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Home > An Amy Kuschel Bride for a Jewish Wedding at the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

An Amy Kuschel Bride for a Jewish Wedding at the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

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We love a good museum wedding. We also can’t get enough of edgy post-industrial venues. Today’s Jewish wedding — in a super cool whiskey factory-turned-art museum — combines both, so we’re doubly into it! Exposed brick for daaaaays — don’t miss Sachs Photography‘s pics!

Allison, a nonprofit strategic communications consultant and speechwriter, and Andy, a postdoctoral fellow, also had a super clever idea to make sure their Hora ran smoothly: they assigned three of the bride’s cousins as “hora captains”! The captains were tasked with things like making sure no one brought out chairs too early, using the good chairs that the caterer provided when it was time, and bringing the couple water at the end. Highly recommended!

Oh, and did we mention their stunning ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ruth Mergi, combining a fantastic modern papercut design with a lovely watercolor background in soothing blues and greens?

We’ll leave the rest to the bride, who looked beautiful in her petal pink strapless dress by Amy Kuschel…

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How We Met

 
“The two met as high school seniors in 2005 while waiting for a flight to an event for prospective Brown University students. The two were at BWI Marshall Airport.

“It was the only place close to Norfolk that offered a direct flight,” Allison said.

There were four prospective students on the flight that day, according to Allison. “He was the only cute one,” she said.

Upon landing, Allison asked her aunt and uncle if they could give Andy a ride to campus with her. They agreed. The two met up again in the fall. By Valentine’s Day, they were an official couple. They have been together since.”

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A Museum Venue

We got married at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. We mostly just loved the venue! It has a ton of character and an aesthetic we were really excited about.
 
Andy had hoped to find a converted postindustrial space big enough for our families, and I liked the idea of a museum with a lot of character. AVAM, housed in a former whiskey factory, was both! (We also technically met in Baltimore–or rather at its airport–but that was more of an afterthought than the reason we decided on AVAM.)

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Working with Vendors

We worked with our various vendors to put together all the elements that we were excited about. Generally, we chatted with each about why we liked the space (funky, industrial aesthetic with a lot of materials and textures) and what we wanted (more modern than traditional), then let them be the experts in terms of how that played out through food, lights, flowers, and so on. Baltimore is a small enough town that  most of the vendors knew each other, which helped a lot with the collaboration. 

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A good friend, Michellanne Li, designed our invitations, website, save the date, and even custom stamps as a gift to us. So all of our “branding” was incredibly personal, and having it done by a friend was very special.
 

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Hair + Makeup

Debbie Federico did makeup for me, my sisters, both moms, and my brother-in-law’s partner. A friend of a friend had recommended her as someone skilled with light, natural makeup, and we couldn’t have been happier with the results–none of us are real makeup people, so it was great to outsource that and still feel like myself.
 
Jess from Up Dos for I Dos did the hair; I believe the event coordinator at AVAM suggested the business, and then they assigned us someone. She was great, and I’m still in awe at how well my hairstyle held up all night.

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An Amy Kuschel Dress

My dress was Amy Kuschel‘s “Lennon” in petal pink from Flair Bridal in Boston, MA. Going into the dress shopping process, I was fairly sure I wanted a strapless sheath style in a color other than white–so that dress pretty much ticked all my boxes!
 
It felt more special than a ballgown (though I did consider going that route instead) while still being a bit untraditional and funky. The structural elements were also a nice thematic match for AVAM’s industrial feel.

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Heirloom Pearls

I wore a pair of simple pearl earrings that belong to my mother, which she inherited when my grandmother died. She happened to be wearing them the day I found my dress, and they just worked perfectly; Grandma Dot was the only grandparent on my side who we’ve lost, so it was really special to have that piece of her with me.
 
I also wore a hair comb purchased at Flair, which was gold and pearl–it was serendipitously on display that day, and someone grabbed it on a whim when we were debating how I might style the dress. The whole look came together pretty quickly!

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Kitten Heels

I wore strappy kitten heel sandals in sparkly gold.

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The handsome groom

Andy wore a charcoal Isaia suit with a tie that we called “Obama blue”! His brother and both of our fathers wore charcoal suits of their choosing and matching ties.

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Going without Bridesmaids

No bridesmaids; my sisters and both mothers picked out their own dresses and everyone looked wonderful! There was no real theme to tie to; I’d just asked that everyone go for short, not-matching dresses.

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A Family Chuppah

We used Andy’s grandfather’s (of blessed memory) tallit and a silver wineglass that had been in my family for decades.
 
The chuppah we were married under is also a family piece; my maternal grandparents had it made with two other couples they were close to, and everyone in the three families has been married under it since. That includes 10 weddings in my mother’s generation and 10 in mine (so far), and each couple has a hand-stitched panel with their Hebrew names and wedding date on the chuppah. My father’s sister Caren made ours.

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A Personalized Ceremony

Our wedding was officiated by my uncle, Carl (“Corky”) Freedman. Andy and I met on the way to college, and he and my aunt lived in the same city–so they met Andy when I did and had been present for many of the big milestones in our relationship. Corky worked with us to incorporate the Jewish traditions we all valued while also creating a ceremony that was deeply personal to us and our relationship with him. He also brought out the Moses action figure that Andy had brought as a host gift back in 2006; it’s graced the family seders every year since!

We also did personal vows. Conveniently, our parents and siblings added up to seven people, so each of them read a translation/interpretation of each of the Sheva Brachot that we had chosen.

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A Papercut Ketubah

Our ketubah was by Ruth Mergi and signed by Carly Katz and Matt Simonson, friends we had each grown up with who had known us separately and together and who we knew would value the Jewish elements of supporting our marriage. We looked through what seemed like an infinite number of Etsy and Judaica shops and both loved Ruth Mergi’s papercut-and-watercolor designs best. The searching took a while, but the final decision was pretty easy.

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And I Love Her

The Bachelor Boys were a fantastic band! I’d have to dig for the exact playlist from the reception, but our first dance was ‘And I Love Her’ by the Beatles. We processed to an instrumental version of ‘Falling Slowly’ from the movie ‘Once‘ and recessed to an instrumental-but-rocking version of ‘Bohemian Like You’  by the Dandy Warhols.

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Bright Flowers and Calla Lilies

Crimson and Clover did our flowers. We told Amy that we wanted some flowers but not a ton, and she did an amazing job of bringing color to the event while incorporating a lot of industrial materials–metal and glass terrariums, glass bottles and vases, and lit candles–as well as big, bright flowers. My bouquet was white calla lilies. (No one else carried bouquets and we skipped boutonnieres.)
 

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Photographer

Artful Weddings by Sachs Photography was recommended several times over as the best in the business, and they were!
 

Cupcakes!

We didn’t have a wedding cake! For dessert, we ordered about 200 assorted cupcakes from Baked & Wired, a bakery in Washington, D.C. that we both love, and hired a driver from TaskRabbit to truck them up to Baltimore in her van. Delicious and unique!
 
Bonny at Chef’s Expressions did our catering otherwise, as well as day-of coordination, and she and her team were terrific!

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The Bachelor Boys were our band; they’d been among the recommended vendors from AVAM’s event coordinator. Andy saw them play at a showcase in D.C. and thought they were terrific, so we booked them. Tim and his musicians were really open to learning new songs on top of their already-extensive repertoire, which we appreciated. (Among others, they learned Rick James’s ‘Give It To Me Baby’, a favorite of Andy’s, and said they had so much fun playing it that it was going to be part of their songlist going forward!)
 

Hora Captains

Three of my cousins (Corky’s sons) weren’t technically vendors, but they “captained” our hora–making sure no one brought out chairs too early, using the good chairs that the caterer provided when it was time, and having glasses of ice water for me and Andy at the end of what might have been the best fifteen minutes of the night. I’d highly recommend their strategy (and services)!
 

Family Speeches

At the reception, our parents spoke briefly together (they gave longer speeches the night before at the rehearsal dinner with the two families), and our siblings (first my two sisters, then Andy’s brother) spoke during dinner.
 
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A Minimoon and a Honeymoon

We went on a mini-moon to the Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, MD–it was a short drive from Baltimore, totally beautiful, and somewhere we could just relax together for a few days without having to make a lot of plans.
 
Our “real” honeymoon came over a year later (summer 2018), when we spent three weeks traveling through Hong Kong, Vietnam, Angkor Wat, and Thailand; we wanted to wait to plan a big trip until after the wedding so we could enjoy it more fully on its own, and southeast Asia was a part of the world that would have been hard to explore in less time, given the distance.
 

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Advice to couples currently planning their wedding

Our wedding was incredibly special and meaningful, but at the end of the day it was one weekend, and we tried to keep that in perspective throughout the planning process. Treating the planning like a checklist made a big difference; it kept all the various tasks manageable and the responsibilities clear.

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Allison & Andrew’s little white book

Photography – Sachs Photography
Ketubah – Ruth Mergi
Venue – American Visionary Art Museum
Bride’s dress – Amy Kuschel found and fitted at Flair Bridal
Groom’s attire – Isaia
Hair + Makeup – Up Dos for I Dos and Debbie Federico
Flowers – Crimson and Clover
Cupcakes – Baked & Wired
Band – Bachelor Boys

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