Our Wedding

When Andy and I began making plans for the wedding we set a budget and vowed to stick to it; a one-day event, regardless of the event, was not going to push us to break the bank or go into debt.  We certainly didn't want to start our marriage off by accruing wedding debt so we decided to do it as simply as possible while still making it fun and enjoyable for our guests.  We actually considered eloping and really wished we had done so when it came down to "crunch time" right before the wedding but in the end we had so much fun with friends and family - very happy we went through with the whole wedding day event!

Both of us are outside people; most of our dating took place outside whether it was running, hiking, boating, snorkeling, 4-wheeling, or just going for simple walks.  We both knew we wanted an outdoors wedding; unable to find an "on the water" location that we both liked and that was convenient, we settled on a beautiful backyard garden.

We had initially planned to do EVERYTHING ourselves but ended up cracking and hiring a wedding consultant (Leann Ulmer) who was just fabulous.  She first chastised us for being so far behind while planning an almost last minute wedding and then quickly got us on track.  She helped us order flowers without being too costly and also arranged all of our bouquets as well as Andy's little lapel flower thing.  She is able to completely plan all of the details and arrangements for weddings but we, wanting to do a lot of it ourselves, only had her help with the checklists and day of the event.

Friends of mine that I had worked with several times in the past, Brad Miller and his wife Kimi, did the wedding photography and although I haven't seen the pictures yet, I already know how absolutely breathtaking they will be as Brad has been a professional photographer for decades and it runs in his family.  Brad took the background photo on my blog page.  His work is truly amazing and he will always receive my highest recommendation for whatever types of photos it is that you are looking for!!  www.bradmiller.com

Ceremony music - we hired a string quartet through a woman in our church, Amy Curell, and ohhhh my gosh the music was SO beautiful!!  Perfect for our garden wedding!! 

Reception music?  Okay, we initially wanted to just hook a laptop up to a sound system and run everyone's iPods, allowing our guests to choose whatever they wanted to hear.  We instead ended up hiring DJ Jon with Elite Music Events (www.elitemusicevents.com).  He also set up the sound equipment for our outdoor ceremony but it ended up being that the ceremony was so small that sound equipment really wasn't necessary but we had it there just in case; experienced small issue with some feedback from the microphone but overall it was okay.  At the reception, the DJ skipped one of our bridesmaids and groomsmen couples and instead introduced our Maid of Honour and Best Man twice.  Otherwise, the reception was very well done and DJ Jon was such a pleasure to work with.

Andy cooked & pulled all of the meats for the wedding and I baked all of the macaroni and cheese (8 large pans!).  Andy's mother, Becki, and his sister Emily also helped with a lot of the cooking.  We had several friends who brought side dishes, as well.

Every wet reception needs a bartender and a friend of ours, Valerie Ortigas, stepped up and served the alcohol for us.

Chef Pascale Deighan (www.purefoodforyou.com), Michael Permar, and Andrea Bates, friends of ours/Andy's family, helped out SO MUCH in the kitchen.  We will be forever grateful for that!!!

Kelly Conway did the makeup for the bridesmaids and Jose Flores did the hair for the bridesmaids - they both did such a great job!


Our bridesmaids and groomsmen as well as parents, brothers, and sisters were SO helpful in the preparations and clean-up for the wedding.  All went smoothly.  We did it.  We got married...yaaa!!!