Chrissy & Dave

Chrissy and Dave are my first out of state clients! Their wedding was held at the Church of the Gesu in University Heights, OH. It is a beautiful church, and the coordinator there was great to work with which always makes for a good experience! The rehearsal the night before went smoothly; the only thing I would have liked to have done differently would be having the flower girl and ring bearer there. It is always better to practice with the kids the day before, get the tears out of the way, and then hopefully they are ready for it “when it counts”.

The day of the wedding, I got to the church at 11am to make sure flowers were being set up and delivered as planned, and to inform the photographer and videographer of the church’s rules. The flowers, done by Studio Floral, looked absolutely amazing (and even more amazing at the reception later on!).  They were very attentive to detail, stayed to pin on bouts (this rarely happens, so I thought it was great!), and just did such great work.

The photography was done by Andy at AJF Photography. He was very professional throughout the day, was constantly loooking for great shots, and his work is very nice – I can’t wait to see the pictures! Video was done by Pro Duck Productions (I am curious how they got that name!?), who I barely noticed at all during the day. That is a good thing! You definitely don’t want your videographer to be the star of the show, and I notice when they are able to stay out of the way while doing their job.

At the reception hall later in the day (they had a 5 hour gap between the ceremony and reception. If you have to do this – definitely print out directions and ideas for your guests about what to do around town!) I set out the menu cards that had been created by Square 1 Mailers.  Angela (the designer) also created their invitations, thank you cards and place cards for the event and they were all very nice! Since Chrissy didn’t have her seating chart done in time, Angela had to send the place cards without table numbers, which Chrissy was then going to fill in by hand. With the excitement of everything else going on, Chrissy forgot about doing that, and I was busy filling out 200 place cards right before guests began to arrive! Fortunately her mom had the seating chart with her – I will definitely ask for a copy of it from my clients in the future!

The reception was held at Sammy’s at Legacy Village in Cleveland. It is a gorgeous space, with tons of natural lighting (windows on three sides), drapery and lights on the ceiling (fabric, not tulle), chivari chairs, and amazing food. They were very hands-on in the planning process and so committed to ensuring that everything went smoothly the day of the wedding. It was very refreshing to be a part of!They even boxed up the meals that were not served and cookies that weren’t eaten to take home at the end of the night, which were great the next day for brunch! Chrissy’s bouquet (above) will be sent to a company in California to be pressed (each petal individually with some whole flowers) and made into a painting for her new home!

Music for the evening was done by the Paul Otten band, and they kept the dance floor packed all night long! I organized the toasts and grand entrance with them when they arrived for setup, which went very smoothly. Everyone had a great time dancing; they did such a wonderful job reading the crowd. At the end of the night, they were cheered on with requests for “one more song!” as guests hesitantly left the reception. It was such a great party, congratulations Chrissy and Dave and thank you for letting me be a part of your wedding day!