Hello lovers! Happy Fall! I know, my mind is supposed to be all things apple cider, pumpkin cookies, sweaters and colorful leaves but I’m feeling very nostalgic for my family. Not sure if it’s Sophie’s birthday coming up or our drawn out anniversary celebration but I am beyond thankful for the family that I get to spend my life with. I’ve been thinking about our beautiful wedding day where we were surrounded by all of our favorite people. Weddings are strange, there’s this feeling of stress for the bride to make sure everything is perfect, perhaps a bit of a grudge for the guests coming to spend their time and money and a touch of forced happiness for the big event that is supposed to be the happiest day of your life. I’ve felt all of these emotions regarding my wedding day and others weddings I’ve attended, but in the end, weddings rock and are a beautiful tradition that I’m grateful to experience.
The day of my wedding started out strange. I was alone in our wedding suite for the morning while my friends and family went to get ready with their families. I was receiving phone calls of Uncles being rushed to the hospital, cousins missing flights and flowers being locked in the refrigerators. Wondering if all of my decorations were being laid out correctly, welcome bags being put in the correct rooms and whether my cake had arrived yet. This huge event that we had planned, prepped and paid big bucks for had finally come and I was alone in a hotel room worrying about it ALL.
As the day went on, my bridesmaids and Mom got to the hotel room and started getting me primped for our photo shoot. Now I could relax and have fun! All my worries went away and I was beyond excited! My sister did my hair and I did my makeup so we weren’t worrying about dealing with any extra hands. We were extremely lucky to have teamed up with a great photographer and had a ton of great shots from our friends and family throughout the day.
We wanted to do the ‘first look’ moment out on The Circle so that every time we visit we’ll remember the butterflies of anticipation. I’m a true Hoosier and love Indy so I’m so glad we got to spend our special day there.
We got the normal ‘sweet family’ photos as well as the ‘ok, now be crazy’ photos before the 3,000 bikers swarmed our photo sesh!
There was a motorcycle rally on the circle that made our day really fun! We felt like celebrities as bikers were honking, taking our photos, asking for us to pose with their bikes and giving us money! It was awesome.
Jessika did an amazing job of letting us do what we wanted and captured the exact feelings that we were having. She’d promp us on where to stand but let us do what we wanted for our photos, which I loved.
A lot of people have asked me about this photo from my About Me page. We were hungry and were missing out on the cocktail hour because of the shoot. Jeffrey works at the corporate headquarters for JJ and we’re big fans so we got JJ for our wedding party.
The foyer of the reception had a baby grand piano that I had made a little vignette with wedding albums and framed wedding photos from our families. It was very special for our grandparents and family members to see their wedding photos.
We bought our flowers in bulk through a local florist and divided them into all the vases I’d collected. The hotel let us store the flowers in the refrigerator for safe keeping (this might not happen at all hotels, I used to work at the Hilton where we got married.) The table centerpieces were made up of stacked white books to represent Jeffrey’s love of reading. We had Babies Breath as well as yellow and white Daisies in honor of my parent’s wedding flowers. My sister painted signs for our ceremony and reception to help guests not crash the wrong wedding. My cousin wrote the ‘photos’ poster last minute for our photo booth because I’d forgotten to write one! My family took all the vases and books and arranged them on all the tables for me while I was at the photo shoot. I had all the vases and books numbered and a photo of each arrangement as a guide. I didn’t care if they looked exactly like that but thought it would make it easier for them in the short amount of time they had to decorate. 
I wrote out all the name cards in different fonts and printed them on card stock to match our color theme. I’d also printed the drinks banner and table numbers from a Martha Stewart template I’d found. I ordered a few props from Etsy for the photo booth which seemed to be a big hit according to the insane amount of photos we got from the booth!
Our ceremony was literally 5 minutes long; honest, meaningful and to the point!
After the ceremony we had cocktail hour for our guests while we went outside to shoot a few more photos as a married couple. The photo above describes our relationship perfectly!
Our Dads and wedding party all had awesome speeches and we gave a speech to thank everyone for sharing our special day with us. Our cake was yellow cake with fudge chocolate icing because that’s Jeffrey’s favorite cake combo. It was the best wedding cake I’ve ever had (and I’ve had at least 100 wedding cakes through working catering.)
The evening wrapped up with hours of dancing, drinking and lots of inappropriateness in the photo booth. We only stopped dancing when they turned the lights on and started cleaning up. I’m so happy for the memories I have from our wedding day. I am forever grateful that all of our friends and family came to spend the day with us to make it absolutely perfect. I’d love to have another party without the pressure of a wedding but full of drinks, dancing and cake! What did you love about your wedding? Did you diy any part of your wedding? Anyone have 3,000 bikers to help celebrate their happy day? I’m going to go watch the video my Dad made for our wedding!
All photos were taken by Jessika Feltz Photography other than the last photo booth photo.
What a beautiful trip down memory lane! Love that the bikers showed up and made for a fun, unique day and certainly some great energy and photos. Love that the family and friends rallied together to make your day really special, despite all the initial hiccups. Hope your uncle was ok! To many more years ahead!
I DIYed a few things – table cards, favors, programs, assembled store-bought invitations. We left the flowers up to a local florist and were beyond pleased with her work. My favorite part was completely our “first dance” which we our dancer-friend choreographed. We messed up a bunch of times but at least it was fun and when were done, we could finally party.
Jeffrey’s Uncle was ok. They were trying to get him out of the hospital early so they could all come and I told them I’d be upset if they came (because he was in the hospital!!) so they didn’t. 🙂 I went straight to your blog to see if you had any photos up of your wedding but couldn’t find any. 🙁 The flowers are what surprised me the most with cost. It was insane. I LOVE that you had that bonding time learning a dance together while you were prepping for your wedding! That would be nerve wracking but also a proud moment as new husband and wife!!!
What fun! I’d seen the Jimmy John’s photo but not the biker ones! That certainly had the possibility of making a less-laid-back bride VERY upset — so good for you for rolling with the punches and having fun with it. =) I did my own decorations, buying them week by week with the 40% off Hobby Lobby coupon! Other than that, I mostly left it to the professionals.
I can see how some brides would be upset about that but it was so fun and a great memory! Great idea buying ahead little by little with your coupon! Man! That’s dedication!
Great trip down the memory lane. My wedding experiences: first one was planned and everything went perfect, except for when my ex husband got the bright idea of carrying pregnant me down the stairs and almost fell down. The marriage ended in shambles. The second wedding was a complete disaster (I wrote about it on the blog) but the marriage is damn near perfect. What can I say? Murphy’s law just won’t leave me alone. I would so love bikers crashing my wedding, I think that would be so much fun!