A San Francisco & Brooklyn Wedding: Jess + Russ

bride and groom

You might remember Jess + Russ’ awesome online wedding invitation that we shared a few months back. Well, today we are lucky enough to share their fun wedding week! :) Jessica is a super rad letterer + illustrator and Russ works for Facebook as an interaction + product designer – yep, a super creative couple they are. They live in San Francisco, but have lots of friends in Brooklyn, so they decided to have an intimate ceremony at the gorgeous City Hall in San Francisco (with 4 friends as witnesses) and then a picnic afterwards in Dolores Park for all their San Francisco friends. Then a week later, they hosted a big reception party (for close to 300 of their friends + family) at the Green Building in Brooklyn. How fun to stretch out the wedding festivities for a week?!

All the event design was by the rad team at Sugar & Fluff and the ceremony photos are by Ben Blood and reception photos are by Kristen Marie. And be sure you don’t miss their gorgeous wedding film by Belvedere Stories! Congrats to Jess + Russ!

vows

getting ready


Jess + Russ got ready together, then headed to City Hall…

bride and groom

city hall

city hall

bride and groom

bride and groom

bride and groom

city hall ceremony

city hall ceremony

city hall wedding

city hall wedding


After the ceremony at City Hall, it was off to Dolores Park to celebrate with friends!

& sign

wedding tattoos

wedding tattoos

cornhole


Their reception at the Green Building in Brooklyn was held the following week. All photos below by Kristen Marie.

green building

black and gold invitations

black and gold invitations

ballgown wedding dress

bride and groom

bride and groom

reception

gold and black flowers

custom bottles

monogram wall

monogramwall_02


From Sugar & Fluff who did all the event design: To add a more festive and personal touch to the industrial romance of the Green Building (which was phenomenal to begin with), we suspended mylar-fringe chandeliers to bounce off the light and add movement. Linens were hand-embroidered with the signature stars from J + R’s invitations, along with custom gold rub-downs on whiskey-bottles for the centerpieces and votives. The guestbook was placed in the Foyer on an antique garland dressed console. Friends and family were greeted to handwritten signs courtesy of our lettering guru Jessica. Did we mention the endless cat stickers and tattly tattoos for decor? We wanted to bring an element of surprise through color in the photobooth inspired by the abstract design of ishihara plates and J + R’s monogram, to break up the drama in space and add pattern to the environment.

gold sprayed bottles

laser cut wedding design

gold and black centerpiece

photobooth

photo-booth-fun


From Jess: Our wedding was warm, friendly, and casual. We wanted everything to be low pressure and mostly just be all about gathering all the people we love together rather than formal event. The reception especially was just a big party — the priority was having enough booze, making an epic dancey playlist, (we just used an iPhone as DJ), and having good photography. The venue was so pretty and our friends love to dress up so we felt like no matter what it would turn out great.

reception

wedding tattoos

Our Favorite Memory From The Wedding

At the end of the night, there were only a dozen or so people left and we ended up in a big circle together singing songs and dancing. It was pretty magical. Also seeing my mother-in-law with temporary tattoos all over her arms was pretty great.

wedding tattoos

bride and groom toasting


And their wedding film by Belvedere Stories

The planning took well over a year on and off, and my biggest hurdle was actually wanting to plan! I was kind of a believer that if you put the right people in the same room together, throw in a bunch of booze, everything will turn out great. I was stressed out about having everyone from my divorced family in the same room together and really just wanted to run away and elope. We ended up having the best of both worlds by separating the ceremony from the reception and with Sugar & Fluff’s help I started to get excited about planning out details. I felt kind of guilty that I wasn’t obsessed with wedding planning like a lot of brides are, but I chalk that up to the fact that I have so much else going on at any given point that geeking out about wedding details seemed low priority. Thank God Aasim and crew were around to actually keep things moving and organize so many of the details that made everything look so spectacular.

Ceremony Details:
photography: Ben Blood // videography: Belvedere Stories // planning + event design: Sugar & Fluff // nail art booth: SF Party Nails // bouquet: Floral Occassions // cornhole board design: New Bohemia Signs // hair + makeup: Pretty Pretty Collective

Reception Details:
photography: Kristen Marie // venue: Green Building Brooklyn, New York // planning + event design: Sugar & Fluff // paper goods: Jessica Hische // flowers: Floral Occassions // videographer: Belvedere Stories // catering: Naturally Delicious // photobooth: The Bosco // vintage furniture rentals: Patina Vintage // dessert: Billy’s Bakery // table + chair rentals: Broadway Rentals // hair + make up: Woodley & Bunny

Check out more from their wedding over on 100 Layer Cake today!

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