Client: Sarah and Grayson Schoenbine

Role: Stationary Design, Wedding Dress Design, Seamstress, Floral Design, Event Design

Brief: My husband and I wanted our wedding to reflect who we are as people: artsy, classy, and woodsy. Our vision was to bring elements of PNW flora into our Midwestern, January special day in a refined way, that was enjoyable for us and our family and friends. As a graphic designer and seamstress, I was able to personally bring many of our dreams to life.

Stationary Suite Design

For our personalized wedding stationary, I foraged pine needles, cedar branches, and fern leaves from our favorite places around Portland. I dried them and then embedded the greenery into our paper as I made it. I designed the typography of our invitation suite in Adobe Illustrator and then had it printed onto rubber stamps. Grayson and I stamped all of our invites and rsvps together. Addresses were done by my maid of honor, Kellie Dennis.

Wedding Dress Design

I have been sewing since I was 5 years old, but always swore I would never make my wedding dress (talk about stressful!). But after poring over hundreds of styles and trying on a few in Paris, I decided I would, in fact, design and make my own dress. I bought the fabric while I was living in France and flew it home with me.

Behind the Scenes: Wedding Dress Creation

I first made a toile–a sample dress for sizing– out of a bed sheet. Then I laid out the pattern pieces in Illustrator to maximize the yield of my fabric. I finally cut into the fashion fabric from France, and put together my dress before doing all the finishing by hand.

Floral Design

I bought silk flowers from Hobby Lobby, which I arranged into bouquets for my bridesmaids and myself. I used the extra bits to create boutonnieres for the groomsmen and families. The groomsmen and families forgot to wear their boutonnieres and corsages, but I forgive them. I made all of these in Oregon, so we flew them all in my checked bag to our wedding in Ohio!

Event Design

We were married in Prout Chapel at Bowling Green State University, the school where Grayson and I met. Our reception was held (socially distanced) at the brand new Veteran’s Building at Bowling Green City Park. All greenery was generously donated by Dennis Family Farms, and I had lots of help from family and friends to make our event come to life. The napkins were made of cheese cloth and hand-dyed by Grayson and I. Cookie favors were provided by my 4-h advisor, Karen Kotula. Bells were thrifted from stores across the country. Our cake was made by Grayson’s aunt. Dishes was borrowed from my childhood church, Faith UMC.