In 1994 I graduated highschool, and moved to Chicago to attend The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. While at school there, studying bookbinding and papermaking (and sort of attempting to be in the graphic design program) I made a good friend named Sara.
Sara and I were great pals... we had a lot in common and were in love with the same things; namely art and paper products. And boy, did we know how to make a good mess! Papermaking is not exactly a neat and tidy process. Nor a dry one! So we would spend days in wet, messy clothes, making beautiful paper and binding it into precious books.
One day Sara and I were talking about how we wanted to live when we "grew up." We both decided that when we graduated school and had a real "life", with a real apartment, that we each wanted to have a "white room" in our homes. A room that was so clean, and organized, and white! The white room symbolized so much to us - it symbolized a sort of success. The success of having our own place, of having a place that was clean, that was minimalist, but that was uber design savvy. It meant being a stylish grownup. It was the opposite of how we lived as students.
We talked about our white rooms ad nauseum! Then Sara moved to Japan (to teach english and further study Japanese papermaking techniques) and I moved to Pasadena to
Over the next several years, Sara and I had a pretty awesome penpal-ship! We would write fantastic letters and send awesome packages to each other around the globe, and every now and again, Sara would send me magazine clippings of some furniture or home decor that she saw, that we had to put into our white room! Our fantasy white room kept growing and evolving, never too far from our minds.
I'm a very lucky girl... because after living in nearly every corner of Europe & many different cities in America, my very dear, longtime pal Sara recently moved to California, and lives no more than approximately 2 miles away from me. At our advanced age of 35 (!), and now each with 2 kids, we have the knowledge and understanding that our dream of having a white room is likely never going to come true. But that doesn't stop Sara from clipping out pictures of our fantasy white furniture when she comes across great ideas in magazines. And it doesn't stop us from talking about our fantasy white room... and what a funny fantasy that is nowadays! We both tend to end our white room discussions with "One day Jenn..." or "One day Sara..." and attempt to keep the dream alive, holding out hope for some time after the kids grow up, and are out of the house... when the words "please don't color on the walls" aren't part of our everyday vocabulary!
Anyway, that's a long preamble to help you get into my head, so that you can imagine how I felt when I saw an email in my inbox this morning, from the Martha Stewart Wedding magazine people, talking about white centerpieces, and other white components for a "White Wedding!"
Wow! This is like the ultimate realization of Sara's & my white room fantasy. And, you could even achieve this while having kids at home! This concept doesn't even require a cleaning lady every day to keep things white, and or a furniture budget of $100k!! This would be a fantastic way to bring to life our white room by way of a party (wedding or otherwise!)
So, here are some of the great pictures, courtesy of Martha Stewart Weddings Idea of the Day, of ways to make your party white! I think this could get a little overdone if all the guests wore white, but imagine how festive, chic and gorgeous this would be if you requested guests to wear bright colors!
Gotta go now - have to call Sara and tell her that we have a new, slightly modified white fantasy to start clipping pictures for!
