Our Wedding!

A recap of our magical Detroit wedding!

All photo and video credit: Mike Staff Productions

We did it! We planned a wedding in four months and it was everything I dreamed of and more. Colorful, fun, full of love and totally us. When Andrew and I got engaged, I was totally surprised! I mean we moved to Puerto Rico together and I knew he was my hombre, but I didn’t know an engagement was coming at all. I was just happy to have him!

Our video!

We aimed for a smallish wedding since we wanted each person there to be special to us and we wanted to spend time with everyone. We invited a little over 100 people and almost everyone came! A true testament to our friends. In fact, the people were one of the best parts of the wedding. With a smaller size, all our friends and family were able to get to know each other and it became one big happy group! A lot of my friends met for the first time at my bachelorette party, and it was so fun seeing them dancing and taking selfies together as if they were long-term friends. I felt the love! All in all our wedding was so easy to plan- everyone involved was helpful and easy-going and had helpful ideas. I am so lucky as I know this isn’t always the case!

I got my fabulous robe on Amazon! No laws when drinking claws.

Let’s talk about my dress! I knew I wanted a little color since I love color – I was thinking a veil with colored flowers or ombre dress or pastel tulle layers underneath the skirt. Since we were planning a wedding in four months (to beat the Michigan cold, and why wait?) I knew I didn’t have much time to find a dress. So I looked at some ready to wear options online and found this sparkly pink number and fell in love! I immediately ordered it. While waiting for it to arrive, I went to a few bridal salons and was very underwhelmed. Everything felt fussy and not me. Finally, the pink dress was here and I got to try it on with my Mom and Bubbe. We all loved it and cried and knew it was the one! It was basically made for me, and even had pockets!

Mom + Bubbe.

Even though I went pink with the dress, I knew I wanted to wear a veil- to me that’s even more bridal than a white dress. Because how often can you get away with a veil? Not often enough, in my opinion. I’m totally wearing it again though. I picked a shorter, cascading veil to match the whimsical dress and also I wanted to wear it all night since I was wearing my hair down. I added a sparkly comb and loved the look!

Hi Dad!

Our first look! I think he likes me.

Ta da!

I picked four of my besties to get ready with me. They didn’t walk down the aisle and I didn’t make them wear any specific dress, but it was fun to get ready and take some photos together! What good looking friends I have.

The weather was touch and go the week leading up to the wedding with rain a potential, but luckily the weather ended up being perfect! Slightly overcast and not cold at all.

We took some photos at The Belt in downtown Detroit, which is a cool alleyway. They even have a mural by a Puerto Rican artist!

I want this wall in my house!

I believe I was shielding my hair from the small amount of rain here.

We added lots of personal touches to the wedding day. Our grandparents signed the ketubah, and my brother acted as the officiant! The ketubah was a custom gold glitter acrylic (the official acrylic name is wedding ring) by Rafi of Impression Judaica. Rafi had never made a glitter ketubah before, just his glitter mezuzahs that we carry that I love. But he was up for the challenge and it came out even better than I hoped!

Thumbs up for ketubahs! Or something.

I LOVED our ceremony. My favorite part of the day! And Andrew’s vows with the best part. I knew they’d be good but they were SO good. A perfect mix of funny and sentimental. They had everyone laughing and crying. What a mess! Of course, I had to involve ModernTribe. We used a smash glass from Rosetree Glass and had it made into a vase after the wedding. We also had my brother (and ModernTribe co-owner) officiate the wedding. It was actually Andrew’s idea to ask my brother, which made it extra special. He did the best job!

“Get off my sister!”

I have to talk a bit about our song choices. We love music and dancing whether it’s to K-Pop in our kitchen or salsa at La Placita and wanted our choices to be fun to reflect the joyful day. We had disco music playing while people were getting seated pre-ceremony. Andrew walked down the aisle with his parents to “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Baby” by Barry White (so good) and I walked down with my parents to “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin (yes, from Top Gun) and we walked back up the aisle to “Only Wanna Be with You” by Hootie and the Blowfish as our friends threw flower confetti. Such a fun moment!

Andrew and I both love color and live a fun life. Once we decided on The Rattlesnake with the high ceilings, I had this idea for colored lanterns to add vibrancy and fun to the space.  Top That! Event totally delivered on my vision! They also did the whimsical flowers, menus, chuppah and other decor and day of coordination. I loved it all! Our wedding day priorities were delicious food, strong drinks, lively music, and the best people rather than decor, but our touches of tropical color and classy gold really made it feel like us. 

Yay!

I made my signature What Jew Wanna Eat rainbow challah, cut with a kate spade challah knife from ModernTribe, which one of Andrew’s friends lead the blessing over.

A dream!

Since we were planning a wedding in Detroit from Puerto Rico, I wanted to make everything as easy as possible. I highly recommend Mike Staff Productions. We used them for our photographer, videographer and DJ and loved all three! Plus, the whole planning part was super organized and easy. We hardly noticed they were there capturing the day and love how our photos and video turned out. And our DJ played the best song choices and he totally got our style.

I love hosting dinner parties with gorgeous place settings, but that stuff starts to get expensive for dinner for 100! And unnecessary. So I compromised with menus that matched our decor and invitations and love how they added to the look.

The Rattlesnake Club provided the food, and it was some of the best wedding food I’ve ever had, important to a food person like me (and my husband). We had passed apps, an oyster tower, and antipasto during cocktail hour. They normally do a plated dinner, but were so accommodating to our idea to do stations instead to go with our party vibe to keep people dancing, not sitting. We had all our favorites from sushi to a carvings station with horseradish sauce and Caeser salad.

Our signature cocktails were very meaningful to us. The vesper is the first drink we shared together on our first date. I was going to order wine, but had a sip of Andrew’s strong vesper and the rest is history! And now we’re married. And the piña colada and whiskey coco are special to us as drinks from our new home of Puerto Rico. The Rattlesnake also let us choose specific brands of liquor for the bar too, which was essential to my mixologist of a groom. He wooed me with his cocktail making skills, so I knew we had to have excellent wedding cocktails.

How terrified do I look during the hora?!

So. Terrified.

Everyone danced all night – it was so fun!

I didn’t do much DIY even though I love crafting (I’ll save that for my Halloween costumes), but I made some photo booth signs out of black and gold glitter paper with more personal sayings like “Ay Papi” or “Mazel”. People asked where I bought them so I guess they looked legit! Let me know if you have any questions. My main advice is to have fun with planning, don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember why you’re planning a wedding in the first place. It’s not to pick out the perfect shade of peach napkin, it’s to marry your love <3