1. What do you think makes for a good “niche” blog? What do you want or need… what makes you come back?
2. What makes a blog feel like “community”? What kinds of things can a blogger do to nurture this feeling?
3. Any readers in Salt Lake City wanna get together for a cocktail or latte or thrifting on Friday night the 21st? Tiki time?

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When we set out to find a ceremony location, we knew we wanted something different, something that may have not been done before. Being Mid-Century fans we wanted something from that era, the only problem is, there’s little to no Mid-Century architecture in this area. After exploring what seemed like dozens of locations only to come up short we found the diamond in the rough, the Wildwood Doo Wop Museum.

The museum started out as a restaurant that was closed up years ago. The city bought the structure and put it in storage until they could find a use for it. When I first called the Museum I was expecting to be instantly shot down with our crazy idea, turns out they were very receptive to the idea. We were the first people to ask for something like this since the museum opened a couple years prior.

Now that we had the ceremony part figured out, we needed to find a reception hall within a reasonable distance. You have no idea how hard this part was, since we were having a pseudo-destination wedding, Wildwood is about an hour and a half from anything else. Once again, after looking at endless locations, some too small, some too dingy, we found the Wildwood Country Club. After hammering out the details of the reception we were all set. Time to start the real planning.

I knew the entire time I wanted to drive our rusty 49 Chevy truck from the ceremony to the reception since it was ours and we both loved it. A limo is just not our style. Pink and black were the colors we chose, Cupcakes would be the take-home favors, and we were using vintage items from around the house as table markers. Keeping with the idea of not using traditional wedding items, we opted for cupcakes instead of a wedding cake, and custom made Lego Minifigs instead of a traditional wedding cake topper.

As a bonus, the manager of the country club let me decorate the entire bar like it was a Tiki bar. We brought down all of our Tiki goods and it looked great, unfortunately, we didn’t get a good picture of it.

Nikkis dress was altered to have a hot pink bottom to match her hot pink hair. The groomsman and I all wore vintage one button Tuxedos with hand tied bow ties, and let me tell you, actually tying a bow tie is not an easy task. We all wore cufflinks, parts of the groomsman’s gifts, but mine were specially made to have Pinup pictures of Nikki inside of them.

In addition to finding two great locations for the ceremony and the reception we also secured the Starlux hotel for all of our guests to stay at. Since we were having the wedding in their “off-season” they were more than happy for the business and offered the wedding guests and awesome rate. The hotel was originally built in the 50s and remodeled a couple years back to really embrace the Mid-Century feel of Wildwood.

It’s really hard to write up that entire weekend into a couple short paragraphs, and I’m sure there are details that I glazed over, but it should give you a pretty good idea of how awesome our wedding weekend was. Next stop…….the 11 day, 1100 mile up the Pacific Coast Highway Honeymoon.

Joe and Nikki, congratulations on your wedding, which, I have to say is one of the darn coolest I’ve ever seen. Thank you, Joe, for the report. We’re looking forward to hearing about the honeymoon — which I know was also a wonderful retro roadtrip.

Link love:

You can keep tabs on Joe and Nikki, they each have a blog:

• New Found Free Time

• Trixie Pinks

and:

The Doo Wop Museum, Wildwood, NJ
Starlux Hotel, Wildwood, NJ

To view the following slide show, click on the first thumbnail to enlarge the image, then proceed using the arrows below each image:

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Hi Pam,

Hello -First, let me thank you for your site. I just closed on a 1960s “time capsule” house and I was so glad to find that there are others who like that kind of thing! The 1960s decor is why my wife and I bought the house, then EVERYONE (relatives, inspectors and electricians) mentioned how the house would be great once it was updated.  We started wondering if keeping the house “as is” was a good idea. Then we found your site and realized WE WEREN’T ALONE! Thanks!!

The house has vintage wallpaper (including a patriotic themed paper with George Washington and such), a turquoise stove, a built in planter (with fake plants that are at least 30 years old… probably older), an unusal tiki-type plastic small mural, a blue and a pink bathroom.

The house was also in fantastic shape (other than a little peeling on the wallpaper seams and some loose edges on the linoleum floor.) Attached are some of the photos I took yesterday (electricians were updating the aluminum wiring and adding outdoor outlets… some things MUST be updated!)

Click on first thumbnail to launch slide show; look for the arrows below each image to move forward or back.

We were searching for a house and in passing my real estate agent mentioned how “crazy” the wallpaper was in a house she had seen earlier that day. As soon as she mentioned the patriotic wallpaper and the turquoise stove we knew that we would buy that house.

We bought the house from an older gentleman who said he had kept everything pretty much the same as when he bought it in 1981. Built in 1964 he said the house had had 6 previous owners and they were mostly short term employees of a nearby company.

I think these two factors kept this house from being updated and looking like every other house in town.

What we like about retro houses is that every room has a different feel. The colors and patterns just bring a house to life.

The house is located in Central NJ.

I look forward to reading anything you post! And thanks again for all your hard work on retrorenovation.com.

Thank you, Guy, and Rosanna, for saving some of these wonderful features. Sounds like your house found the right owners and that you two are all set to have fun.

see my links in the sidebar ----->>>>>

On a serious note: Your vintage floor tiles may not be “linoleum” — I’m guessing they are some form of vinyl — and old vinyl flooring can contain asbestos. Be sure to consult with a pro so you know what you are dealing with and can make informed decisions about how to handle it. And while I’m in Precautionary Pam mode, this is a good time to remind all owners of vintage homes to study up on things like asbestos, lead paint, electrical wiring, even safety glass in windows and shower doors, etc. There are some links on my sidebar — from the EPA and like — to get you started with some online research. That said: Connect with some professionals who can help keep you on the right track.

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