When Hipster Birders Get Married

Almost one year ago, these two Hipster Birders got hitched! Being both hipstery and birdy, of course our wedding incorporated those two lifestyles. You may remember that our engagement photo shoot incorporated our love of birding and the outdoors, too. Although I loved the idea of a wedding in the woods, logistically it would have been slightly inconvenient for guests and setup and food and the reception, etc. (If you’ve planned a wedding, you probably understand). In any case, when we found our venue, we knew it was the one, and we could still bring the woodsy feeling into it.

We had an intimate wedding at the Georgia State Railroad Museum in Savannah. As you may know, neither Nick nor I are from Savannah, but when we visited on our first romantic getaway 7 years before our nuptials, I knew it was the place I wanted to marry Nick (even though he didn’t know that until much later). A series of fortunate events led us to live in Savannah, which made it perfect to have our dream wedding there. Savannah really is the ideal romantic city, full of southern charm and natural beauty.

We clean up real nice, don't we? ;-)

Because Savannah has so many beautiful locations for a wedding, it was hard to narrow it down – the lush, green parks and squares, historic homes, art museums – they all had such loveliness to offer. We knew we wanted something rustic and outdoors yet also something that captures the history of this town. When we visited the railroad museum, we knew it was exactly what we wanted. The rustic, exposed brick walls and antique train cars and large machinery were begging for the contrast of bright colors, lace, and pretty details.

Photos from each year we've been together

The wedding theme was “Rustic Vintage Chic.” What does this mean, exactly? Well, this meant a lot of DIY craft projects, antique and vintage accessories and props, while still keeping it pretty and classy without getting cheesy with a bird theme. And without meaning to, we did end up following almost all of these “10 Ways You Know You’re at a Hipster Wedding.” Instead of a barn, it was a railroad museum, and there were pickled vegetables and amazing food!

We loved incorporating bird details, DIY crafts, and vintage & feminine touches: Gold Birdcages with home crafted nests; Mini nests on vines in the flower arrangements; Yarn wrapped bottles; Antique bottles and books; and Bird table numbers on wooden stands.

Because I’m very much a creative type who loves to do my own projects, it was a dream come true to craft my own lovelies for our wedding, such as the yarn-wrapped bottles and letters and the moss frames. Owl and bird details were sprinkled here and there: the custom invitations and table numbers made by my sister, the goodie bags, the bar napkins, the escort/name cards for our guests, the vases, gold birdcages, cute mossy nests made by my mother-in-law & filled with chocolate eggs, and our guest book. I really wanted to incorporate earthy textures like moss and yarn and natural wood grain mixed in with a bit of sparkle and gold. 

Woodsy Owl-themed invitations designed by me and my sister

Custom carved tree monogrammed champagne flutes 

One of the things I was most excited about was our cake that I designed – an ode to the beautiful live oak trees lining Savannah streets, complete with lichen and mushrooms. Coral colored anemones and other little flowers just made it more pretty and feminine, and it was of course topped with some fancy owls – the lady with her blush veil and the gentleman in a signature Hipster Birder fedora. Come on… Can you get any more adorable than this?!?! The former Tier Luxury Cakes did an amazing job bringing my idea to life, and it tasted amazing, too (peach cake with peach buttercream for two layers, and apple spice cake with dulce de leche filling in the other… mmm).

It wasn’t just the decorations and cake that had birdies on them. The supremely talented Audrey of French Knot Studios who crafted our owl toppers’ accessories also created darling fabric bouquets for my bridesmaids with little gray and peachy titmouse-like birds I found, as well as incorporated our favorite birds in my bouquet and Nick’s boutonniere. I surprised Nick by having a Northern Gannett on his boutonniere, which was specially ordered and crafted out of clay, and Audrey surprised me with a lovely Belted Kingfisher taking the spotlight in my bouquet. I almost couldn’t stand how fantastic these came out!

Adorable birdy bridesmaids bouquets - photo by one of my bridesmaids

Why should the ladies get all the colorful fun?

We brought in some grander vintage pieces from Ever Thine Vintage Rentals + Event Design like the weathered, minty-colored doors for our ceremony backdrop, that sweet, Georgia peach-colored sofa and the antique luggage that went ever so well with the railroad station to give it a classy, old-timey feel. Although our wedding colors were navy and coral, I couldn’t’ resist incorporating other accent colors in our colorful palette with the homemade pom-poms and pinwheels, flowers, place settings, and even the homemade peach jam favors that rounded everything out to bring in a splash of fun and whimsy. And speaking of whimsy, we were quite proud of our creative jam labels that we made up: “I Jam What I Jam,” “You’ve Been Jammed,” “Jam It Up,” and “Jamma Lamma Ding Dong.” Instead of everything looking mismatched and out of place, our coordinator (and florist) Ivory and Beau made sure everything came together beautifully with all of our personal touches.

We Hipster Birders had a very fitting wedding to our moniker. Did I forget to mention that we also provided hand car (old-timey rail car) rides for our guests? Yeah, that happened, and it was awesome. All in all, we had a perfect day – great music, fantastic food, and having a blast with our loved ones!

Even our getaway car (a 1949 Bentley - an inside joke of sorts) had wings on it!

All Photos credited to Once Like A Spark Photography unless otherwise noted.

Featured Feathered Friend: Swainson's Warbler

I’m delighted to bring back a “Featured Feathered Friend” segment in which I showcase a story and photos of a great encounter with one particular avian beauty. This FFF is the one and only Swainson’s Warbler. As you may recall from a recent post a single Swainson’s Warbler almost magically appeared in Forsyth Park in Savannah one of the last times we birded in Georgia before heading west. It was a glorious sighting, especially as we knew we’d be parting ways with many awesome warbler species.

One of the only other times we had seen a Swainson’s Warbler was when we saw a flash of our lifer bird in the leaf litter under the azalea bushes. That little magician disappeared for good – never to be found again, no matter how hard we looked, even if it meant ruining a family portrait session in the park.

Luckily, a few weeks after this brief sighting, we found another individual, and it was spectacular! Nick and I had joined our friend, birding expert and THE local “bird lady,” Diana Churchill, in scouting for this target species for a guided tour that we were going to give to a gentleman and his wife in a couple of weeks, specifically seeking the elusive Swainson’s Warbler.

When we hit the buggy, swampy trail at Ogeechee Canal, we were graced with not only a gorgeous Swainson’s Warbler, but he was up in the trees and singing his heart out! He gave us nice, long looks as we semi-silently squealed with delight, high-fived, and fist-pumped at this amazing experience we were having. These birds are notorious for being hard-to-find skulkers, and we found quite a boisterous one acting like he was Elton John in concert.

Upon looking at this bird, most people would wonder what the big fuss is all about. It’s just an LBJ (Little Brown Job), right? Well, as stated on the Swainson’s Warbler’s entry on Cornel Lab’s “All About Birds” page:

One of the most secretive and least observed of all North American birds, the Swainson's Warbler is a skulking bird of the southern canebrakes and rhododendron thickets. If it weren't for its loud, ringing song, the presence of the species in many areas would go completely undetected.

So this was an incredibly successful scout outing! Unfortunately, when we brought the couple to this very spot a couple of weeks later, there was no Swainson’s Warbler. No singing. No tree-hopping. Not even silent skulking. Nada. I felt bad for them, but also felt grateful that we had been able to find this magnificent yet understated bird with the experience that we had.

Scoter Trifecta!

It’s early March and duck season is winding down in the South, but as Maureen shared in her previous post, we’ve had some great looks at members of this group this winter. Several of these happened over our holiday travels, but one of our most exciting duck encounters of the season happened right here in Savannah, which involved seeing all three scoter species all in one place and at the same time.

Forster's Terns regularly grace the bridge leading to Ft. Pulaski

Scoters are sea ducks, and over the past couple of winters, we’ve been able to make out Black Scoters from the beach at Tybee Island. Usually when we spot them offshore, the waters are choppy, the birds are far away, and the females are barely identifiable to species. The males are hard to miss, though, with their jet black plumage, and the bright yellow knob at the base of their bill. Even so, these sightings haven’t been as satisfying as we would have liked, and we’d long hoped for the opportunity to see them under better circumstances.

Black Scoter. During one recent visit there were between 1,000-2,000

This Loggerhead Shrike guards the road in, and keeps the riffraff out

For the past couple of months those circumstances have converged on the Savannah River, along the south end of the Ft. Pulaski National Monument. Reports of White-winged Scoters and Surf Scoters, along with Long-tailed Ducks started turning up in my eBird needs alert emails pretty regularly. When we went to check it out, we were treated to well over 1,000 Black Scoters! There were also a considerable number of Greater and Lesser Scaup, dozens of Redheads, and several other species mixed in in smaller numbers. Included in these were a handful of Surf Scoters and White-winged Scoters, lifting our personal lists to new milestone: Our 300th ABA bird!

White-winged Scoter - you can see just a hint of the white wing patch here

White-winged Scoter and Lesser Scaup

White-winged Scoter and Surf Scoter

The light was fading fast when we came upon this feathered flotilla. We would come several more times in the next weeks, trying to locate a Long-tailed Duck (as many as three had been reported). However, we soon learned that birders weren’t the only ones turning out for the ducks. One day we trekked the half-mile from the parking lot toward the island where the ducks had been congregating, and prematurely started congratulating ourselves on the nice group of Canvasbacks mixed in with Redheads, Buffheads, and Scaup. Unfortunately, we’d been fooled by several long lines of decoys set up by a camouflaged group of hunters who had set themselves up on the island. 

White-winged and Surf Scoters, joined by Redhead and Lesser Scaup

A ragtag gang of sea ducks patrol the waterway

We never did turn up a Long-tailed Duck, but all three scoter species persisted throughout the season, sometimes giving pretty stunning looks. White-winged Scoters, in particular, are a fairly uncommon occurrence down here, and yet we were seeing sometimes as many as a dozen in a single outing. Apparently, they’ve come farther south this year to escape the iced over Great Lakes, and there seems to have been plenty of food for them here, as they’d dive to the bottom of the river and resurface some time later with a bill full of mussels. It’s been great to have the opportunity of studying this odd-looking group of ducks so closely, completing for us the scoter trifecta, and helping put us over a birding milestone.

Ft. Pulaski is also one of the most reliable places for marsh sparrows.
We were happy to see this Nelson's Sparrow pop up