Bride: Carla Murray
Groom: Jamaal Lofton
Date of Wedding: 03/30/2013
Photography: Studio A Images
Hair and Makeup: Sabrina Gilbert NYC
Wedding Planner: ever swoon LLC
The bride on her special day:
"We do a lot of moving and shaking. With Jamaal's military career, we had spent the majority of our relationship as a long-distance couple. Our weekends were spent meeting in different cities visiting our friends and families or traveling back and forth to each other. After the wedding, our next move was to Sicily, Italy. It was a no-brainer that we would have a travel-themed wedding with emphasis on the places we've been and where we were heading.
"We had our invitations designed with a silhouette of an airplane in the background. Our programs were designed as passports. Our seat assignments were boarding passes which could be found pinned to a cork board covered with a map of the world. Each boarding pass directed our guests to tables named for the many cities that Jamaal and I have visited together. Our cocktail hour space was decorated with vintage suitcases and trunks in the spirit of travel. We had a vintage spinning postcard rack with postcards from the states where our guests had traveled from or their hometowns. These served as our guest book. The guests wrote us little notes which we had mailed to us over in Sicily.
"The ceremony held at the Manhattan Penthouse in NYC. It was very intimate with lots of candlelight. We had a wonderful officiant named Kim Kirkley. She wrote our ceremony specific to us. It was as if she knew us forever. Jamaal and I wrote our own vows as well as repeating the standard ones. I walked down the aisle with my father as the pianist played 'Halo' by Beyoncé. Jamaal and I walked out as husband and wife to the piano version of 'Empire State of Mind' by Jay Z and Alicia Keys. (The alter was situated facing the Empire State Building.) We chose to try something different to include our guests in the ceremony, with a passing of the ring ceremony. The rings were placed in a gold sack and passed through the crowd so that each guest may say a quick prayer or make well wishes over it.
"Our color scheme was gold, orange and cream. I wanted lots of gold to blend with the gold on Jamaal's Navy uniform. We had various shades of orange which just seemed to pop with the candlelight! It was warm and rich. Regal, yet very modern."
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