Issue 96: Throwing a bookish wedding

When I look back on 2025, the biggest thing is that E and I got married in September! This was a relatively light writing year, but I got to exercise creativity in a different direction by planning a loosely literary wedding.

We, unfortunately, are not Carrie and Mr. Big, so we did not get married at the New York Public Library (I guess technically they didn’t either…) Although we considered some other gorgeous bookstores like Housing Works and The Strand, they ultimately weren’t a great fit for our guest count and logistics. We got married in our neighborhood in Brooklyn, and instead, looked to other ways to incorporate our bookish sensibilities.

Save the dates and website

We mailed out physical save the dates, taking inspiration from library cards for the design. These were easy to print as postcards with Catprint, and it was fun to incorporate a photo booth picture we took the weekend we got engaged.

This was my first foray into Canva and I had a mild breakdown about how ugly my initial designs were. Why didn’t it look as worn and ~vintage~ as I wanted?! E sought help from the most trusted source on the internet (Reddit) and we discovered that layering a bunch of transparent textures on top of each other will do the trick. Teamwork!

For our wedding website, I designed and coded it myself with 11ty and Netlify, and $12 for a domain name. We still used Withjoy for our RSVPs and registry. I took design inspiration from FSG Books, which uses bold colors and legible, stylish fonts. For consistency, I kept the look similar to that of our save the date.

Of course, we included a lot of New York bookstore recommendations for our guests to explore and included photos my sister took of us at Greenlight Books from our engagement shoot.

Seating chart and reception tables

Card catalogues are already alphabetized, so they were perfect for a seating chart. I found a mini card catalogue online, then trimmed a bunch of library checkout cards to fit the smaller dimensions (shoutout Caro for letting me use your paper cutter that one Saturday afternoon!) My label maker, a gift from E from 2017, did a lot of heavy lifting too.

For our reception tables, we thought it’d be fun to name them after famous authors and to decorate them with stacks of books. We sourced some from this great service called Books by the Foot (self-explanatory) as well as from our own bookshelves. They complemented our florist’s beautiful bud vases and candles, which similarly matched our red/white color palette, while allowing room for the family-style meal.

Decor

For our welcome table, we got to incorporate other bookish design elements, including a fake book where people could leave cards and a green banker’s lamp reminiscent of the library. On our memorial table, we filled a book-shaped Pride & Prejudice vase with fresh flowers. My sister sourced some vintage photo frames and candle holders.

Wedding zine

Both E and I are writers, so naturally we wanted to write something to share with our guests. The result was a zine featuring the story of how we met and the last nine years spent together, celebrating our community, and thanking our vendors.

For some interactive elements, we included Mad Libs, conversation prompts, and puzzles (writing a custom Connections board is harder than it looks). We designed it in Canva, the true MVP of the wedding design process. It was easy to adjust dimensions and ensure there was enough page bleed, download it as a PDF or individual images, and then upload to a printing service. We went with Mixam, which was by far the cheapest printing option for zines, but had a mixed experience with shipping delays.

It was so fun to see people reading the zine and despite it being one of the more involved DIYs we did, it was also one of the things that felt uniquely us.

Tips:

• My friend Carolyn wrote a great post about wedding DIYs that was immensely helpful. We definitely stuck to the advice about deciding on a theme with consistent colors to streamline decision making throughout the entire planning process.
• We used CVS for same-day photo printing which was cheap and easy. Other folks recommend Costco and Staples for similar printing or signage needs.
• We used Mixam’s zine default (5.5” X 8.5”), but I’d recommend designing zines with A5 dimensions so you have the widest printing options. Budget at least 2-4 weeks for shipping to avoid paying extra fees!

We’re so grateful to everyone who helped make this such an amazing day, and are excited to now be in this next chapter (ba dum tss) of our lives!

The holiday season is upon us—here are some past nicoledonut gift guides, and a great gift guide for artists from my friend Michael! I love his approach to gifting, whether that’s something digital, consumable, experiential, or handmade. 

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Creative resources

• Sign up for Ann Friedman and Jade Chang’s 2026 Midwives of Intention offerings! I did a version of their composting workshop a few years ago and still carry those practices with me.
• DongWon Song on three different ways to think about genres 
• End of year book roundups: NPR’s Books We Love, NYT’s 100 Notable Books, and LitHub’s 100 Notable Small Press Books
• I love the idea of an at-home writing residency, complete with printed fliers, a pizza party, and a house/apartment swap.
• The Ministry of Words is a teaching collective founded by Fatimah Asghar, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and R. O. Kwon. They’re offering 2026 courses in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in a spring term (generative) and a fall term (revision-based). There are limited partial scholarships for writers of color.

Recent reads & other media

I finished Good Material by Dolly Alderton, a witty break-up novel, and Richard Osman’s cozy mystery, The Thursday Murder Club. When we visited Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal last month, we picked up Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. It’s an amazing graphic memoir about Bechdel’s relationship with her father, their personal histories, and their LGBTQ+ identities.

As we’re nearing the end of the year, I’ve been assessing whether I’ve made my AMC A-List subscription worth it. (Insert my cultish spiel about how you only need to watch two movies a month to make it worth it!) I’m a few movies shy of that, so I’ve been getting my ass to the theater a lot. Zootopia 2 is a great sequel with even more amazing animal puns. Hamnet was a fantastic adaptation of the novel, and I sobbed through the ending. No Other Choice is one of my favorite films of the year, and I love the dark humor and how it navigates conversations about AI/automation, labor, and class.

For more movie recs, I highly recommend Allison’s wonderful annual Boy Movies Extravaganza, and only partly because I got to write about my Boy Movies pick, The Naked Gun.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, we went to see the Monet in Venice exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum with E’s parents and aunt and uncle, which was really well curated. E and I saw Wake Up, Dead Man at Alamo and lamented a future of minimal Netflix theatrical releases. Since HBO now has Mad Men (they’ve edited out the vomit rig in their 4K version), I’ve been rewatching it through with E, who’s never seen it.

Recently read short stories: Nothing recently

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~ meme myself and i ~

Enjoying a relaxing Sunday as an adult. Mystery biscuit? Funniest slow motion video of a cat ever. It is what it is. This dog loves Celine Dion. Asserting crosswalk dominance. How we’re going to parent in 2050. Perfect lime prank.