My Nerdy, Constellation-Themed Wedding

I can't believe that today marks our 5 year anniversary and I've never shared anything about our wedding before! Happy anniversary to my wonderful husband, Michael!

Mike and I got married on October 22, 2016 on a beautiful golf course in our childhood town of Stockton, CA. We had a beautiful sunset, perfect weather (though our guests got attacked by mosquitoes the whole time), great food! It wasn't the wedding I had originally planned, but it was definitely one for the books, haha!

I learned very quickly that it can be a challenge creating a party that you have no way of test running. We originally booked a restaurant called French 25 that was located in the heart of downtown Stockton, with a beautiful rooftop that overlooked The Waterfront. Literally everything was planned MONTHS before anything needed to be decided on, and 5 months before the wedding the restaurant closed down and we had to scramble for a new location. Along with over 100 other brides.

I will forever be grateful for Spanos Reserve not only taking us on, but also for honoring our original costs. There was another party happening before our wedding, and though there were a lot of mix ups that most people didn't see, these guys did an amazing job switching between the party and the wedding in less than 4 hours!

I've broken down the different parts of our wedding in hopes that maybe this post will help any other bride and/or groom get closer to finalizing their dream wedding!

Our Theme

My biggest focus was finding a way to merge our love of Harry Potter and Star Wars, with Mike's love of the (now) San Diego Chargers, and so the nerdy constellation theme was created! We pulled the basic idea of the colors from the Chargers, and the made constellations and galaxy prints the center of attention. Each constellation chosen for the wedding had a purpose, whether it represented the zodiac symbol or had a meaningful story or was a part of the Black family from Harry Potter. Firenze would have been proud. Pumpkins were also used for the wedding arch and reception centerpieces, because Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. Our rehearsal dinner thrown by my in-laws was completely Halloween themed!

Our color scheme was navy and gold. Though I was hard-set on the shade of navy I wanted from the beginning, I laxed pretty hard with the shades of gold and white used throughout the rest of the event. Gold and white are some of those colors where it will be extremely difficult to match across different objects and brands. If you're planning on incorporating gold into your wedding, I highly recommend doing the same. If not stick with champagne or yellow gold. Even rose gold seems to vary quite a bit. Most items lean closer to those shades than anything in between. In the end, I'm glad I mixed golds because it added a lot of dimension against all the navy and looked better being an eclectic mix.

Faux Floral Arrangements

I made it a personal choice to not use real flowers for the arrangements. The pumpkins were all real, though, and doubled as gifts for the guests. Real flowers die far too quickly, especially when used in weddings. They take quite the level of abuse and are pretty dead by the end of the night. I handmade all of the floral arrangements with help from my bridesmaid, Sheena, on painting many of them gold and getting the wreaths started. As a nod to our Disneyland honeymoon vacation, we photographed our rings in the shape of a Mickey head on my bouquet!

The flowers for the bouquets were made up of handmade paper flowers using pages from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (my favorite book), handmade fabric flowers using material my grandma had in her stash after she passed, and various silk flowers (cabbage roses, ranunculus, dahlias, dusty miller leaves and baby's breath). We were very lucky that our local Joann's was clearing out their inventory to move their store to a different location and were able to get almost every flower 60%-90% off the retail price. I used the off-colored versions for the wreaths and sprayed them gold. Any flowers that were left over were used on the boutonnieres, corsages, my toss bouquet and for the floral arrangements at my bridal shower.

The centerpieces were grapevine wreaths with silk flowers and fairy lights, with a mixture of large white pumpkins and hurricane vases filled with mini white pumpkins, as well as capiz shell lotus flower candle holder and crafted in the Philippines. Watching people bring a piece of our wedding home to enjoy for the rest of the spooky season made more excited than I though it would, haha! And as far as we have seen, almost everyone still uses their candle holders to this day!

Silk flowers are great to make arrangements that last forever and can be repurposed for other arrangements, though they are not always the cheaper option so please don't go into that idea assuming to save a lot of money. Had we purchased everything at retail, or even at the sometimes offered sale price of 40% off, we would have paid the same as a real floral arrangement due to the types of flowers I chose. I, and some of my other friends who used silk flowers and paper flowers for their weddings, are so incredibly happy we did this option. Being able to pull out my bouquet every fall has made me so happy.

What I Wore

I purchased my Maggie Sottero dress at a local bridal shop called Sheryl Giles Bridal Couture. The name of my dress is Londyn, you guys! The Universe was working mysteriously for sure. When I originally tried it on with the shoes I had chosen, I felt like I was in another time period. I almost didn't choose it. I almost bought a Cinderella-inspired ball gown by Alfred Angelo and I'm SO grateful that I didn't, because the company ended up going under a month after I bought my dress.

I bought my shoes off Zulily for about $20. I used specific sections of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix book and used ModPodge and gold acrylic paint to decorate the shoes. I added vinyl decals on the bottoms of my shoes with the date, a quote and the Deathly Hallows symbol, which made for a nice surprise in some photos. The book was purchased used off of Half.com to ensure the book had been well love beforehand.

My jewelry was a mix from my mom and grandmother's stashes, all of them vintage. Since I have 2 piercings in my ears, I wore a set of little blue studs and a set of real pearl studs that my mom had. For my necklace, I used a teardrop one that my grandmother had. It matched my rings perfectly and tied in my earrings.

My veil was a handmade piece that I got off Etsy by Caterina for Biano Accessories. It was a 2-tier Juliet cap veil featuring a floral applique with hand beading throughout the applique. The piece was absolutely gorgeous, just as it was in the photo. Additionally, her pricing is so much better than most of the sellers on Etsy. Where a lesser piece would have started around $250, this one cost me $140. I highly recommend you check her out for any hair pieces you need.

What Everyone Else Wore

The guys all bought their suits from The Men's Warehouse and brown shoes, while we gifted them navy ties to wear. To this day, you still couldn't tell which groomsmen had to buy a different suit from a different company, and if that's not magic I don't know what is. My dad and godfathers all donned traditional Barongs that my Tito Ed and Tita Ollie brought with them from the Philippines (along with wrap scarves for the bridesmaids, a dress for my mom, the lotus candle holders, and more)!

My bridesmaids came in all shapes and sizes, and I wanted them to embrace those differences and wear dresses that made them feel confident, could be worn again, and didn't make them feel like they were breaking the bank. Same with their shoes. I'm so incredibly happy with what each of them chose and they all looked incredible together! The key to happy bridesmaids and beautiful photos is giving your bridesmaids creative liberty on their gowns!

Extra Details

Our guestbook was a white craft pumpkin that I added vinyl decal onto for guests to sign and leave notes for us on. One day I'll remember to coat it in Mod Podge to help preserve all the writing, though it's been holding up so far! We had our reception rental vendor hang navy fabric and globe lights. Our champagne glasses had "I love you" and "I know" etched onto them. The cupcakes had handmade cupcake toppers of gold glitter stars, Harry Potter page stars and white iridescent stars, and little flags with our date and names on them.

Wedding Dress - Sheryl Giles Bridal Couture // Maggie Sottero, Londyn
Veil - Etsy // Biano Accessories
Shoes - Zulily // Customized by me
Jewelry - Vintage pieces from my grandmother and mother
Makeup - Sarah Madrid
Hair - Megan Martin
Venue - The Reserve at Spanos
Suits - Men's Warehouse
Stationary - Vistaprint // Designed by me
Rings - Shane Co.
Wedding Cake & Cupcakes - Ashlyn VanAllen
Photography - Kristen Hennings