WEDDING DATE:
10/03/2020

WEDDING LOCATION:
Chicago, IL

STYLE NUMBER:
4841

COUPLE’S WEDDING STORY:
While I was attending college in Northern California, I met Michael while he was stationed nearby on active duty with the Coast Guard. We had both been living in the same small town for about three years and never run into each other before December of 2015, just before the holidays. We hit it off from the start and decided to grab dinner late one night before I went to visit family for Christmas. We were essentially inseparable from the second date!

Three years later with college, multiple moves, and most of a graduate degree behind us, we decided to take a summer vacation to England and the Czech Republic. Michael had spent his childhood in and around Prague and so he was very excited to show me around his “hometown,” where I had yet to visit before. He surprised me with an attendance to Don Giovanni at the Estates Theater, where the performance originally premiered in 1787. He proposed on the Charles Bridge on August 18th, 2019.

We had hoped to have a short engagement and got straight to work on the wedding plans for a May 2020 wedding in Chicago.

I drove four hours from Michigan to spend a weekend in Chicago dress shopping and instantly fell in love with my Paloma Blanca #4841 gown because of the obvious quality of craftsmanship and materials. My dress shop, Mira Couture finished it with some lovely detailing and impeccable alterations.

Of course, COVID made wedding planning suddenly incredibly difficult by mid-March. By early April, we were forced to postpone our wedding to October of the same year. Throughout the summer, it seemed as though we would have to postpone again and with so much of our lives on hold do to the pandemic, it felt like the least of our worries. Thankfully, all of our vendor were so understanding and flexible the entire time and while we waited through the months with no definitive answer as to what the best thing to do was, we altered our guest list slightly (easy to do when most of our friends were across the country and even the world and couldn’t make it no matter how badly they wanted to) and decided to give the go ahead about a month out.

One week before the wedding we ended up moving to Chicago, changing jobs and planning the final details of our pandemic wedding all while nervously watching for changes in state and county regulations (yikes). We were confident we could go ahead with our ceremony, cruise and reception dinner with a small group of people and COVID precautions. Chicago was open to dining and shopping currently, though the pier where our boat was docked was currently closed to the public. As luck would have it, cases stayed relatively low and we were able to have an incredible, intimate ceremony and cruise on Lake Michigan. It was even so quiet out that we were able to get lovely photos with hardly any city-goers in the background.

Despite the challenges of this year, we are so thankful to all our vendors for their patience and persistence to pull off the most incredible wedding during a year of frustration and difficulty. We wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Bride’s shoes: Harriet Wilde
Hair and makeup: Kate Johnson Artistry
Groom’s suit: Alexander’s Custom Clothiers, Northville, MI
Hotel: The Peninsula Chicago
Ceremony and reception: The Chicago Elite Yacht
Cake: Bitterweet Pastry
Wedding Coordinator: Serena Mcdonald (Hornblower Cruises)
Stationary: Minted
Champagne glasses: Waterford

Small Town Sweethearts

The BRidal Beauty Team