Kelly & Joe’s wedding at Meadowlark Gardens

• Weddings

We’re lucky enough to witness some wonderfully personalized weddings over the years, and Kelly and Joe continued that tradition, infusing their celebration with their own thoughts, feelings, and ways of doing things. These high school sweethearts who, no kidding, met in Kindergarten, have traveled through life together and decided to make it official, so to speak. The date was chosen to be a Thursday, as it happened to have been the anniversary of their first date.

Kelly, an animal lover working at a veterinary clinic and Joe, a professional chef, have shared so much with each other and it was delightful to see them sharing so much of themselves with their friends and family. Their guests knew it would be a different ceremony when, instead of a flower girl sparsely tossing a few petals here and there, they grabbed handfuls of autumn-themed rose petals hung in bags at the ends of the rows and vigorously tossed them into the aisle before the bride’s arrival. Kelly was absolutely glowing and proceeded down the aisle with her Dad to the theme song to the Princess Bride (since we live on a street named Buttercup we thought this was especially apropos), and recessed to Coldplay’s Clocks. How cool are those song choices?!? Seeing the emotion in both of their faces as they saw each other for the first time at the edge of the patio overlooking Meadowlark Gardens’ pasture reminded us once again why we do what we do.

The relaxing, four-course meal was provided by one of our favorite caterers ever, Knife & Fork and was enjoyed by everybody, as we overheard comments from the guests about how delicious dinner was. (We could agree since they graciously fed us, as well!) Expending a little energy, the guests crowded onto the dance floor for a while before it was time for toasts and to cut their cake. Kelly’s little sister continued the humor during her toast. It was a very heartfelt…Mad Lib. And it was awesome. Joe’s best man talked of Joe’s love of ketchup on everything so of course one of Kelly’s other bridesmaids doused Joe’s slice of wedding cake with it. As you can imagine, the two don’t necessarily go well together, as evidenced by Joe’s expression after being goaded into trying it. Such fun. The couple also recognized Kelly’s grandparents, who were happily celebrating their 55th anniversary that evening. We ended the evening with a blown bubble departure for Kelly & Joe, who never stopped grinning all night. We had a blast! Thank you, Kelly & Joe, for having us document your celebration for you, and congratulations!

Someone had the idea to toss a few of the fallen leaves up in the air over Kelly & Joe. Not sure who suggested it, but you can see the results below. Kelly was an *extremely* good sport about it all!

Kelly’s dad offers up a warm welcome to their guests and a toast to the happy couple.

I don’t think there was any question this pair would be wearing their wedding cake. We haven’t seen a smashing with such gusto in quite a…well, never until now, actually! ;-D