by leah michelle

As promised, the elusive recap post has finally arrived. In case you forgot – the wedding I am referring to, was an event I did at the end of July. Read part one here. Anyway, the photos have finally arrived from Sakura Photo, the wonderful photographers who captured the amazing images. The couple had their ceremony at St. John Neuman Catholic Church in Miami with the reception at Signature Gardens (which has since closed or at least will be very soon). As mentioned before they had originally planned an outdoor ceremony so ultimately it came down to bringing the garden elements indoors.

The Bride wore a Maggie Sottero gown, which surprisingly she found pretty last minute, only two months before the big day.

As evident by her suede stilettos, the colors of the wedding were anchored with this rich plum. We brought the color into numerous details, starting with the shoes.

As part of the old, new, borrowed, blue tradition, Tatiana wore the veil her oldest sister had worn at her own wedding.

It’s a little difficult to see in this image, but her younger sister and MOH wore a dark plum dress.

Tatiana added these adorable I Do rinestones to the bottom of her shoes.

A family friend loaned the white stretch limo to the couple for the entire day as a gift for their wedding. You’ll see the brides bouquet is comprised of purple cymbidium orchids, white roses and stephanotis, the flowers were carried throughout the reception to continue the flowing garden feel. MOH carried a gerbera daisy bouquet.

Orchid and tulle pew decor made by the brides grandmother.

The entire bridal party was made up of 14 small children. The youngest of which are seen here. All the girls wore matching ivory tulle dresses and ballet flats.

Each of the Junior Bridesmaids also wore plum peacock feather headbands and tulle sashes.

A manzanita tree dripping in crystals and candles was created to hold the seating chart. Each table hung from the branches above the “guest book” at the entrance to the reception.

Instead of a traditional book, guests signed wishing stones for the couple and placed them in vase, to decorate their new home.

The centerpieces were tall glass vases holding orchids and manzanitas through the center with orchid, hydrangea, and rose arrangements on top.

You can catch a glimpse of the favors in the bottom right hand side of this image. Each family was given a sapling tree to take home in representation of the tree that Joe propsed to Tatiana under. Each family was also given a mix tape from the couple, which tied in the groom’s personality as he is a DJ.

Also, it is a little difficult to see in this image, but purple ribbons were tied to the base of every cocktail glass for the toast. Since the tables were white on white the ribbons were used to add color to the table top. The purple was also carried into the menu cards, tucked into napkins on each place setting.

When it came to the memories from the evening, the couple had one request. They absolutely had to have an image similar to one they had seen in a magazine. The result was the above photograph.

In addition to the traditional champagne toast, tequila shots were tray passed through the reception for a special toast to open the dance floor for the evening. Here the couple and BM take a second round.

Similar to the junior bridesmaids purple headbands the junior groomsmen all had matching purple chuck taylors. The groom (second pair of shoes) had custom pair of converse made for the evening.

In  special ending to the night, one of the junior groomsmen had a solo karaoke moment for the crowd.

All in all, the wedding went very well. It is common knowledge that something will go wrong. This is pretty much guaranteed. For my first event however, a lot of things went wrong – and strangely enough, most of those were things that I did not have a hand in prior to the day of. In the end everything worked out fine but some of those snafoo’s included:

1. There were chairs missing when the chivaris were delivered to the reception hall

2. The favor count was off and therefore required a last minute rearrangement on the table

3. Someone had failed to inform anyone in our party that there was a baptism scheduled a mere 30 minutes before the bride was supposed to walk down the aisle. Thankfully no one noticed, but that was a rough one to hurdle.

4. the florist was missing a boutonnieres and corsage in the order

4. There was not enough cash on hand to pay for all of the required vendors the day of and resulted in some ATM runs between ceremony and reception.

oh and the biggest whoopsie of all – the marriage license was left at home. This is a big deal when it comes to catholic ceremonies by the way.

All in all – things turned out well, and the evening was beautiful I did learn a few things however.

1. candy works wonders to bribe children down an aisle (thankfully it was a great bunch of kids too)

2. you can never give someone too many reminders

3. always have a plan B, which includes keeping extra floral pins on hand

4. never do an event alone. Had I not had the help of two lovely ladies whom I completed my certification with, I don’t know what I would have done. They were lifesavors. Michelle and Ana if you are reading this – Thank you for all of your help.

Now, a month ago I had a lot more to say about the event and the recap, but looking back, I shouldn’t have been surprised with the bumps and potholes. It was the first of many events and I had a blast.

Sorry for the lengthy post – but god it is good to finally get that off my chest! (and off my to-do list!)