Big loves and small weddings. Our story.

I want to start this post by making very clear that I have nothing against big weddings. I love weddings, but for us it didn’t feel right to spend all of our money in one night. That was a personal decision and I know not everyone would agree, but this is our story.

I felt inspired to write about this because there are a lot of people out there (specially girls), who feel pressured to throw something big and fancy or maybe have dreamed about their wedding day since they were little, and that’s ok. It is a special day, the most special and happy day I’ve lived in my life so far if I’m being completely honest.

I’m here to tell you that it’s ok to have a small intimate wedding. It is ok to not spend all of your savings in one party. Just because you can only afford to have a small wedding, it doesn’t mean you will have a small marriage. It will be the best day ever because you are saying yes to spend the rest of your life with your best friend.

Here’s a little bit of how I met mine.

Me and Gordon met on Tinder on September 15th 2016 and my life changed since that day. I can’t say it was love at first sight, but we did like each other very much since day 1. We were practically besties after our first month together.

Right before our first anniversary we decided to moved in together and 8 months after that, we got engaged. Only 3 months after getting engaged, on September 15th 2018 (and also our second anniversary!) we got married.

Pretty crazy how your life can change so much in such a short period of time… because seriously, 2 years is not that much time. I often look back and think about how was I doing life without Gordon? It’s crazy, I just love him so much!!!!!

Anyways, I didn’t have much time to plan a wedding and right after we got engaged we were like ok, so what are we doing?

We were doing a pretty good job saving money for our trip around the world (More about that on @waysoftheworld_), so technically we could afford throwing a wedding party, but we BOTH felt like it wasn’t the right thing to do. Our families were a little sad and it sucked to disappoint them, but we had to put ourselves first, think about our future plans together and prioritize. We were the only ones that would have to live with that decision after all.

We decided that we would get married on the same day we met, which happened to be a Saturday. We wanted to get married at our church (Soul City Church) and of course since we are so crazy and unconventional we went to the same ping pong bar where we first met and then had dinner.

Our ceremony was small and beautiful. It was hard to shop for a dress that would be good to walk down the aisle, play ping pong and go out for dinner.

Initially I bought a wedding dress at June Bridals for $300 and it was hideous! A nightmare! Nothing like what they had on their site. Also, their customer service sucks and as I write this, that hideous wedding dress came back to me because the shipping address they provided to process the return was not correct. Mind you that I sent this dress back to China back in June, lost 30% of the dress value and paid $60 for shipping. Moral of the story: Do not shop for anything on that site. EVER!

Sorry I had to get that out of my chest.

I ended up buying a white maxi skirt during the Nordstrom sale for $44 and a bodysuit at a website called Boohoo for $20. It was a big risk to buy everything online again, but I had enough time to see if it was going work and figure something else out if necessary. I already had the shoes (A pair of strappy sandals from Ann Taylor).

The whole thing worked out perfectly! I couldn’t believe it. $64 for my entire outfit and not only that, it was perfect for the occasion too. It wasn’t a conventional wedding after all.

What did I like about having a small wedding?

Well, we could talk and spend quality time with our guests (It was 10 people including us, plus 4 of our nieces and nephew).

The ceremony was outside under a beautiful flower arch. The weather was beautiful. We took most of the photos with our families at church and then just me and G on the streets, in front of the Chicago Theater. We really wanted something that represented the city where we met, fell in love and got married but at the same time it had to be close to Spin (the ping pong bar where we met and had happy hour) because we didn’t want to miss spending time with our families. At Spin you can rent a small area with 2 ping pong tables and food and drinks and it was seriously so much fun! After that we went to Monteverde, which is one of our favorite Italian restaurants, where we had a 9 course dinner waiting for all of us. The day started at 1.30 and ended almost at midnight. We were a little typsy, tired, but with our hearts SO FULL that I can’t even describe it with words. BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!

That feeling is what you should go after. It doesn’t matter how big or small your wedding is.

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading our little story. I hope it inspires you to think about what truly matters on your wedding day; and it’s simply the fact that you are committing to your best friend for the rest of your life.

XO,

 

Here are some of our favorite photos taken by the amazing @yosmertmphotography. I’m only sharing photos of us to respect our families’ privacy.

Rings: Blue Nile

Hair: Meraki Room Chicago

Makeup: Lindsay Sobinsky (@lsobinsky)

Flowers: Flowers for Dreams

Skirt: Nordstrom

Bodysuit: Boohoo

Shoes: Ann Taylor