This Writer's Book Themed Wedding

I have been a terrible blogger for the last six months, but I do have several good excuses. For one, I was teaching several accelerated courses outside of my "day" job. And... I was planning a wedding.

My husband (still feels weird!) and I met shortly before my first novel came out. I gave him a copy of the ARC to read, which he did. When I saw him next, he told me it was good... but riddled with errors. I thought his bluntness was odd and didn't quite know what to make of him. As I discovered later, reading my book had convinced him that he wanted to get to know me better... and the rest is history.

As we started planning our wedding, it quickly became very clear to me that I was not going to get my way (which was a quickie wedding in Vegas or a courthouse) and so we started brainstorming about how we might plan something that was truly reflective of us as a couple. Since we had a very standard "hotel wedding," we wanted an element that was personal. Choosing books as a theme was a pretty quick decision.

Now that it is over, I wanted to share a couple of my favorite elements from the day.

In addition to being a book-lover, I am a total flower junkie. Thus, one day in January I forced several unsuspecting bridesmaids to spend the day making book paper flowers, like this one. We made about 40 and incorporated them into arrangements throughout the ceremony and reception.



Speaking of which, our ceremony was lined by books. You can see them hanging out on pedestals we used to mark off the ceremony here...


And this is a very far away shot, but we also had stacks of books with candles on top that lined the aisle.

We pulled our love of books into the ceremony. Each of our 10 (obscene, I know) attendants read a piece of a poem or a passage on love. Selections included:

• The Bible
• Dr. Seuss
• Albert Einstein
• Stephen King
• Pablo Neruda
• John Donne
• Beethoven

From there, our theme continued into the reception! Guests were asked to find their love story at the escort card table. We selected famous couples from some of our favorite pieces of fiction, including Wesley & Buttercup, Arwen & Aragorn, Ron & Hermoine, Florentino & Fermina Daza, and Gaius Baltar & Number Six. We put the table names on wine bottles (to celebrate another of my great loves) at each table. One pictured here celebrates our mutual nerdiness.

While planning the wedding, we scoured used book stores and the Book Thing in Baltimore to amass enough used books to offer every guest one as a favor like the one pictured here. The insert explained that these were not books on love, but simply books we loved, and encouraged guests to trade around the table until they found one they were passionate about reading. It actually turned out to be a really nice ice-breaker, and made all that frigging wrapping worth while in the end.

Also on the tables, we used books as centerpieces. On top of each stack, we place a flower arrangement with our paper flowers as accents.


Our cake, seen here, promised us our own "Happily Ever After." It was SUPPOSED to feature some book paper roses as well, but alas... if that was the worst thing that happened.

And finally, some cardboard boxes from Michaels glued together became our cardbox. While it seems like a silly thing to be excited about, I did very much love it!






And so, now you can see what the wedding of two consummate book nerds looked like... and this is what marriage is supposed to look like, right?