Wedding Wednesday's 1st Guest Star...Emily and John Handy's Wedding!!!

Elyse and I are sooooo excited to write about Emily and John Handy's wedding!!  It was absolutely beautiful!  Elyse and I have been great friends with Emily for years now.  I met Emily when we hired in together at the same High School...she is a math teacher too!!!  She has been my saving grace throughout this career!!   Elyse also met Em when she started student teaching at the High School.  Elyse and I both attended this glorious event, I as a bridesmaid and Elyse as a guest.

Emily and John met almost exactly three years prior to their wedding date. They were the watching MSU vs. Notre Dame at a mutual friends house. Emily was grading papers (and enjoying the game) when John approached Em and asked if he could help! After a short facebook courtship they were inseparable.

John proposed at a drag show in Pentwater, MI. Talk about original! He certainly achieved the element of surprise!

They were married September 15, 2012 (once again on the day of the MSU vs. Notre Dame football game). Ceremony and reception were both at the Community House in Birmingham.

Here are just a few of the wonderful touches that made their day "their own"....PERFECT!!!

One of Emily's favorite touches they added was the HE/SHE canvases. Because John's entire family is out of town, as well as Emily's dad's family, they wanted to include something that would tell John's family about Emily and vice-versa. They included serious and funny things for a total of 20 each. Emily's mom made a pdf file for them and we uploaded each (just like a picture) to canvasdiscount.com. They had them displayed by the bar so people could read them. So many people were commenting and laughing that they both got it "just right" when they highlighted each others' personalities and quirks. They are now displayed in their home as a reminder of the day!

The wedding colors were really important to Emily. She has always loved citrus colors and orange has been her favorite forever. Emily didn't want us ladies to have to wear an orange dress, so she went with charcoal grey (for the dresses), along with orange and lime green (as accents). She really wanted the colors to pop and be dramatic. She had each of us girls pick different green or orange shoes to tie in the bouquets...I chose orange...SO fun!!

Emily felt that ceremony decor was the most important. She made pomander balls out of fake flowers to save money. The orange and white were purchased at gandgwebstore.com for CHEAP and went together quickly. They didn't have a green shade that she liked, so her friends helped make the others with crepe paper (she fed us and gave us wine). They took awhile, but were worth it. They ended up beautiful and we got some quality girl time in while we made them!

They ordered the guy's boutonierres from Etsy. She didn't want flowers but needed to tie the orange and green in somehow for the boys. Their invitations had swirls on them, so these tied in nicely.

Emily & John wanted to do a unique guestbook, instead of the old "write your name down because you were here" deal. Emily came up with the idea to scrapbook some pages where guests could give advice to look at through the years. Each page had a title and they asked people to fill out as many pages as they'd like.  Pages included Day After the Wedding, Honeymoon, Daily Lives, First Child, First Family Vacation, First Anniversary, First Fight, Fifth Anniversary, New Home, Twenty-fifth Anniversary, and First Grandchild. They wanted to include pages so that everyone felt they could contribute something. Just looking at what some people were writing the night of the wedding, those pages were a definite laugh. In fact, before they left for their honeymoon they read their Honeymoon page and she said it was a riot! People left a lot of good advice and a lot of funny comments.

Against everyone's advice, she had her one and a half year old nephew be their ring bearer, even though people mentioned to her that it can be a nightmare for photographers, coordinators and whatnot. Her sister-in-law walked him down the aisle and while he did sit down about halfway, it worked out. He was absolutely adorable!!!!

Emily found her dress at Demetrios in Troy. It was the third one she tried on and never in a million years would have guessed that style was the one for her. She said that people sure are right when they say try everything on! You just never know. Emily said that the only advice she would give to someone is to make sure you can sit in it... especially if you have a corset back. It was a shock to her when she sat down at the reception because that was literally the first time that she tried to sit in the dress...ever. :-)

When asked what her most favorite thing was about the day? Her reply: The groom.  (Love her!)  :-)

Here are the vendors that helped make this day so wonderful:

All pictures taken by Amanda Dumouchelle amandadumouchellephotography.com

Venue: Community House tchserves.org

Flowers: from Costco, arranged by Judy Palmgren and Janine Rie

Dress: Demetrios of Troy 

Salon: Virtuoso in Birmingham virtuososalon.com

Invitations, placecards, programs, table numbers: Patty Dressler

Food: 2 Unique Catering twounique.com

DJ: Mike Frazier prestigeentertainment1.com

Thank you sooooo much, Emily, for sharing your amazing wedding with Exceptionally Chic today! We would love to hear from our readers for Wedding Wednesdays! If you'd like to be featured, have good ideas to share, or did something unique at your wedding, contact us! We'd love to put you on the blog!