Sarasota wedding: Something old, nothing new

Their love is fresh and new, but everything else about their nuptials last Saturday was old — and recycled, repurposed and salvaged.
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Their love is fresh and new, but everything else about their nuptials last Saturday was old — and recycled, repurposed and salvaged.
It started when environmentalist Emily Conlisk, who lives and works in Atlanta, visited her mom, Gail Stephens, in Sarasota about a year ago to investigate local wedding venues. Did she select the beach, botanical garden, museum lawn or fashionable hotel?
Oh, no, mother and daughter both got positively weepy with excitement over the possibility of organizing an environmentally sensitive sunset wedding for 80 guests in the side yard of Sarasota Architectural Salvage on Central Avenue in the industrial district of Sarasota.
Their plan was to use salvage artifacts — some might call it junk — to create a dreamy, 1920s-era ceremony that would transport guests back in time but be up-to-the-minute modern with practical Earth-friendly practices.
"Emily and I have been playing at Sarasota Architectural Salvage and helping the owner, our friend Jesse White, stage some of his items for about three years now, every time Emily would come to town," says Gail. "She's an interior designer and can't resist places like Jesse's. In fact, Emily and Steven — he just finished medical school — met seven years ago in Home Depot where they both had part-time jobs while in college, she in the décor department and he in flooring.
My friend Sophie, 30, has a full summer of weddings. She's going to five. She's a bridesmaid in three. In fact, she has a bachelorette party and a wedding shower on the same weekend.
"The bachelorette party girl doesn't live in New York, so she's flying in for a destination weekend," says Sophie. "And then Saturday afternoon I have to slip out for the bridal shower."
Like Katherine Heigl swapping outfits in a taxi to attend dueling events in "27 Dresses," Sophie will perform the real-life bridesmaid juggle. And this after she politely turned down two weddings. She could have gone to seven.
Her story's not uncommon. For folks in the second quarter, there comes a time when crowds of high school and college friends get married all at once. This simultaneity creates conflicts and costs. Sophie estimates she will spend around $350 on each of her three bridesmaid dresses, with alterations. Luke, 27, estimates his wedding travel for the year will exceed pink wedding invitations
.
"Hell yeah, it gets expensive!" he says. "It's the destination weddings - the hotels, the trips - those are the ones that sink you. And then on top of that you have to buy gifts."
Lining up his invites, Luke had to draw the line - somewhere between Hawaii and Jamaica, to be exact. He'd been to lavish nups in the Pacific and attending another beach ceremony would have cost him and his date almost $2,000.
"I felt guilty saying no because only a select few friends got the Jamaica invite," he says, "but that bride had another reception back in the city. I said, 'Don't worry, I promise I will come to one of your receptions.'"
Of course there are some weddings you can't miss, but if you don't know the bride and groom intimately, they just may understand. I asked one recently married pal and she admitted it wasn't the regrets that stressed her out, it was people who showed up unexpected.
Where things get tricky is with close family. Anne, 26, a magazine editor, will attend nine weddings before Labor Day and either she or her boyfriend is in five of them. She could have slimmed the list if she'd sent her boyfriend to his share alone, but she stuck to the rule of reciprocity: "I'm going to his," she says, "because I want him to come to mine."
Then two invitations arrived for the same red wedding invitations

. Her beloved cousin. His sister.