Oops, it’s been a while – but I want to finish this series so I can remember all the details that made me so happy! Here they are.
I loved and want to remember that our florals were quite simple – we bought a great bundle of boutonnieres, corsages, and bouquets from Costco, and then my mom helped arrange them and add hydrangea to the mix. One snafu was that it was supposed to be blue hydrangea, but they are so finicky and we ended up with hydrangea that were kind of pale green with a hint of blue. I’m sure if I had been picky and spent thousands of dollars on a florist, this could have been avoided, but I was fine with it! The green looked pretty as well. And I had said over and over ahead of time that florals really didn’t matter to me. If the Costco delivery had somehow failed, I was planning to stop at the grocery store on the way to the wedding and just pick out whichever bouquet looked the prettiest to me at the time… which I genuinely would have been fine with.
Our table numbers were awesome!! Following a trend I had seen on Instagram, Mike and I asked our moms to find childhood photos of us from each year from when we were babies to when we were 12, and they came back with some fabulous shots. I made table number signs that had pictures of us at the age of the table number, and not only were those fun to make, but guests told us they really liked going around to all the tables to check out the pics.
And finally, my dress. In college, I was friends with a girl named Hayley (Paige) Gutman, who was studying fashion design. We didn’t stay in touch after graduation, but I knew from social media that she had gone on to achieve huge things… and was now one of the world’s most sought after wedding gown designers! In 2020, after years of success designing for JLD Designs, Hayley tried to start her own independent line, and a huge legal battle ensued where she was told she couldn’t use her own name, Hayley Paige, because it now belonged to the big corporation. Being the badass that she is, Hayley stood up for herself and fought back – ultimately testifying before the Supreme Court and getting new copyright laws passed that won’t allow anyone else’s name to get stolen the way hers was. All of this finally got resolved about a year before my wedding, but with the hiatus, she hadn’t been allowed to design dresses for several years. While Hayley and I aren’t in touch anymore, I knew it would make me feel really special to wear one of her gowns on my wedding day, and so I spent months scouring the internet to figure out which of her older designs I liked best and where I might be able to find it. (If you’re a soon-to-be bride… she has gorgeous new designs out now!)
I did go on a few bridal shopping expeditions with my mom, mother-in-law, and girlfriends, and I quickly figured out that I wanted a big ballgown, but I still had my heart set on a Hayley Paige. I knew it was super risky to buy a gown online without trying it on first, but I was still ready to take that leap in order to wear one of Hayley’s designs. But as luck would have it, while on a work trip to Seattle, I stopped in at a secondhand bridal shop, and literally as soon as I walked in the door, I saw a distinctive striped-print sticking out from the gowns on the rack. I immediately recognized it as “The Decklyn”, one of Hayley’s most iconic gowns, which was featured on Say Yes to the Dress, and was excited to see it was in my size. When I put Decklyn on, not only did I love it, but it fit me absolutely perfectly and required zero alterations other than a bustle. Those of you who’ve been married know that often gown alterations can be extensive and often cost nearly as much as the gown itself, so I thought it was such a perfect sign that this dress was meant to be! I happily bought it on the spot, trekked it home to Denver on the plane with me, and was so excited to not just look like a princess on my wedding day but also have a little fun with the modern stripes. It also made me feel like I had a little piece of Cornell and my college friends with me on my wedding day, and I loved that little magical detail!!
While I’m talking about things I wore… that necklace you see in photos also served as my “something blue”, and it was a gorgeous teardrop shaped piece that Mike had actually made for me at a jewelry making class we took at Sundance Resort! He made the necklace, and I made a bracelet, and both of them were the only jewelry I wore on my wedding day. (I said for years that I would pierce my ears in time for my wedding, but… I’ve gone 40 years without having to deal with earrings, and I decided I didn’t feel like starting now.) My “something old” was my dress, my “something new” was my shoes (these inexpensive block heels with ribbons and pearls for the ceremony, and some glittery Kate Spade x Keds sneakers for the reception), and my maid of honor Rachel lent me a lacy garter that was my something borrowed. Sorry, no pics of that!
A tiny detail I didn’t plan was when I got back to my table at dinner to find a surprise waiting at my table. My bridesmaid Allie is obsessed with Legos, and she made a little Lego version of Mike and I in a wedding chapel getting married. The second I saw it, I knew who it was from, and I was absolutely delighted!
As far as things I would have changed about the day, one of my few regrets was how stressful the “getting ready” portion of the day felt. I had pictured a calm, leisurely morning with my bridesmaids, but in reality, we were running late for our first look and bridal party photos. Our coordinator wasn’t around to keep things moving, and before I knew it, guests were arriving while we were still posing for pictures. At the time, I remember feeling flustered and awkward that people could see us before the ceremony. But in hindsight, the photos still turned out beautifully, and it’s actually kind of sweet that our guests got to witness a little slice of the fun and laughter before the official “I dos.”
In all, the wedding planning was so much more work than I ever expected, and I’m not going to pretend there wasn’t a lot of stress in the process. I definitely felt the pressure that society puts on brides to make it all perfect (um, shouldn’t some of this be the groom’s responsibility too?) while also being sure not to care too much lest you be a bridezilla. I wanted nothing more than to be a cool carefree bride, but that felt totally at odds with all the little details that needed to be thought about and worked out.
Not to mention, weddings are insanely expensive – much more so than I ever imagined! I remember when Mike and I first got engaged, we talked through the logistics of a DIY backyard wedding, and thought we could realistically do so for about $20K… to which I now can only laugh at our naivete. In the end, it cost about $35K for 100 people, and I was trying really hard to minimize costs while maximizing our guests’ experience. I still feel kind of guilty at how much we spent on that one week, and what else that money could have gone toward, but I also know we were really fortunate to be able to pay for it ourselves without having to take on any debt. And, most importantly, it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to have all our closest friends and family together in one place, which I know otherwise won’t happen again until our funerals when we won’t be able to enjoy them. (Oof, morbid, but true!)
But speaking of having our favorite people in one room… one more detail that I was absolutely thrilled about was that Mike and I made sure that we got to meet each person at the wedding ahead of time. We got engaged so quickly, and married just a year later, so it was unrealistic to set a rule of “we won’t invite anyone that we don’t both know” (which is what I would have liked). But Mike and I agreed we would make every effort to schedule a dinner date with invitees we hadn’t both met… or at a bare minimum, plan a COVID-style Facetime date to get to know each other before the wedding. Maybe that sounds aggressive, but we succeeded! And it made me so happy and confident to walk down the aisle and look out at the crowd and know every single person there! There were some people that either Mike or I had only met via Facetime, and it made the festivities extra special to look forward to meeting them. I loved getting to hug my brother Lars’ girlfriend for the first time after following each other on Instagram for a while, and I jumped up and down with excitement to meet Mike’s cousins Patrick and Jackie after having a great Facetime meetup.
In the end, our wedding wasn’t just a single day or even the four days of events I planned; it really represented the celebration of love, family, friendship, and the new life Mike and I are building together. I tried to pick every detail, from the silly “secret missions” to my striped ballgown, not just to make things beautiful, but to make them meaningful. While our wedding was ostensibly to celebrate and formally commit ourselves to each other (yay!), it was ultimately our opportunity to blend together our loved ones and become one united set of family and friends. I love feeling like Mike’s family and friends are mine too, so I think we more than succeeded.
I am so grateful we got to create these memories, and even more excited for the lifetime of adventures still to come!
