November 6th, 2020 / Milwaukee, Wisconsin
How did your love story begin?: Jason and I met when both working as personal trainers at Bally Total Fitness. Fast forward 10+ years and those don't exist anymore, but we do.
We've never been great at documenting events, or anything really. We love being in the moment and taking things in. Once we got dogs (chocolate labs - Bally and Brody) we started taking family photos - duh.
Jason asked if we could take family photos in Madison instead of our usual go-to, the Milwaukee County Grounds. My sister was the photographer and I complained the.whole.time. It was October, 30 degrees and the wind was.. well.. windy. I wore my winter jacket in every photo and asked how many more photos since the dogs were not listening and Bally kept trying to jump into Lake Monona.
My sister told us to take a breather and walk with the dogs to help settle them down and get more candid photos. On our "candid walk" Jason mentions that there is a reason he picked this place, that I was his best friend and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He bent down on one knee and paused, saying nothing. It probably was less than 5 seconds of silence but it felt like 5 minutes. I said "yeah?" as in.. umm you need to speak because I don't know what's going on. I had no idea that he knelt in mud and he paused speaking because he was trying to figure out why his knee was wet - HA! Anyways.. he asked me to marry him and I obviously said yes.. otherwise writing this blog post would be AWKWARD!
What was your vision for your wedding?: JAMAICA -- We wanted a vacation with our ride or dies.
Enter COVID.. and PIVOT!! 100 days out from our original date and we agreed we were still going to get married on our date.
StoryHill FireHouse was the best "back-up" plan. In fact - it was the one of the best decisions we made. It's the perfect combination of Historic Milwaukee with romance and simplicity. Did you know that they took the original lockers and repurposed them as moveable bars? Every inch of that place tells a story of what used to be there :) Janelle (owner of StoryHill FireHouse) connected us with vendors to help with our vision without having to actually do anything -- I created a pinterest board with mauves, burgundy, eucalyptus and white -- showed them and they brought it to life.
The most important thing for our wedding was keeping it to our roots -- we have a small tight knit group of friends. We love eating food. We love supporting local. Those were our 3 important elements and we crushed it.
Tell us all about your dress!: Strike Bridal Bar was the second place I had gone for dress shopping. I was extremely hesitant and did not have high expectations for finding "the" dress since my first experience in Chicago was TERRIBLE.
I went dress shopping with my MOH and Mom. I let them run amuk grabbing any dresses they wanted to see me in - there were a number of them. Emily was wonderful to work with. She listened to my feedback of what I liked or didn't like about the dress and would grab a different dress to meet those needs. The winner was Peyton from the Strike Bridal Private Collection and I felt so amazing in it.
I will say that my close second had POCKETS. What is it about pockets? We know on our wedding we will put nothing in there.. but just having the opportunity to stash a handful of tater tots.. I'm not going to do it.. but I have the pockets for it. ;)
You planned and you planned, but how did the day ACTUALLY go?!: We planned for a cold November day - indoor ceremony and reception. What we got -- 75 degrees and sunny. We were able to move the ceremony and cocktail hour outside while keep the doors open during the reception. The irony in it all, Jamaica had tropical storms due to Hurricane ETA. We were exactly where we were meant to be :)
I had a lot of favorites on our day -- escaping after the ceremony to take photos in front of Valentine Coffee, dancing to Backstreet Boys while eating Scratch Ice Cream on the dance floor, and the obvious answer - marrying my best friend. Overall, we are so grateful and appreciative to our friends and family that made our day. 2020 was a really messed up year, all 67 months of it, and they all made it bareable :)
What is your best advice for future brides-to-be?: We debated on having a videographer and decided not to have one. I still stand by that decision, BUT wish that I would have had someone video the ceremony. You get tunnel vision and are so in the moment that you have no idea what is going on around you. I would love to go back and watch the ceremony!
When it comes to decor -- work with a team that will give your vision life, allow you to rent their items and take the stress off your plate. The best part -- after the wedding, the team takes the decor and you never have to see it again. No corralling family to help tear down and no facebook marketplace a week later selling 30 vases that say "used once" in the description
You will receive A LOT of unsolicited advice, recommend preparing some nice ways of saying "yeah, no, I'm not doing that"
Gown: Peyton from Strike Private Collection at Strike Bridal Bar
Photographer: Kathleen Stogin Photography
Venue: StoryHill FireHouse
Decor: Impressions by Esther Fleming
Hair: Hair by Erin Emerich
Makeup: Talia Kasper
DJ: DJ E.Rich
Suit: NL Suits
Bride's Rings: Atrio Jewelry
Bouquets: Artistic Blossoms
Food: Iron Grate BBQ
Dessert: Hatched MKE & Scratch Ice Cream
Coffee: Valentine Coffee
