Claribelle + Van are MFEO (that’s Made For Each Other). They share a love for great design, vintage items, and a growing desire to lead more sustainable lifestyles. In fact, they even have a rad company together – yep, MFEO – where they take broken and rejected objects and turn them into uniquely beautiful pieces for your home + wardrobe. Love it! Much of their wedding design inspiration was drawn from late 60’s and mid 70’s rock album covers. Claribelle describes their wedding as “Fleetwood Mac meets Tuscany” – emanating a country Bohemian vibe in shades of jade and tangerine. Um, love that! And her jade wedding dress?! So amazingly perfect. Lots of great DIY details, major love between these two and gorgeous photos by June Lion Photography. Big congrats to Claribelle + Van!
Starting with our Save the Dates, we sent vintage postcards from Oregon stenciled with our information. We designed our invitations and screen-printed each piece onto blank stationary. Other DIY décor pieces included a paper lantern chandelier, mismatched vintage fabric scraps for table linens, a photo booth featuring a vintage photo frame backdrop, handmade decorative dream catchers made by family members, mismatched vintage plates, milk glass & vases thrifted from various estate sales & flea markets, vintage frame chalkboard signage for our wedding schedule and menus that I designed and scripted by hand, reclaimed wood bottle stops used for table assignments handmade by Van at his wood shop, and all wildflower centerpieces and arrangements were grown on the Van Holland family farm the summer of the wedding.
Van made our wedding bands in his wood shop using scrap pieces of Mahogany & Birch woods. As our relationship and artistry continue to evolve, we plan to upgrade our rings utilizing the resources from which we are working with at that given time.
For our attire, we knew we didn’t want to go traditional. Surprisingly, finding my dress was one of the easiest of our wedding tasks! When I saw the silk Temperley London dress originally in white I loved the style, but couldn’t picture myself in stark white. When I came across the same dress in Jade on The Outnet (the only one in my size!), I knew there was no turning back from the moment I tried it on. The dress embodied everything I was looking for and most importantly, it made me feel like a goddess. To give it my own touch, I made a belt from vintage chains. After searching high and low for a good suit jacket for Van, we knew vintage was the way to go. His vintage Western style jacket paired with a bolo tie made from an antler, forest colored jeans and chukka boots.
We chose to keep our wedding intimate with only 60 guests. It took place in McMinnville, Oregon at Youngberg Hill Vineyards, just 15 minutes from Van’s family farm. The weather on the day of was perfect, without a cloud in the sky. The ceremony was casual and light hearted and officiated by Van’s father Gary. We wrote and read our own vows, which for us was the most memorable part of the day. Leading up to the wedding, we got so busy planning, that we never gave much thought about what to expect during the ceremony. As the moment drew near, the exchange of vows in front of our dearest friends and family was one of the most overwhelmingly wonderful and powerful experiences we’d ever had. Needless to say mass waterworks began just moment’s into Van’s vows.
Processional: Groom: Level – The Raconteurs; Bride: Landslide – Fleetwood Mac
Recessional: Welcome to the Jungle – Guns N' Roses
First Dance: Harvest Moon – Neil Young
The most memorable moment of our wedding day was walking down the aisle and seeing everything we had worked so hard on over months of planning, building & designing come together and being able to share such a personal experience with the people we truly care about the most. It came to a head while exchanging vows and can best be described as one of the most overwhelmingly wonderful and powerful experiences we've ever had...a sincere affirmation that we are truly Made For Each Other.
The reception itself was the time of our life! After several memorable toasts from the wedding party, the dance party kicked off in full swing with Toni Tony Tone’s “It Feels Good.” Music ranged from a variety of classic rock & AM Gold hits from the 70s during cocktail hour to early 80’s – mid 90’s R&B, soul & hip-pop classics that brought the dance floor soul train to life. It was, without question, the dance party of my life.
Months later all of our friends are still talking about the wedding as a celebration of a lifetime. Despite the challenges of a DIY & destination wedding (we had only visited our venue twice in person over the course of planning), everything came together exactly as it was supposed to and we wouldn’t change a thing.
The biggest piece of advice we can give to others planning their wedding is to do YOU. In times of stress, remember this is about you and the love of your life...in the end that’s all that matters. Second piece of advice, on the day of your wedding, if you can have your caterer or family member prepare you some food before the start of the day, DO IT...you will need all the sustenance you can get!
photography: June Lion Photography // venue name: Youngber Hill, Mcminnville, Oregon // wedding dress: The OutNet // hair stylist: Thomas Dwight Stylist // makeup artist: Jillian Cainghug // catering: Farm to Fire Pizza // music: The Adriana Rodriguez // dessert: Robots Love Cupcakes
What a lovely wedding – looks like such a fun celebration!
Love how you let your personalities and spirit shine through. What a very personal wedding!
What kind of flowers did the bride use as her bouquet?
Those are King Protea’s – so unique, right?!
WOW! What a dreamy wedding.
Love the colors…and that dress!
oh my how wonderful! What are those unique flowers you used?
love that she went with a green gown! and who doesn’t love her protea bouquet too!
Thank you Jen for the amazing curation of our day. It was truly a labor of love. Thank you to everyone for the kind comments. King (and queen) proteas are my absolute favorite flower ever :-)
These are amazing! Thank you for giving courage to so many other ladies not so interested in a white wedding dress; seems like a small thing, but it’s symbolically rad.
And those king proteas <3 — everything looks exquisite!
The green dress she dressed is absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing such a personal wedding photos.
Lovely wedding, fabulous green dress.
I love the colored chalk and the colored cake! The bride and groom did a great job bringing their colors into all the details!
Love this wedding! Perfect details and I love that the bride wore color.
Beautiful wedding! I love her dress! and all the details are amazing!
This wedding is so unique! I love all of the details and the brides dress is beautiful!
I’m calling this a very Woodstock wedding. Those fonts on the invites. Her dress. That great big dreamcatcher at the alter. So very cool.
seriously awesome wedding – love her dress and his cowboy hat is epic!