I can’t believe it’s already been three months since our wedding. It feels like just yesterday and somehow a million years ago already. Crazy how time works! As I launch my new website and Thread Notes Blog, my partner Kyle thought it would be a great first blog post to write about our wedding. I couldn’t agree more.

On a lovely spring evening in May, amidst the first blooms of roses, my partner Kyle and I married in front of twenty eight of our closest friends and family. The intimate ceremony took place at the Historic Wyck Garden in Germantown, one of the first places we discovered together after we moved to Philly in 2020. Amidst the worries of a global pandemic we made some of our first Germantown friends at Wyck while volunteering at the weekly farm club. Three years later, it was only fitting that we chose this beautiful space, where we began our life in Philadelphia, to take our first steps together as a married couple.

When Kyle and I sat down to discuss what we wanted for our big day, we both easily fell in line with what we wanted. As gay men, we knew the wedding could be an opportunity to do things differently and forgo some of the traditions that didn’t align with us. No first dance, no one walking us down the aisle, no throwing of the bouquet and definitely no garter belt scenario. Not to knock any of those traditions, some people really love those moments, but it just wasn’t for us. So we tried our best to do it our own way by choosing the parts of a wedding we did like.

Above all else we wanted it to be fun without breaking the bank. We knew that to do that, the wedding would have to be small and local. We saw this as an opportunity to introduce our closest friends and family to the neighborhood we chose to call home in Philly. We opted for paperless post invites instead of mailing out invites to cut cost and paper use. There was no official dress code other than “Dress to feel fabulous,” which we hoped would make our guests feel less stress about choosing their outfits. We also opted out of the traditional wedding parties concept, which we just felt was unnecessary in such a small wedding. For me an amazing dinner was an absolute must. I wanted a restaurant quality meal so that’s where most of our budget went. And we most definitely wanted to look and feel comfortable and fabulous.

Together we walked down the aisle hand-in-hand with handmade bouquets (Made by our friends in our living room) to an acoustic version of Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me.” The song was my choice, I wanted to have my 90’s teen movie fantasy and our talented friends Meaghan and Ryan performed it beautifully. Our dear friend, and new Philadelphian Colleen was the mistress of ceremonies delivering a beautiful and heartwarming opening speech. We recited our own vows in between a few tears and laughs and were pronounced married. We cued our exit song, A Sister Sledge disco classic “Thinking About You,” which was definitely Kyle's choice, as our guests joined us in a celebratory dance. The ceremony was no longer than half an hour and exactly our style.

Dinner and Speeches at Jansen restaurant

For dinner, we had a private dining room at Jansen Restaurant, a cozy beautiful space just a 5 minute ride up Germantown Ave in Mt. Airy. We dined on short rib and salmon and drank lots of wine listening to speeches from family and friends. Just having the people we love in one room laughing and sharing stories over a meal has always been one of my favorite things and this is one dinner I will never forget.

To continue the celebrations we invited all of our Philly friends and wedding guests to Attic Brewing where we drank some more, danced, laughed and partied. Oh and there were donuts, lots and lots of donuts from Beilers. If you haven’t had a Beilers donut you’re missing out!

Our amazing photographer Ash Smith really captured all the moments in such a natural way. We really love how our wedding photos turned out and couldn’t have been happier with their point of view. I remember feeling nervous about having a photographer but truly I couldn’t have been more comfortable with Ash behind the camera. We feel like they really understood what we were trying to do in our casual non-traditional wedding.

By the end of the night we were so happy and tired from all the adrenaline and love radiating from everyone. More than a few times we heard from our guests how easy and genuine our wedding was.

It was exactly what we wanted and I’m so happy we made the choices we did.

Kyle and I bringing the love and the donuts to Attic.

I think the turning point for Kyle and I when planning things for the wedding was the day we went to pick out suits. We pulled up to Indochino in Rittenhouse, stepped inside and browsed the selections. The store attendant seemed all business and lifelessly went through the motions of scheduling us a fitting. They told us to pick our fabrics but nothing seemed to pop out at me, or Kyle for that matter. At one point he looked at me and said, “I hate all of these.” And I replied, “I hate wearing a suit.” Then he looked at me and said “Bail?” We told the sales clerk that this wasn’t for us and they smiled for the first time since we walked in there and said “You guys do you! It’s your day!” We walked out of the store laughing and realized at that moment that we didn't need suits, we didn't really need to buy or do anything we didn't want to do. Instead we bought shoes from Doc Martin that we really loved and planned our outfits from the foot up.

That's when we decided to just wear clothes that made us feel beautiful, because isn’t that the point of clothing? Kyle decided on a fun floral blazer and black pants with a subtle floral flocking in the design. I went with lighter pants that had a colorful plaid pattern and a white shirt, no suit jacket for me. No tie for either of us.

I knew from the moment we got engaged that I would be wearing a hand embroidered shirt for our wedding. Embroidery is so special to me and such a huge part of my journey and development as an artist, it had to be included in my wedding outfit. After scratching the suit idea I searched for the perfect shirt, which honestly doesn’t really exist. I originally wanted a guayabera style shirt that is traditional to Puerto Rico, but I only found them online and didn’t want to order a bunch to have to send them back. It just seemed a hassle. I must have tried on 20 shirts and ultimately ended up in one from Bonobos that felt the most comfortable. It wasn’t sheer and it wasn’t going to make me hot, so I pushed forward because there was a lot of stitching to be done!

The idea for my embroidery came from hand stitched Mexican Otomi embroidery patterns. I love the intricate folk inspired designs but I wanted it a little simpler. Ok, to be honest I didn't want something simple. I actually wanted an all-over embroidery pattern with lots of color and imagery but realistically in the time I had to make this happen, I paired back my design to just a few strategically placed flowers in primary colors.

When I design embroidery for clothing I first take a picture of the garment and throw it open on my ipad in the drawing app Procreate. I draw directly onto the photo to see what the design will look like and play with color and spacing. Once I was happy with the concept I drew each piece of the design separately and printed it onto a sticky water soluble stabilizer paper. This stuff is amazing. You can cut print and cut out your designs and place them directly onto your fabric and then stitch right through your garment and the stabilizer paper. When you’re done stitching, just soak the stabilizer in water and it melts away. It’s that easy.

A few tips for this: Stitch your outline first and then dissolve the stabilizer. Stitching through the sticky stuff can gunk up your needles which makes stitching a bit difficult over time.

A little bit at a time when hand embroidering something special.

Also make sure the threads you use are colorfast! Some higher end embroidery threads are hand dyed which are beautiful but that dye can run when wet or even rub off onto your garment staining your clothes. That was not something I wanted to risk for my wedding day shirt! Always do a little test on scrap fabric by making a few running stitches and then dampening your cloth and threads to see if the dye bleeds.

I knew I wanted to stitch a collar, which meant no collar-stays for me (Those little plastic thingies that slide into a slot in the collar to keep it stiff), but that was fine for me since the wedding attire would be more casual. I placed the designed stabilizer and stitched away.

Some people are fast stitchers, and some not so fast. I fall in between. So the design took me some time. Over three weeks I sat down for an hour or two (or 3) a day and worked on this shirt. After the collar I started on the chest area where I wanted bright red flowers and forest green leaf work. The threads I used were from Wild Hand and were mostly Hidamari Sashiko threads & Finca brand No. 8 Pearl cotton. The pearl cotton had a little more luster to it so I used it sparingly since I wasn’t going for a shiny embroidered look.

When stitching on clothing, it’s best to have a small hoop and work in sections. Most times when we are embroidering, the fabric we’re stitching on will fit the hoop perfectly. But with something like a shirt collar or cuff this won't be the case. Use a small 3” or 4” hoop and get as much of the fabric in the confines of the hoop and as tight as it can be. You need it taught enough to stitch on so that your stitches don’t get wonky.

The chest area was a little more difficult, only because the fabric of the shirt had a bit of stretch to it. Now most embroidery should be done on non-stretch fabric. But I didn’t want a super stiff starchy wedding shirt so mine was 95% cotton with (I’m guessing) a bit of a lycra-like synthetic fiber for the stretch. In this case you do not want to fully stretch your fabric to the tightest it can be. If you do, once it’s off the hoop the fabric will snap back and your work will be misshapen and weird. So I used minimal tension on my hoop and kept the fabric slightly loose in the hoop while working.

I added a few flowers onto the sleeve cuffs and a little vining in chainstitch.

I gotta say, this sort of thing takes a lot of patience! I think in total the embroidery took about 20 hours to complete! The entire time I just kept thinking how beautiful it would be and shared my progress on instagram as I went (for encouragement) and I watched a lot of scary movies (I’m a horror guy).

When I was finally done, I tried it on and was so happy with the work! It really made me excited to wear it. But what I didn't expect was that Kyle would get a little jealous. After seeing it completed he almost immediately said, “What about my shirt?” I remember just looking at him and thinking, is he serious? Oh he was serious. So with a week until the wedding I started working on HIS wedding shirt. Just when I thought I was done I had started on a whole new design. But he was right (again), it really wouldn’t be fair if I was the only one with a touch of hand embroidery for the wedding.

For Kyle's shirt, I went a little simpler than my own. Because of time, yes, but also because he would be wearing a blazer and there was no point in covering up the embroidery with a jacket. I focused primarily on his button-line. I replaced his white buttons with pink ones and stitched a green vine between them, the buttons serving as a kind of flower bloom between the vines and leaves. I don’t think I ever stitched so fast! But I got it done and the button idea worked beautifully.

Finished stitch-work on these hand embroidered wedding shirts.

Embroidering these shirts really allowed me the time to think about our relationship, how far we’ve come within five years of being together and all the time and effort a partnership takes. In the last five years we’ve moved 4 times within three states. Settled in Philly as our home. Got a dog. Bought a house. Made career choices and took many many leaps of faith in both each other and our life path. But like embroidery, a relationship is piece by piece, stitch by stitch until you can see the whole design. Some things can get frustrating like tangled threads and miscommunications. But the work is necessary and on the journey you get to make something beautiful with someone you love.

I am so grateful for my partner. He’s an amazing man and a brilliant theater director. We get to live as artists doing the things we love surrounded by people who care about us. There’s nothing more fulfilling than sharing that with him.

And as I push publish on this first blog post, I’m filled with excitement to further share these moments of joy and art with all of you!

Stay Magical,

Richie Wilde Lopez

Tying the Knot: Hand Embroidering our Wedding Shirts