A Vintage Travel Love Affair: The Ceremony

"I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”
                                                                                                    ― Willa Cather, My Ántonia  

New England really is most charming in autumn and we wanted our guests to be welcomed to our wedding in the sweetest way: with lots of love, bright gold and yellow mums, ripe pumpkins, vintage maps, and vibrant autumn leaves.

Instead of the typical wedding flowers, we opted for flowers to make ours from vintage maps. For our family: the men received matching bow ties and the ladies received vintage globe brooches. 
Jerron and I really wanted everyone to feel a part of our vintage themed ceremony so we invited all the guests to wear vintage hats, gloves, bow ties, and pocket squares. Boy did they deliver! One guest, dear Helga, even wore her vintage dirndl!
Our ceremony was filled with details from our life together: the first duet we sang together, love locks and french music that played as Jerron proposed to me in Paris, vintage globes, Willa Cather, vintage dresses, and lots of singing. 

Willa Cather was known to say "I must have music!" My sentiments exactly, Ms. Cather, as this was the most important aspect of our wedding ceremony. We basically created a ceremony around singing and it was heavenly!

My husband, Jerron, arranged a stunning piece for violin, organ, and piano which still makes me cry! You can hear Dubois' trio "Hymne Nuptial" below.

When it came to the vows, we decided to write our own and we did not discuss or share our thoughts with each other until the ceremony, as we wanted to save this gift for our wedding day. It was challenging to write our own vows and a little scary but in the end it is the thing I cherish most about our wedding. Without knowing, we both ended our vows with different quotes from Willa Cather's "My Ántonia."

“I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister--anything a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me.”
                                                                                          ― Willa Cather, My Ántonia

Our nephews, the ring bearers, brought us our vintage rings on an old french lock, just as Jerron used when he proposed.

As we exited the sanctuary, our sweet friend play "Autumn Leaves" on the piano. This was the exact song that was being played on an accordion while Jerron proposed on the Pont de l'Archevêché (the love lock bridge just behind Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris).

And finally, as we made our way out of the church our guest threw vintage map paper airplanes, which created a whimsical exit into the perfect autumn afternoon.