I can’t believe how time has flown…
TODAY IS OUR 3RD WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!
To celebrate, I thought I would share some of our favorite photos from our wedding day, which is honestly WAY overdue. All of the images that I am sharing were taken by our incredibly wonderful and talented friends at Blue Rose Photography, who have taken our engagement, wedding, pregnancy announcement, and maternity photos! We absolutely adore Brittany and Joe — they made our experience so wonderful and even helped us with vendor suggestions when we felt overwhelmed by options. I can’t recommend them more, but I think our continued loyalty and the images in this post should be testament enough! 😉
In addition to sharing photos, I’ll be sure to include all of our wedding details at the bottom of the post if you are also getting married in Seattle and are looking for vendors!
Fair Warning: This is a big post, so grab a drink and get comfy! haha
Our wedding day was honestly the most perfect day, regarding both the events and the weather! In Seattle, there’s no real “guarantee” for sunny weather until July 5th (a running joke if you’re a local) so we felt super fortunate that we ended up having a day full of gorgeous sunshine! We decided that we wanted to get married at a historic location in Seattle because we truly love our city and it was important to us (1) that the venue was able to accommodate all wedding day events at the same location (ceremony, cocktail hour, reception, etc.), (2) that the venue had its own restaurant kitchen (no potential for catering mishaps), and (3) that the venue styling felt like “us” and that the space fit our classic and light & airy wedding style — The Sorrento was the perfect fit for us!
Since we were getting married at a hotel, I stayed over in our wedding suite the night before the wedding so that I already had access to our “getting ready” space in time for everyone to arrive (bridesmaids, mothers of the bride and groom, friends, and all of our wonderful beautifying helpers!). My sweet godmother had brunch sent to the room so we had fresh fruit, pastries, yogurt and granola, coffee, juices and mimosas together before the flurry of getting ready began!
It helped to calm my nerves to have some relatives and friends visiting in the room with me before the day got started. I was never nervous to get married, but more anxious about being “on display” in front of a group of people… what if I tripped or something?! Fortunately, I didn’t have much time to worry about anything for the rest of the day; we were so busy and I knew that our event planner had everything under control (if anything went wrong, I’ll probably never know!).
I loved how our invitation suite turned out! The best part about it is that we were able to repurpose the custom watercolor rendering of our venue to be used as our guestbook (shown later in the post)! It is now hanging up in our living room where we can enjoy it often.
The whole morning was a total whirlwind; it all went by in the blink of an eye! My husband and a few of the fellas (husbands, boyfriends, siblings, etc.) went out for brunch together during this time and and on their way to the hotel stopped at Starbucks and brought coffees back for all of us ladies getting ready, which was so thoughtful. I’m grateful that I had eaten a little bit, otherwise all of the caffeine from both my breakfast coffee and my Starbucks order would have had me “riding the lighting” as we call it. haha!
LOL at my face here — the blooms were even better than I had imagined! We didn’t do much decor-wise other than having the arrangements, but I knew that Kristen’s floral creations would be plenty to transform the space.
I couldn’t get over our gorgeous floral arrangements — they were absolutely perfect for our occasion’s theme and the location. Our florist Kristen (who has since gone on to host and judge “The Big Flower Fight” on Netflix! 😱) was absolutely phenomenal and really made my floral dreams come true. The entire floor that we occupied was super fragrant from all of the flowers — you were greeted by the scent from the moment you stepped off of the elevator! My husband was a non-believer in Kristen’s and my vision throughout the planning process, but once he saw it all come together on our wedding day he admitted that the florals were stunning and absolutely worth their cost. 😉
I was particularly obsessed with my bridal bouquet. Can you blame me?! Thankfully my wedding photographer Brittany picked up on my obsession and took a million and a half photos of it and of me holding it so that I could digitally preserve it forever! (Love you, Brittany!)
We were so excited for our First Look on the terrace! The weather was delightful and we were just about ~20 minutes away from becoming husband and wife!! It was so nice to soak up a few moments of “just us” and take everything in — so many months of planning were finally coming together and all of our loved ones were there to celebrate with us! It felt like the most wonderful dream that I’d never have to wake up from.
I especially like these shots because you get a little glimpse of the Seattle skyline behind us; our city certainly isn’t perfect, but we love it all the same.
I was (and still am!) crazy about my wedding dress. It happened to be the first one that I tried on and it was the dress we ended up comparing all of the other gowns to while we were dress shopping, and that’s how we knew it was “the one”!
We kept our guest list and wedding party small. We only had two bridesmaids and two groomsmen which consisted of our siblings and my best friend; it was the perfect size for us. I wanted the cohesiveness of the same dress color for the girls, but encouraged them to choose the dress styles that they felt most comfortable in. For the groomsmen we just chose a widely available suit and requested the same shade of navy blue (there are surprisingly a lot? haha). We let the guys wear their own shoes and belts, but provided them with socks, ties, and pocket squares.
Our ceremony was earnest and sentimental, but we tried to keep it relatively short. We really loved our officiant and felt like she was the perfect person for the job. She kept things fun, but also had enough gravitas to express how seriously we take the institution of marriage. I was so happy that I cried throughout basically our entire ceremony (and apparently so did my little brother, which was the sweetest!).
As part of planning our ceremony, our officiant encouraged us to reflect on when we have felt most connected to each other throughout our relationship and we both agreed that it was during our times spent traveling. When we’re away from all of the distractions of “regular life” and it’s just the two of us out in the big world, we really get “in tune” with one another and work well as a team, even more than we already do in our daily lives. Plus, it’s so fun to see the world together!
In recognizing this, our officiant suggested that we make an annual tradition out of our love of travel and create a list of destinations that we wanted to experience together (both domestic and international) and pull one destination out of a box every year as something to look forward to and “keep the flame alive”. Her suggestion gave me an idea so I took it a step further and ordered this shadow box. My idea was that every time we pull a destination out of the box it has to be replaced with one or two little knick-knacks from our visit to that destination (a train ticket, small figurine, seashell, etc.) and because it fits our home decor we have it on display! I love all of our travel memories and so far it’s been a fun way to commemorate our trips!
And then we were married! Officially husband and wife!
The framed watercolor rendering of our venue being signed as our guestbook! I removed the glass, but left the print positioned in the frame so that people could sign directly on the print, but they knew where the edges were to sign within! I replaced the glass as soon as we got home, right before we hung it up.
By the time we were done taking our Golden Hour photos as newlyweds, the ceremony room had been transformed and was ready for our reception! I adored our meal and was so grateful to be able to select our food options from the hotel’s restaurant, the Dunbar Room (now rebranded as Stella?). All of our cocktail hour hors d’ouvres and our meal selections were delicious… I made a point to try a little bit of everything because I knew we’d have a very limited time to eat because we were so eager to visit with our guests and get to dancing!
I had originally found some table numbers on clear sticks that I imagined we would incorporate into the floral arrangements, but Kristen gently advised me to find another option. 😂 I found these beautiful acrylic table numbers on Etsy and they were just perfect! Our wedding coordinator at the venue loved them so much and wanted to be able to offer them to their future couples that she asked to buy them from me after the event was over, which I happily agreed to!
Our cake was divine! We ended up choosing classic Vanilla as well as Pink Champagne & Raspberry for the tiers in our cake and they were absolutely delicious. My husband was skeptical about the raspberry champagne flavor, but told me later that it had actually been his favorite! We froze the top tier of our cake and ate it for our first anniversary (as is tradition). I shared the very specific process on how to do this properly in this post, as guided by our baker! We followed her directions explicitly and our cake turned out perfectly!
And then it was time to drink champagne and dance the night away with our loved ones!
VENDORS
Venue: Hotel Sorrento
Food: Hotel’s Dunbar Room
(which has rebranded as Stella?)
Day-Of Coordinator: Andrea of To Be Frank Consultants
Photography: Blue Rose Photography
Florals: Wild Bloom Floral
Table Numbers: Etsy
Papergoods —
Invite Suite: Empress Stationery // Table Menus: Zazzle
Officiant: Annemarie Juhlian
Music: OttoMatic Mobile Music (DJ Justin)
Cake: Honey Crumb Cake Studio
Favors: Lady Yum (Vanilla & Unicorn flavors!)
Adventure Shadow Box: Etsy
Bridal Gown: Maggie Sottero Malina Gown
Bridesmaid Dresses: David’s Bridal in Ice Blue
Hair & Makeup: Yessie Libby
Spray Tan: Divine Sunless
Groom / Groomsmen Suits: Nordstrom
One thing that I will say is that we had the ABSOLUTE BEST experience with all of our vendors and I would 1000% hire every single one of them all over again.
I’m certain that I’m forgetting to link some detail so if you’re curious about anything that I may have missed or would like more specific information, please feel free to reach out in the Comments section below and I’ll answer to the best of my ability!
Thanks for going down memory lane and celebrating our anniversary with us today!
xx, Natalie
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