I can’t believe it’s been 6 months already since our wedding. I’m so excited to share all of these details with you. The question I was asked the most was “is this easy for you?”. I am a full time meeting planner, I went to school for event planning and I would consider myself a very organized person. But I think it was “easy” for me because I told myself that I would enjoy this process and Jon would as well. Of course I was so excited to find my dress and our venue but I was most excited to be husband and wife. The chairs don’t matter, no one remembers your florals and I’m sorry, favors are a waste of money (sorry I said it).

So if you’re a bride to be or even if you’re not, try to remember what is important here. This is a once in a lifetime experience, so do your best to enjoy every minute of it. I hope you find this helpful, please message me on IG if you have specific questions or want more details.

Enjoy xx

Overview

Date: May 7, 2022

Venue: Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit (we had our ceremony in one room and the reception in another, all on one floor) If this is an option for you, do it. Not having a bus or having to coordinate rides and bags and transportation was amazing. 10/10. Plus when all of our guests were done partying, they walked right up to their rooms 🙂

Bridal Party: we had 9 bridesmaids, 11 groomsmen, 2 ushers and 2 flower girls……. 🙂

Color/Theme: Black. Jon was in all black, our groomsmen were in black suits with white shirts and the bridesmaids were in black dresses of their choice.

Timeline

Here is a general timeline of our wedding events/festivities – the thing about weddings nowadays is you can really do anything at anytime you want, because it’s your day 🙂

September 2020 – Mr. Jon proposed ❤

October 2020 – We determined our budget /chose our date/booked our venue

• we chose not to do engagement photos as Jon hired a photographer for the proposal so we had photos in the moment which I loved. We ended up hiring her for our wedding and since the package did come with an engagement shoot, I asked her if she could just come to my bridal shower and snap photos there instead.

June 2021 – Save the dates sent out. I’m such a minimalist and I looked all over the internet for a simple design for our stationary. I wanted everything to be the same vibe and I couldn’t find anything I liked so I just created my own. I’ll go into all of our stationary later 🙂

November 2021 – We had our bridal shower. Our wedding was in May, but we live in Chicago and had our wedding and all of our events back in Michigan, so this time frame made sense for us. I also liked the idea of spreading the fun out and not cramming everything within three months.

February/March 2022 – Invites sent out

April 2022 – Bachelorette & Bachelor Trips !!!

May 5, 2022 (the Thursday before our Saturday wedding) – Rehearsal Dinner. Some people hate Thursday rehearsals but we know ourselves and our friends and I drank way too much due to excitement and was very hungover the next day so I’m glad I had a day in between to recover…

May 7, 2022 – ❤

Vendors

Venue + vendors are such a huge part of wedding planning. The easiest way to tackle this is by compiling the big buckets in an excel document where you can keep track of everything. My big buckets were:

• Venue – Westin Book Cadillac
• Photographer – Erika Christine Photography https://erikachristinephoto.com/ @erikachristinephoto
• Videographer – Vansen Media @nickvansen
• Wedding Coordinator – Jen House Design @jenhousedesign https://www.jenhousedesign.biz/ – This is a floral company but I stumbled upon their coordinating service and ended up using them for that. My coordinator Olivia was awesome! If you don’t want a full wedding planner, I HIGHLY recommend a day of coordinator. They handle all of your vendor communication the week of, set up the day of the wedding and really remove the stress that naturally comes with your wedding day.
• Hair & Makeup – Makeup was @makeupbycaroline & hair was @thebeautygals
• DJ – Mike Staff Productions
• Photo booth – @Modernsocialdetroit – My experience with Kara and this company exceeded my expectations, if you’re in the Metro Detroit area, you need this photo booth for your events! I added this probably a week before my wedding, I initially didn’t want to do it and once I got closer, I felt like I needed a little something extra for our cocktail hour and it was one of the best decisions – everyone loved it 🙂

The spreadsheet comes in handy because for a lot of vendors you’ll have to reach out to multiple companies, especially if your date is very popular. This document also helped me keep track of deposits, payments, etc.

TIPPING: Do your research and tip your vendors. You should be tipping your photographers, videographers, bar tenders, waitstaff, hair and makeup vendors and anyone else who provided a service and helped make your stay a success.

Here is my template for planning:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U9XZ0JsNWQjW72noy6Af483OefONOit5TnP8Sp_zRGs/edit?usp=sharing

Stationary

I’m going to say something that will probably piss some of you off. Stationary is SO expensive and it ends up in the garbage… so I knew from the get go, I was going to save where I could when it came to our stationary. When I couldn’t find any templates that fit the vibe we wanted, I found someone on etsy to create a logo for Jon & I and I used that throughout our wedding decor / stationary.

Tatiana Soash is who created our logo, it was only $25 and I could use it as many times/on whatever I wanted https://tatianasoash.com/

Save Our Date

Formal Invitation

Things I’m Glad I Did

1. Letting my bridesmaids pick their own dresses. I had nine bridesmaids and the chances that nine different women would feel comfortable in one dress is extremely rare. As long as it was black and to the floor I didn’t care if they spent $50 or $500 on their dress, it was up to them. Yes, they did run them by me and I helped to make sure not everyone had strapless/one shoulder, etc. They looked beautiful and the amount of time and money they spent to celebrate with us meant the world to me so this was honestly something so small that I think they really appreciated.

2. Not spending a boat load of money on my florals. I honestly didn’t really care that much about my florals. I knew I wanted pampas grass but I really didn’t care about my bouquet or anything else. My goal was to spend $2k, I spent a little more than that but didn’t go over by much.

3. Not caring about the amount of people in our bridal party. We had a big bridal party and the bridesmaids and groomsmen were uneven and we didn’t care. I had two groomsmen with one bridesmaid where it was necessary and it was fine. Please don’t ask someone to be in your wedding just to even out numbers. That’s just mean lol.

4. Extending our reception until midnight. I was going back and forth on this, but in the end, I’m so glad we did this. We had our ceremony from 5-5:30pm, cocktail hour from 5:30-6:30pm then the reception from 6:30-12am. But by the time you’re done with dinner, toasts, dances, etc. you usually only have a couple of hours to dance and we knew we wanted to maximize that time and it was one of the best decisions we made 🙂

5. Receiving Line – We welcomed each of our guests along with our parents as people entered the reception room. It was a great way to hug and kiss every single person that was there without having to go to each table. I loved this and it really allowed us to enjoy our reception afterwards.

6. Champagne Toast vs. Cake Cutting and donuts for dessert – The Champagne toast was so awesome, it was just very us and donuts for dessert because no one really likes wedding cake. Also shoutout to my amazing FIL who hand made the donut wall – ily Ricky! 🙂

7. Writing our own vows – This was something we always knew we wanted to do, it made the ceremony very personable and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room and I loved every minute of it 🙂

8. Letters to the table – About a week before the wedding, once our seating chart was done, we typed out letters to each table. Each letter started off with the same welcome/thank you note and then we went into each couple and wrote about 2-3 sentences either about a memory or something special to that couple. It was a way for us to personally thank each person for being there and it really did not take that long. I think people forget the time/money that guests give to attend your day so a small thank you goes a long way. 10/10 would recommend.

9. Groom outfit change – Jon changed into a different dress shirt after the dances and I love that about him.

Things I Would Do Differently

1. I wish I would’ve given someone my phone all day to record little videos/photos throughout the day. The next morning I didn’t have anything to look at. Something small but I would’ve liked to have more to remember the day 🙂
2. I was in such a rush to get the show on the road, I didn’t make sure I got the shots I wanted as far as photography. I wanted to go to a rooftop and shoot photos there but it really slipped my mind in the moment. I still love my photos but I wish I didn’t feel so rushed. (no one was rushing me, it was me rushing me lol).
3. Shoes – I wish I would’ve chosen a more realistic heel, my heels were probably 4 inches high and I couldn’t wear them into the night. I wish I would’ve had a shorter heel so I didn’t change into flats right away.
4. Bustling my dress – I thought that because my dress was so simple, I wouldn’t need it bustled but I ended up having to carry it around all night which was a little annoying.

I hope this was helpful! My last little piece of advice is embrace every single moment. Jon & I will never forget this day and everyone who helped make it so special. We are truly so blessed.

B