August 27, 2021 / Menasha, Wisconsin

Tell us a little more about the two of you!: I met Jonathan December of 2015. After our second date I told my dad "I'm gonna marry that boy someday, if he asks me!" For me, it was very much love at first sight. Handsome, tall, funny, bearded, partial ginger, what more could a girl want! It took about 4 months for John to catch up. Even though I’m so short, I really grew on him!

We bonded over a shared love of travel, nerdy passions like Pokémon & Harry Potter, and being able to bring out each other's inner child. Whether John is starting a snowball fight or I’m hiding under the futon to scare him, we have the most fun when we’re together.

We have had our fair share of turbulent times, supporting each other through surgery, illness, and death in our immediate families. It has only proven to strengthen the bond we share.

Four years into our relationship, after buying our first home and adopting a pack of furbabies (two dogs and two cats), we finally got engaged! John had planned to propose in the Netherlands on a trip that ended up being cancelled due to the pandemic. Instead, he got together our family and friends in a local park and caught me completely off guard! I was shocked when he got down on one knee!

What was your vision for your wedding?: Price was the biggest factor during our planning process. We paid for our wedding almost entirely on our own. My father offered to pay for dinner which was so generous of him. I wanted to get married as soon as possible, and John wanted to have a big party! We sacrificed “aesthetics” with our venue in order to get an early date and big hall within our budget. We wanted our wedding to be a fun, big party! No specific themes or vibes.

Our venue, Waverly Beach, is a bar & grille that is located in Menasha, just a few minutes from our home, and they provided food and drink, so we did not have to find a caterer.

John grew up in Appleton, WI and had worked at Manderfield’s Bakery, so he knew he wanted our wedding cake to come from them. They were awesome for both our cake and cupcakes!

I discovered Almond & Ivy at a farmers market in Green Bay WI, my home town. I first fell in love with macarons during a trip abroad in France, and my family ancestors are from France, so I wanted to incorporate my love for this French treat into our big day!

We attended a wedding of close friends and absolutely loved their entertainment. Tim Dorsey is a "hybrid DJ" that performs live covers of songs as well as plays songs as a typical DJ does. His voice is so smooth you can't even tell he is singing. So talented and reasonably priced for his amazing services.

We were incredibly fortunate to snag our amazing photographer during a sale she was running, and she was kind enough to negotiate with us and create a specialized package that fit into our price range. I cannot believe the incredible deal we got for her work, she was amazing, kind, and so creative and had a quick turn around.

I didn't have a videographer in our budget when I first started planning, but I am so glad we decided at the last minute to hire someone. I put out a listing on the WI Brides Facebook group for a videographer in our price range and I was lucky enough to meet Kate. She is a military wife that originally lived in WI, relocated, then her husband was being stationed in WI, so they planned to be back in the state close to our wedding date.

It was total kismet that they moved in time for us to finalize a contract! Our wedding was the first one she had shot video for. She is a professional photographer that is working on branching into videography.

I hired my cosmetology teacher to do the hair for our wedding day and she referred me to a colleague for makeup services. They were both phenomenal.

Tell us all about your wedding dress!: I was ruthless in my search for a dress. I went to 12 different shops and had some amazing experiences and some not so amazing... I did have a very specific vision, and I actually stuck to it and found a dress even better than I imagined.

As a bride on a budget, Strike's sample sale was an incredible opportunity for me to find THE ONE and still feel good about my purchase price. I saw my dress on Strike's Instagram page and sent a message to see if I could come in and try on THAT dress and that dress only. Some shops can be really pushy when it comes to putting you in dresses that aren't your style, or are over your budget hoping you will fall in love and cough up the extra cash, and that is not Strike's style whatsoever.

I really appreciated Strike's attitude toward letting the bride dictate what they wanted from the experience. I came in to try on ONE dress and they had absolutely no issue with that, they didn't try to put me into another dress or sway my opinion. Not only that, Alexis still made me feel as important as a bride that came in and tried on 20 dresses. She was kind and understanding and gave really great advice. At the end of that appointment, I left without buying my dress, only because I needed to discuss with my fiance and show my bridesmaids. Since I was dress shopping during the pandemic, my bridal party wasn't able to come with me to most appointments due to their personal choice, which is OKAY!

I ended up with Verti by Luna Novias! Buying my dress off the rack gave me the opportunity to fall in love with it every time I opened my closet up.

When I walked into Strike for the first time, everyone was so kind and welcoming, and the shop SMELLED AMAZING!

I also went back for an accessory appointment which was so fun. I won the March Madness bridal edition, so I got a credit and was able to purchase my bridal hairpiece the weekend before our 5 year dating anniversary, and was also able to wear it on our legal wedding day and our public wedding day.

You planned and you planned, but how did the day ACTUALLY go?!: Our day was amazing! I hope everyone's wedding day is amazing. That being said, we had HORRIBLE weather! Rain is supposed to be lucky, and I hope that is true! It rained on my bridal shower, bachelorette party, and on our wedding day, almost the entire day long! We had planned to have a beautiful lakeside wedding and ended up bringing the ceremony indoors because of the weather.

The party bus we had hired to pick up all the groomsmen, my husband, our fathers, our ring bearers, and ushers, didn't show up!!! (25 passenger bus). 15 mins before our ceremony was supposed to start I got a call from my husband saying the party bus still wasn't there. Thankfully, we lived only 5 mins from the venue, but I had made it a point that the men all leave their vehicles at the venue so they wouldn't be stranded at the end of the night if their cars were at our house. If it wasn't for some of the girlfriends that had vehicles at our house getting ready with the guys, they wouldn't have made it on time to our ceremony! The girls had to take trips picking up the men and dropping them off at the venue, but luckily everyone arrived on time. (We got a full refund, the party bus service owner took full responsibility for the issue and was very professional.) They finally showed up 2 hours late into the 3 hour time commitment, which was just long enough for us to get to a park for wedding portraits and back to the venue.

We got lucky and had a break in the storm for about an hour right after the ceremony so we were able to get some family photos by the lakeshore and go to a park for some wedding party portraits. I brought champagne from France that I had been saving for 4 years with us to pop in celebration, which was really special and fun.

My maid of honor gave me a book of handwritten letters from my bridal party and family. It was so sweet and made me cry so hard.

My favorite part of the day was at the end of the night, my husband and I were slow dancing, and he just looked at me and said thank you for making this night so amazing for us. Every time someone came up to us to compliment how fun our day was, or how beautiful something was he pointed at me and said "she made it all happen"! It meant so much to have that recognition because wedding planning is such a serious and time consuming thing! When it pays off it makes you feel great. I would say our wedding day was pretty traditional and just one big party!

Special details: We reserved a chair, front row, in my husband's only sister's memory. My husband is the eldest of 4 children, and his only sister lost her struggle with depression and committed suicide in 2018. Before she left this earth, she blessed our family with it's first grandchild, a little boy who is the brightest light in our lives. He is so special to us all and of course he was our ring bearer and a huge part of our day. We had lots of memorial photos dedicated to his sister and her favorite flowers, sunflowers, in memory of her. The tragedy of her early passing is something we will never truly heal from but I know she is watching over us all as a family.

Lastly, what is your best advice for future brides-to-be?: This advice may not be for some brides, but my husband and I actually got legally married before our wedding day in secret, due to religious reasons. It worked out perfectly that we were married on our 5 year anniversary of dating (4 months before our wedding). We have 3 family birthdays that SAME week, so we never intend on celebrating our "legal anniversary" again and will only celebrate our anniversary on the day we were publicly married!

We had a super short ceremony, surrounded by family, and I wore my mother-in-law's wedding dress because it was last minute and I wanted to save my dress for our big day. I know that meant a lot to her since her only daughter passed away before she could be married. It was a sweet little note of nostalgia to add to our day. My husband and I stopped off at a park near his house and recreated his mom and dad's wedding photos, which was so fun! Then we got pizza and just had a little celebration for birthdays and our legal wedding.

It honestly took a lot of stress off our wedding day because it felt like we had already started our married life together on a great foot, so it didn't matter as much to me about having the "perfect day." In hindsight, I am so glad we did this because our day did not go as planned and I was able to go with the flow and be carefree. It didn't take any emotion away from our day, or diminish how special it was, but that might be because we kept it a secret.

My planning process advice would be to do just a little bit of planning at a time! Watch some videos on YouTube of wedding planners (Jamie Wolfer has amazing free content that can help out any bride to be!) Ask advice from friends, and try to make it enjoyable!

Vendors
Dress: Verti by Luna Novias via Strike Bridal Bar
Photography: Cassandra Noel Photo
Second Shooter: Carlin Christine Creative
Videographer: Kate Wilde Photos
Venue: Waverly Beach
Makeup Artist: Knockout Beauty by Kristi
Hair Stylist: HD Designs Society
Entertainment DJ: Tim Dorsey
Cake and Cupcakes: Manderfield's Bakery
Macarons: Almond & Ivy