Mick Wedding

As a designer with a fiery passion for all things print, I simply could not resist the opportunity to run wild with my wedding stationery and arrangements. And living in Arizona definitely made my decision of going with a bohemian desert vibe a no-brainer. Throughout my entire life, I have always had a genuine appreciation and obsession for southwest pattern, design, and jewelry. Pocahontas was my favorite Disney character as a child, just to put it into perspective. So when my husband and I decided to have the wedding in Arizona (as opposed to the Chicagoland area where the majority of our family and friends live), it seemed appropriate, and to my amazement actually achievable at this point in our lives, to chase my childhood dream of having a gorgeous southwest wedding.

I didn’t want to blow the bank with my boho wedding dream, so I did some research and found a local state park with an incredible view where I could rent a campsite for a fraction of the price most venues nearby were charging. Since the majority of our wedding guests were coming from our of town, I really wanted to give them a taste of Arizona’s desert beauty. So I found an awesome local wedding coordinator with an amazing team of vendors who could supply on-site rental equipment and services to my outdoor location so that I could host both my ceremony and reception out at the park. We kept our guest count down to a minimum since we knew it was a bit of trip for our friends in the Midwest and decided to just throw a small after party with them back in the region later on in the year. I really loved the idea of having Save The Date magnets instead of pinning a card to your refrigerator, so I ordered some custom wooden engraved magnets from a seller on Etsy. Then I just created some simple backers to tie them to and mailed them off!

I really wanted to compliment the beauty of mother nature, so I chose to stick with natural earth tones with small pops of turquoise accents here and there. My husband also wanted to wear a brown suit, so I really couldn’t see the color palette working any other way. I decided to have my bridesmaids wear taupe, and we all wore minimal silver and turquoise embellished jewelry. My florist was phenomenal and encouraged me to really go big with some magnificent desert-themed flowers and air plants. I used macrame table liners, a macrame bridal bouquet wrap, and macrame chair backers for the bride and groom. I bundled a couple pieces of Palo Santo incense wood with a string and tag for name placements. I bought some super pretty woven twine place mats that popped beautifully on the wooden dinner tables. I added fairy lights to help with table illumination since it was an evening event with dinner under the stars. And I even designed and printed my own custom menus.

I chose the Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus as a theme throughout my stationery because it is one of the only cacti that can withstand cooler temperatures and can actually be found back in the Midwest at places like the Indiana Dunes, which is close to where I grew up and where my family lives. I even made custom “Let Love Grow” prickly pear seed packets as giveaways at our reception. I also incorporated a road runner because that is the name of the campground site where we got married. My husband and I collected some natural quartz rocks while trekking around our local desert playground to use as weights for the southwest blanket isle I wanted to do so badly. Along with the quartz, I also incorporated lots of cholla wood and feathers to accentuate the scenery.

As a serious print geek, I knew I simply couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do some sort of fancy printing process with my invites. Because well you know, this is my wedding, and I’m planning on only doing this thing once! And there are truly so many amazing printing techniques out there that are just completely dreamy for wedding invites, but so utterly not-dreamy for my wallet. So instead of overpaying for the quality I wanted but couldn’t afford, I teamed up with a local letterpress printing shop and offered to assist with the printing process - not only because I’m an absolute print geek and loved every second of it, but also because it saved me a decent penny in labor costs. We letterpress printed the 2-color main invites, and 1-color accomodatons card, rsvp card, and dinner menus. In order to keep costs down and achieve the full-color printing on the maps, I had those printed at a local print shop, along with the envelop liners and greeting notes. I bought my color-specific envelopes and backers at a local paper supply shop.

So there you have it. With a wee bit of research, effort, time, and lots of glue and paper cutting… Wah-Lah! I never would have imagined I could have accomplished this beautiful of a wedding when I was a kid. It was the most fun I’ve had working on a project since my senior thesis in college and I can’t wait to get my fingers into the next endeavor.

Wedding Planner, Stationery Designer & Photographer: Kaitlyn Mick Stancy.
Venue: Lost Dutchman State Park // Superstition Mountains
Day of Event Coordinator: Tracy Machajewski with The Views at Superstition
Floral Designer: Marni Leyva with Wild Iris Weddings
Wedding Photographer: Santiago Almada
Wedding Videographer: Lee Media Weddings
Caterer: Let’s Celebrate Catering
Baker: Piece of Cake
Bridal Shop: Brilliant Bridal
Rental Company: Lena’s Events & Rentals
Stationery Letterpress Printer: Hazel & Violet
Paper Supply Shop: Paper Source
Officiant: Rev. Rick Bell