invite that matched the style of our wedding….a little vintage / soft / romanic / garden…ish! Something classic and pretty that I wouldn’t look back on in a few years and wonder what on earth I was thinking?  I love to layer textures and fabrics into many of my designs and I decided to do that here with our invitation as well.  I hand drew the branch/feather frame and chose a font i thought suited it.  I scanned in some lace and layered it on top of old vintage paper.  After playing around with colors for a bit, I decided on this pale peach…which I want to be a dominant color of the florals! And then I went with a slate shimmer envelope.  I can’t get enough of custom die cut invitations, so I had to tack on that little added touch as well! yummm…peach and grey make me smile!!

Featured on Oh So Beautiful Paper /  Green Wedding Shoes /  Paper Crave / The Royal Scoop

Photos by the lovely Sarah Shreves

I was told that early on in your engagement is a good time to start deciding on “color”.  After getting sucked (quit quickly) into the wonderful world of wedding blogs….I discovered a blog that every engaged woman should know about :  100 Layer Cake They have managed to cover nearly every topic you can imagine regarding weddings, but one of my favorites was their inspiration binder where they created color boards around various themes.  I decided to create my own color board for my wedding based off this idea.  I had a vision of exactly what I wanted from the get go…(typical!) ….so this task wasn’t too hard!  It especially helped when talking to different vendors about what I was looking for and the “style” of my wedding.  All I had to do was show them this color board and they got the idea.