Budget Bride

The First Wedding

My husband and I got married with our feet in the sand surrounded by our immediate family in sunny Florida. He was in the military and we originally were going to have a different kind of “paper” wedding (courthouse) and have a “real” wedding/wedding reception in California with all of our family and friends at a later date. However, as soon as our immediate family found out, that plan quickly flew out the window and wedding planning chaos ensued.

Thankfully, we lived across from the beach and we were able to put together a beautiful beach ceremony within a month! A notary, photographer, caterer, and venue were quickly found, our family flew out, and our impromptu wedding became a truly magical day.

Meanwhile back in California, the rest of our family and friends were beginning to hear of our good news and were eagerly waiting to celebrate with us. We knew we needed to start planning our California wedding reception as soon as possible. So we set the date and the planning for wedding round 2 began.

The “Paper” Wedding: A Theme is Born

We chose to have our reception on the 1 year anniversary of our beach wedding. We both figured it would be as close to celebrating our actual marriage with all of our family and friends as we could possibly get. Also as an extra bonus, it solved what we were going to do for our first anniversary.

Initially, the idea of “Paper” didn’t even register as a possible theme. We were originally going to go with a “Madmen” theme (which for the record I still feel is an amazing theme for a wedding). We loved the idea of incorporating the fashion and style of the show into our big day, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. After hours of searching on Pinterest I stumbled across a post of a beautiful paper kusudama bouquet and that “AHA!” moment occurred.

Our wedding reception would be themed after the traditional 1 year anniversary gift of “Paper.”

The Significance of Paper

Paper is traditionally used to signify the fragility of a new couple. The thought is as you grow older together, a couple will strengthen their relationship and that bond will be represented by different elements until they reach their “golden” or “diamond” anniversary (see here). In addition, paper serves to signify a new chapter in your lives a “blank page” if you will, that you as a couple will fill together.

The more I researched, the more I realized that this was truly a “theme” that I could make incredibly unique and all my own. So as a born crafter, a year full of everything paper began and our “Paper Wedding” was born.