Today is our 3rd wedding anniversary – hooray! The last three years have been quite an adventure. We got married in Hood River, OR as a destination wedding (living in FL at the time)…little did we know that only three short months later we would be living in this beautiful place. In fact, we spent the five days of our honeymoon laying by the pool dreaming about living in Hood River (where we’d just been married) and devising a plan to do just that.
We even said as a part of our ceremony, “they have invited you to this beautiful place on the Columbia River Gorge b/c during their time together they have come here on days like today, humbled and awed by their surrounding and God’s creation. They wanted to share with you its beauty b/c this is one of the places their hearts have made a home.” And literally we physically made it our home just three months later!
If I could relive one day for the rest of my life (a Groundhog day scenario) it would be our wedding day. The only word I have for it is magical! My favorite parts were the ceremony and just having everyone we loved all together in one of our favorite places on Earth. Here is where I insert my wedding planner advice. These are the reasons it was so awesome:
1) B/c we didn’t have to worry about a thing come wedding day. I’m not only saying this b/c I’m a planner but do yourself a favor and hire a wedding planner! Or in my case just have the most amazing friends on the planet (who are also pro planners) and let them give you the gift of enjoying every minute of your day from the time you wake up until you are waving goodbye to your guests. I literally woke up completely calm, cool and collected and drank champagne with my feet up. Another favorite part about our day was walking into our venue and everything being EXACTLY as we envisioned actually even better b/c my trusted friends made sure everything was perfect. This could be a planner or friend but people don’t try to do it yourself.
2) Don’t forget about the ceremony. Keith and I wrote out our entire script so our officiant/friend, Chris just had to read it. We made it personal, included our guests and loved ones and personally wrote our vows to each other and didn’t hear them until that very moment. The only part of the ceremony we didn’t write was a reflection by our officiant about us. I ask people in a Q&A when they want to hire me to prioritize several items for me including food/drinks, decor, logistics/flow, ceremony and do you know what…ceremony is always way down the list after food/drink, decor, etc. Get your priorities straight people and put your heart into the very reason you are there!

3) HIRE A VIDEOGRAPHER! It’s so hard to convince people of that before hand b/c they think that the photos are enough and their buddy with a Flip cam can go around (probably while drunk) and get a bunch of footage. Wrong! I absolutely LOVE our wedding photos and I think Gabe and Boone did an amazing job capturing the essence of our ceremony but I was literally in la-la land standing up there and don’t remember a thing…only thinking “this is awesome” and feeling like Keith and I were the only ones there standing at the edge of the Earth. I would love to sit here today on my anniversary and play back our day…especially the ceremony. Trust me…I ask everyone afterward if they wish they had a wedding video and the answer is always yes!
4) Don’t get so caught up in the details that you forget to enjoy yourself. It’s hard for me to say this b/c I’m a wedding planner and LOVE all the little details – but leave it to your planner on your big day. I’m sure you’ll work hard to gather all your little details, design and DIY your decor, etc. but once the day gets there – LET IT GO! So what if your paper flowers get wet and are now bleeding all over the grass or that your tapered candles keep blowing out every 15 seconds b/c let’s face it…this is the Gorge and it’s blowing like crazy. I thought everything about my day was perfect…I’m sure if I look back and really think hard about it I can see little things that I swore were missing from “the scene”…that one little thing I had collected or that the chalkboard chalk was the wrong color but those aren’t the things I will remember about my day.
Oh…sitting here looking back through our photos makes me so excited for this upcoming wedding season. The wedding day is just the beginning of a major adventure and I’m so fortunate to get to be a part of that for so many people. For us our wedding day was the start of a major life shift from FL to OR to reunite with our wedding destination and throw down some roots in Hood River - and it’s been an ongoing adventure ever since. I won’t say it’s always been rainbows and unicorns but it’s maybe even better!









































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