An Uncomplicated Life Blog: Our Wedding Day Story

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Our Wedding Day Story

A look back at our wedding day on our 4th anniversary


I was absolutely one of "those girls" who had her wedding planned before she had even met her future husband. Guilty as charged on that one. In fact, I had not one but two weddings planned because I couldn't decide which one I liked better. I remember being at work and gmail chatting with my friends about weddings when I was in my mid-twenties. We'd send each other Style Me Pretty links with dresses, floral arrangements, laugh at hideous bridesmaid dresses and ohhh and ahhhh at ten layer cakes. When my time finally did come around for my wedding, I looked at my husband on the night he proposed to me and said, "Ok, I have our wedding all planned! Do you want a black tie winter wedding or a garden party summer wedding?" He said winter, and the very next day I was on the phone with the venue I had picked out for my winter wedding, getting our date locked in.

We had one of our friends officiate, and did the Scottish "tying of the hands ceremony" with my husband's family tartan

It's a good thing I was so prepared, because I called a year early and there was still only ONE date left at the Saint Paul Hotel for a January or February wedding! I scooped it up and had a contract signed with them within my first week of being engaged. Getting the date locked in was my immediate task - as a former event planner I was well aware how quickly the best venues get booked. After that though, I was pretty relaxed about everything but my dress and slowly and calmly planned the rest of my details over the year of our engagement. The wedding colors were black, white and gold which made planning really quite easy!

Grand staircase at The Saint Paul Hotel

Ahhhh, the dress! That's a story. We got engaged and then moved to Dallas two weeks later. Needless to say, I had no idea where to shop, nor did I have anyone to go shopping with (yet). My sister flew into town to take our engagement photos and I knew this would have to be the weekend I got my dress. A friend recommended we go to Neiman Marcus and since I had zero other ideas, we went there first. The sales gal was delightful and so was there selection of dresses! Unfortunately, so were the prices. Hubs and I agreed I could spend $5,000 on the dress. So of course, the dress I fell in love with was more. I called and asked if I could up the budget, and he obliged me. Sister and I headed up to the cafe in Neiman's to celebrate my new found poverty. And then...

I was a full five months pregnant - could you tell?!

Fast forward six months. I find out I'm pregnant. One of the first calls I made was to Neiman's to discuss my dress! I kid you not, I think I called Neiman's before I even called a midwife or OB. She walked me through the process of what would happen next: My custom gown couldn't be "returned" but it could likely be altered. So we would wait until two weeks before the wedding and start alterations then. They ended up having to rip out the whole top of the dress and re-make it. I needed an extra inch and a half of bead work for the waist, and it just so happened that another gal had ordered the dress but didn't want the bead work on hers, so I got it. I mean, talk about luck! In the end, my over the budget dress cost us another $2k for alterations to fit my 19 week baby bump.

Black, white and gold color scheme. My flowers had gold glitter twigs in them - some of my favorite details my florist included

I asked the sales gal, "What if I had a completely beaded gown that couldn't have been altered?" To which she told me, "You'd have to put the dress on consignment and start from scratch." Meaning, you'd have been out of luck and out of about $10,000. I damn near fainted at that possibility!

Our cake had fresh flowers and was covered in sugar crystals. It was vanilla with raspberry and creme filling.

Back to our wedding - the dress turned out to be the most dramatic thing that happened. The Saint Paul Hotel is one of two 5 star hotels in the Twin Cities and did a wonderful job catering our steak and seafood duet. They also did our cake which people still talk about how good it was (the secret? Not too sweet!) and when we cut it, it was the gender reveal for Henry. Our photographer did a great job and was fun to have around. My DJ was on point and everyone was dancing. Besides the surprise pregnancy and near dress failure, all the other details fell into place perfectly.

Why not have a gender reveal when you surprisingly get pregnant a few months before your wedding?

I literally got the wedding of my dreams to the man of my dreams. There isn't ONE thing I'd do differently. Well ok, maybe one. I spray tanned before the wedding and now looking at photos I think about how orange I look, but that was the "look" back then. Other than that, I love how classic everything was and how even in another 15 years, I won't think how "dated" things look. That was my goal: A classic, timeless wedding. Four years to the day later, I still love looking back at photos and thinking about how fun that day was. Happy Anniversary dear husband!

22 comments:

  1. I love the gender reveal and wish I had done that. I too was 20 weeks pregnant at my wedding. You looked gorgeous.

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  2. I never should have read this because now I'm in love with the Saint Paul Hotel and my boyfriend is not going to like that... haha

    Also, love the idea of the gender reveal - never would have even thought you were pregnant based off the pictures!

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  3. Your wedding was so beautiful! Hope you had a wonderful anniversary!

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  4. Oh my goodness that is a great way to celebrate not only one but two happy moments in 1 day. BTW I couldn't tell you were pregnant. Were you comfortable in your dress?

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  5. Looks like such a fun time and that’s what weddings are all about. Love your dress (literally cannot believe you’re five months!!!), the colors, the tables. It’s gorgeous Paige. I really really loved planning our wedding and basically had everything booked a week after our engagement and then I just had to sit around and wait. I definitely want to do renewals down the road so I can plan another fun wedding of sorts! :)

    Happy Friday!

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  6. I love your dress! It's beautiful! The gender reveal was such a cut idea!!

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  7. Happy anniversary!! What a beautiful wedding! You looked gorgeous and I would never have been able to tell you were pregnant!

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  8. OMG...I love that you did a gender reveal with your wedding cake and since it was 5 years ago gender reveals totally weren't as trendy as they are now, so I bet everyone loved it too! You look beautiful in your dress by the way, I was also pregnant at my wedding but I was 8 months along and looked like a beached whale in mine. Anyways, congrats to you both and happy anniversary!

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  9. Your decor was stunning! I love a great wedding story! And oh my gosh I can so relate with having two weddings planned before even meeting the perfect guy!

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  10. How beautiful! What lovely photos! Happy anniversary!

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  11. Congratulations, it was such a beautiful wedding, full of details and super elegant!!

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