Literary Theme Wedding – Emmie & Ben - Sam & Grace Photography

Wedding

Literary Theme Wedding – Emmie & Ben

A Literary theme wedding and a love of books makes for a pretty inspiring day. Emmie & Ben are awesome people, and not only could we feel their love all over this day, but they wove their personality so well into every part of it. Ben is an aerospace engineer (actual Space Force) and also an avid dancer; Emmie has her own coffee roasting business. They both love books. And adventure. The tear-eyed toasts made it clear that they have both had such a beautiful influence on their friends’ lives. They eloped early on in the pandemic. But they wanted to still have a big awesome party and formal ceremony. So many little details tying into their relationship and personality together filled this day that we felt we had to try to list them all here. We hope this day gives you gives you some inspiration!

Here’s the short highlight video… Full video is at the end of this blog post.

Lord of the Rings inspired details

For her necklace, Emmie wore Arwen’s Evenstar pendant given to Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings; and honestly, with the sun gleaming through the woods, her dress glowed a bit like Arwen’s. Ben carried a handsome pocket watch and chain on his woolen sage suit. Following this literary theme, their invitations were library cards with mention of the Lyon, the Wenzel and the wedding (their last names) and “A Long Expected Party” (Chapter 1 of the Fellowship fo the Ring.) Old rolled up newspaper style ceremony programs greeted the guests. Their wedding colors were sage and lavender.

A beautiful home along a wooded creek

Here are some of our favorites: The party began at the beautiful home of Emmie’s parents, where both sides prepared. A small well-tended garden enclosed in trees sat by beehives taken care of by the bride’s mother and father. From there, a private trail at the end of a long grassy hill surrounded by woods wound along the creek is where Emmie’s father and groom Ben both had their emotional first looks with Emmie.

The Country Club of the North is as epic as it sounds

The Country Club of the North in Xenia, Ohio was a beautiful setting for the main event. Plenty of room inside, a long winding patio for guests to enjoy cocktail hour and the reception. The patio overlooked the golf course and trees, with warm fires around the tables. A beautiful ceremony area enclosed by a stone wall and small trees is where they said I do under their arch made of classic novels and florals by The Flowerman, tying in the literary theme. The ceremony included a traditional hispanic exchange of Arras, or coins, from the groom. Many of the bridesmaids were overseas and could not travel from other countries. However, laminated cardboard cutouts on wooden rods represented them, escorted by some of the groomsmen.

In the reception hall, everyone was assigned to their own unique table with a unique centerpiece as a literary themed, well-thought out beloved book display that tied the personality of the book to the guests sitting there. Ben & Emmie used a Honduran family heirloom machete to cut the cake. The cake was a beautiful white wedding cake pulled open like curtains to reveal stacks of novels. During cocktail hour, guests were treated with the option of ballroom dance lessons.

Driving home the beautiful literary theme, the father of the bride welcomed everyone to their “Long-Expected Party” (post pandemic), and pointed out that this day was the start of Summer on the Elven calendar. The toasts were beautiful and tear-jerking. Watch on the full video below. Here’s a post we wrote about how to give the best toast if you know someone with an important speech coming up!

More beautiful personality and culture on display

Speaking of dance, Emmie and her father danced a traditional Honduran dance between father and bride, and Ben smoothly led both Emmie and his mother in their dances in a way that showed off the beautiful bride and Ben’s mother wonderfully. Fun fact – Ben actually started a dance ministry with best man Ed for their local community of guys to learn to dance and lead in dance.

Another nod to their adventurous wit: Ben & Emmie decided to prank friends with a “special, secret drink” that some planted guests would be seen carrying around the reception. If someone asked about it they were hinted to ask for the secret drink. When they received their special drink from the bartender it was actually non alcoholic seltzer water with blue food coloring, no flavoring, and fruit snacks!

Finally, the day ended with a giant conga line and a surprise of beautiful wedding themed fireworks over the golf course. Family & friends embraced and took in all the joy that had happened this day.

To make a long story short, we were so honored to be a part of their day, and we hope you can relive with them how fun & heartwarming every part of it was. Watch the full film below.

Here’s another literary theme wedding that we had the privilege of capturing a few years ago.

Want to talk about having us capture your amazing wedding? Reach out! We can’t wait to hear from you.