Y’all, I feel so very lucky to be sharing Marget and Seth’s wedding today. Lucky because it’s gorgeous and so thoughtfully planned, yes, but also because I was so happy to play a small part in it! Marget is a few years older than John, and ever since he and I started dating in high school, I’ve looked up to both of his sisters with a little bit in awe. Marget is stylish, sophisticated, kind, and witty; she has a magnetic personality to which people are irresistibly drawn. I was (and am) no different, and therefore was so happy to stand next to her on her wedding not only as a sister-in-law, but as a friend.

She graciously agreed to let me share a few thoughts on their day. I’ve incorporated some of Marget’s own words, as well.

Marget and Seth chose a beautiful Rifle Paper Co. design for their invitation suite, and Marget worked closely with the designers to choose just the right shades of leaf green, blush, and peach to set the day’s palette.

That’s me on the left! Isn’t Marget’s bouquet just gorgeous? It smelled delightful, too, because of the mint tucked in. The striped wrap is from Anne M. Cramer. Hana Floral Design took care of all the blooms.

All of the bridesmaids chose their own black dress. Mine was actually having its encore wedding performance, as I wore it as a bridesmaid in my friend Katharine’s wedding in 2010!

To complement the black and white, Marget and all of her bridesmaids wore a “pop of color” on the lips. To prepare, we each made a trip to Sephora with the bride, where we had fun finding the perfect bold, matte lipstick to complement our complexions. Mine turned out to be a hot pink called Schiap, and though I never would have bought it myself (I’m a major scaredy cat when it comes to color!), it was SO fun to wear it, and I loved how it looked! Marget herself wore YSL No. 1 Le Rouge.

Gorgeous girl!

Marget and Seth choose to have both their ceremony and reception at Eolia, an oceanside mansion in Connecticut. Marget dreamed of doing just that when she was little, and I love that her dream came true! Their ceremony included a thoughtful mix of Jewish and Christian traditions, including a beautiful branch huppah.

The garden at Harkness is quite long. The plan was for Marget to enter at the halfway point for her walk down the “aisle,” like the bridesmaids, but she decided to enter from the furthest point to make for a longer walk as a surprise for Seth. I think it worked :)

From Marget: Among my favorite moments were taking a long walk across a field through the rain with my father so that we could surprise Seth by appearing at the very end of the garden for a long walk down the aisle. Seth loves to surprise me and was heavily invested in first laying eyes on me on our wedding day, so I wanted to turn the tables and give him a moment to remember. Indeed, seeing me in my dress for the first time is one of his favorite moments from the day.

Ahhh yes, the rain. It started sprinkling very lightly as we rode over to Harkness, and kept it up intermittently until the end of the (outdoor) ceremony, when it started to legitimately rain. It poured later in the evening, but thankfully the reception was largely indoors. I thought Marget handled the less-than-desirable weather beautifully, so I wanted to get her thoughts on it:

The day before the wedding I started getting calls from vendors asking us what our rain plan was, and my response was that if rained, we’d do whatever they thought best. But of course, I still believed it would turn out to be a beautiful day, because summer is made of beautiful days.

On the day of, as the grey skies gave way to mist, I was aware that rain was imminent, and just hoped that it would hold off until after our ceremony. Surprisingly, there was no sadness, just acceptance and a bit of optimistic hope. Like water running downhill, I knew that if it were to rain, it would indeed rain, and there was nothing we could do to change it. That was our wedding day no matter what, and I loved that day so very much. We recognize it would have been different if it hadn’t rained — our guests would have gotten the chance to stroll the grounds during cocktail hour, our mothers’ hair would not have been flattened, and we would have had the photographs I had imagined. But our wedding wasn’t a photo shoot, and everyone we loved was there, whether their blowout held or not. The question is, would our emotional experience have been different if it hadn’t rained? In some ways, yes. Seth and I were both distracted by thoughts of concern for guests who were being rained on during our ceremony, and we weren’t able to take the walk we had planned at sunset, which left us with no time alone together on our wedding day. My point is, it was different. If it had been sunny, I imagine I may have spread my arms wide, kicked my head back and soaked in the fresh air. Instead, Seth and I huddled up together under his blazer and made a run for it with my bouquet held overhead as an umbrella. We were still giddy and together, but our wedding day was one of the rainy ones. And I spent no time worrying about what was lost, or what might have been–even when my mud-soaked wedding gown was ripped on the dance floor. Because a wedding day is just like the rest of life – you can only plan in advance and be flexible on the day-of. Plus, the day was still overflowing with blessings and absolutely more fun than I’d ever had! Since our wedding, we haven’t given it much thought. But countless guests have told us that the rain only added to the day’s romance… and warned us that it’s a sign we’ll have a big family!

After Marget and Seth recited their personal vows and exchanged rings, their ceremony concluded with a variation on the Jewish tradition of “seven blessings.” Instead of having the traditional blessings read, Marget and Seth assigned seven family members or friends, or pairs of family members or friends, a virtue or element they hoped to have as part of their life together. Each person or pair was asked to share a thought, wish, hope, prayer, quote, or blessing that corresponded to their blessing. It was really interesting to see how everyone interpreted the assignment! John and I were asked to wish them “joyful faith.”

Because of the weather we did portraits with Katie Stoops inside the mansion.

I’m not the only mini food lover in the family! Marget and Seth had a “bubbles and bites” cocktail hour, small bites paired with petite glasses of bubbles. I would say the crowd favorite was the mini corn dogs and craft beer! Of course, there were a few drink stirrers at the bar :)

Marget has gorgeous handwriting, and lettered all of the escort cards herself.

They chose to sprinkle lovely and meaningful decor throughout the (already gorgeous) space, including family photos, antique books, and books by authors Seth, a literary agent, represents.

The Hora! I had never been to a Jewish wedding before, and the Hora was awesome :)

A few other sites had the pleasure of featuring Marget and Seth’s wedding, including Style Me Pretty, One Fab Day, and Katie Stoops’ own blog. If you’d like, you can also watch their wedding day film by McKenzie Miller here.

Marget and Seth, I love you. Thank you for letting me be a part of your magical day.

Happy Monday, friends! Marvelous Mondays is back, and this week I’m sharing five of my favorite bedrooms with wood plank walls. I love the warmth and texture this detail can bring to a serene room like a bedroom.

Top to bottom: Country Living, HGTV, Coastal Living, At Home in Arkansas, Lonny Mag

Interested in trying something like this yourself? Melissa from The Inspired Room wrote about installing wood planks in her house here, and The Lettered Cottage wrote about it here and here.

P.S. Bachelor tonight! In case you’re wondering, our team members are AshLee F., Desiree, Amanda, Teryn, and Sarah, and our bench player is Robyn. Wish us luck! :)

Hello, friends! Happy Tuesday! A long time ago, I asked if you all would be interested in an occasional money series on Em for Marvelous. Turns out you were interested (as was I), but nothing ever happened. And that’s pretty sad to me, because I LOVE talking about all aspects of money management, and financial literacy, especially amongst young people, is a huge passion of mine and John’s.

So, better late than never, right? I thought we’d try a once-a-week series for the length of January (since so many people put financial goals on their New Year’s lists!), then slim down to maybe a once a month post until I run out of things to say or y’all get bored. I have lots of ideas for future posts, but please let me know in the comments if there’s something in particular you’d like me to cover!

To begin, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about our money story, so you can see where I’m coming from and decide for yourself whether or not you’d like to take my advice :) I think there’s a lot of power in taking a hard look at your money past, and really thinking about your ideal money future, so I’d encourage you to do the same after you read this! Here goes!

I can remember writing out an allowance savings plan for Breyer horses when I was in fourth grade. I started saving for my wedding my freshman year of college. (Don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone.) I opened an IRA the following year. Though I was and always have been a saver and a planner, I didn’t become passionate about personal finance until John did.

Lover of ponies and planning from a young age (I’m on the right)

Like me, he was definitely hardwired with more than your usual dose of responsibility at a young age, but was not overly concerned about money management. We both started our college careers with a decent amount of savings in the bank (for seventeen-year-olds), but by the time spring semester rolled around, John was scraping the bottom of the barrel. This is mostly my fault (though indirectly), as most of it disappeared through monthly fresh flower deliveries (we attended schools ten hours apart at the time), plane tickets for visits, and food and entertainment during said visits. The rest can best be explained by living in a city for the first time — the general expense of dining out, etc. — and the lack of a job to replace the outflow.

Visiting John in DC spring 2006!

So when the last few weeks of the semester rolled around, his accounts had pretty much run dry, to the point where he needed a cash infusion from his parents to continue eating for the last few weeks. Even though this might not seem like much of a reckoning, it left scars that now run quite deep in John’s psyche. Because he loves his parents, respects them so much, and is so grateful for everything they’ve done for him, he HATED imposing on them in that way, especially when they were already generously funding his schooling. This experience, combined with his world-altering discovery of and subsequent love for economics freshman year, put him on a firm path toward personal financial excellence, and gave him a huge passion for helping others to become financially fit, as well. I was (and still am!) happy to be along for the ride!

We both held part-time jobs for the rest of college, followed individual written budgets, and finished in good financial shape, with savings in the bank and (small) IRAs and investment accounts in our names. I had a few student loans, but thankfully they were not as serious as many of my peers’. The wedding savings account was coming along nicely :)

Then, I decided to take a job in North Carolina with a very uncertain salary situation. We moved basically sight unseen the summer after we graduated. Thankfully, my salary became regular and decent fairly quickly, but for a year and a half, we were a one-income household while John searched for a job. Even though we lived frugally, this ate away at much of both of our savings.

Once John started working (in October 2010, in the financial sector), our financial burden lessened substantially, and we were able to really concentrate for the first time on our financial goals. We initially focused on saving for our wedding, and ultimately contributed 20% of the total cost (September 2012). At the same time, we squirreled money away in our emergency fund until we finished funding it in January 2012. All the while, we paid down our three student loans and two car loans, paying off the first of the five in December 2012. At the same time, we’ve been vigorously putting money away into our down payment fund, and are now at our minimum goal. Throughout, we’ve stayed on track with a written budget, and stayed focused by working toward tithing and giving to other organizations and causes close to our heart.

Whew! That’s a lot to let loose in one post (and you know I was chomping at the bit throughout to add explanations and even more detail!!). I’ll be back next week with some more thoughts on our overall money philosophy, but in the meantime, I’d love to know: would you consider yourself, at heart, a spender or a saver? And, is there anything in particular you’d like me to cover in future posts? Budgeting? Retirement savings? Debt? Investing in general? Let me know!

I genuinely consider this post a warning as much as a recommendation. As in, if you’ve saved your pennies and have enough socked away in your “home decor” fund, hop on this ASAP! And if not, stay far, far away from the Target Home aisles for the next few weeks.

Y’all, I almost couldn’t believe my eyeballs when I walked into Target a few days ago. In my humble opinion, their spring collection from the “Threshold” line is AMAZING. Modern and cozy, colorful and clean — it’s like the best interior design blogs tumbled right into their aisles. A few of my favorites:

Yep, already snagged that pillow. It’s almost an exact replica of this one from Caitlin Wilson Textiles (though more of an orange-y coral than a pink coral in person), but for $25 instead of $60 (and in her case, that’s only for the cover!!). I adore her prints and still hope to snag this one one day, but for now, I will happily take the Target version! Unsurprisingly, these pillows (there’s also a B&W version) seem to have been so popular that they are no longer online, but it would definitely be worth checking your local store.

Interestingly, the item I found most covetable is not listed online anywhere. It’s that amazing coral-with-piping x-bench above, priced at — wait for it — $60. YEOW. I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, but have thus far resisted.

They also haven’t put their cake stands online — super reasonably priced, in awesome colors like coral and taupe, and with the prettiest scalloped edges. If you, like me, are a cake stand -aholic, they’re definitely worth a look.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you :)