Our PDX Wedding

It’s been a year since I married my best friend here in the city we’ve fallen in love with and are so happy to call home. How time passed so quickly, I’m not entirely sure, but here we are in a new spring season with all kinds of new adventures behind us and before us.

I wanted to take some time to walk through the day as I remember it a year later. It was easy to say, from our perspective, that everything went according to plan. That was mostly thanks to an amazing group of people who helped pull our wedding day together and bring our vision to life. I can easily say I wouldn’t change a thing about how the day turned out.

Getting Ready

We spent the night apart and got ready separately for the first half of the day. I’m not sure how it is for other people, since this is the only wedding I’ve experienced as not a guest, but I felt the opposite of rushed that day.

Mike started his day getting a really nice haircut and shave before meeting up with his brother for lunch. We stayed at the Duniway hotel in downtown Portland for a few nights, and it was such a cool and central place to be for our wedding weekend. After lunch, they headed back to Mike’s room and took their time getting ready with a few drinks and some brotherly bonding time.

My mom and my sister came to help me get into my things after Bri from Portland Makeup and Hair worked her magic. We still had to get the last few wrinkles out of my dress, but once that chore was done, it was time to stop admiring and start wearing my favorite dress.

Prior to seeing this dress from Bhldn, I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to wear a wedding dress. It was the first dress that gave me heart eyes, and the few dresses I looked at and tried on after could never hold ground against it. I’m so thankful to the work put in by Julie from Silhouette Studio to make my dress fit me just right, especially considering she had to cut what felt like a foot of fabric away before it wasn’t taller than me anymore.

First Looks

Once we were all dressed and ready to go, Mike and I met in the lobby for our first look. We still had a few hours to go until wedding time, and took a walk around the area with our photographer, Carina Skrobecki, to take in the amazing spring scenery. Portland in the spring is truly magical to me.

One thing we did was write letters to each other that morning while we were on our own. We wanted to make personal, private vows to each other before we shared our carefully crafted vows at the ceremony. Our wedding was meant to be a public declaration of our commitment to each other, but the intimate moments and words we were able to share between just us helped solidify our commitment into taking this big step together.

Location, Location

We eventually ended up at the Ecotrust building, our venue for the festivities. When we had to choose where to have our wedding, Portland was the easiest choice for us. The city had become our home so quickly, and we wanted the chance to share the place we had fallen in love with and hit our stride in with everyone we cared about.

Selecting a venue within the City of Roses wasn’t all too difficult either. We often found ourselves exploring the Pearl District and had walked by the Ecotrust building many times. It’s rooftop terrace, central location, and focus on sustainability put it at the top of our list. It was the first place we toured, and cancelled all other tours after, because we knew we’d found the place.

We really wanted to embrace Portland, which became our unofficial wedding theme. The city influenced pretty much all our choices when it came to putting this wedding together. From the food to the decor, Portland made itself known.

Our trek through town had a purpose, as we were meeting our families at Ecotrust a couple hours before the ceremony for photos. We wanted to invite our nieces and nephews for the photos, because let’s be honest! the only family photo anyone truly cares about is the one with all the little ones in it. We ultimately had a kid-free ceremony, but are so appreciative of the family for bringing them along for the rest of the weekend. We’re also still amazed to this day how Carina was able to wrangle the entire group of us to take the long list of family photos in under 15 minutes. Superpowers.

The little ones needed to be wrangled back to the hotel for the evening, which gave us a couple hours still for a few more shots of just the two of us. It was purposeful, planning so much time between things. The whole day moved along but never felt rushed. An hour before go-time, we settled ourselves in to a back room at Ecotrust, well taken care of by Kayla and Valerie of CK Events who were handling our day-of coordination. It was a much needed moment of rest before we were in the spotlight for the rest of the night.

Ceremony

A lot of effort went into getting our ceremony just right, and every bit of it was worth it. Melissa Coe was our officiant, and all the homework she’d given us in the months leading up ensured that our ceremony was 100% us. We really wanted to focus on our partnership and equal footing, bucking many of the more common parts of traditional wedding ceremonies. To start things off right, we walked into the ceremony hand-in-hand. It was important to us to take this step together, even if it meant doing things a bit different from expectation.

While I can’t quite recall all the details (though I do have the transcript), I know Melissa crushed it. She had our guests laughing and crying, often at the same time, as she shared our story and oversaw our union. We loved that she also embraced our non-traditional bridal party choices, having my sister and Mike’s brother instead stand by us and bear witness to our exchange of rings. They also joined us as we signed our marriage certificate, forever writing their names beside ours to signify our commitment.

Aside from the ceremony itself being wonderful, we lucked out with the Portland weather that day. The entire week leading up, the forecast, in proper Portland fashion, fluctuated between sunny and rainy for our ceremony. But the sun shone in a bright spring sky for a truly spectacular backdrop to our rooftop ceremony.

Dinner + Dancing

At the very start of our wedding planning process, Mike and I each made a list of the three most important aspects of our wedding. Two items matched on both our lists: the food and the music/dancing. We knew from the start that this was going to be a big focus of our budget, and it was worth it to make some other concessions to make these two pieces the star.

We worked with ChefStable Catering, who were keen to help us realize our vision for a hyper local, in season menu. It was a big bonus for us that they adapted the menu for specific guests with dietary restrictions on a per guest basis. That meant no one had to worry if they could eat every bite on their plate or not.

ChefStable Catering also took on our request for a soup course, a dish that several have asked for the recipe since. I can’t blame them, I really want to recreate that soup myself!

Because food was such a big deal for us, we took the time to sit down and enjoy dinner with our guests. After being on our feet for so much of the day, it was revitalizing to sit down with good company to an amazing dinner. I highly recommend, if you’re planning a wedding, to make taking time for dinner a priority. I’ve heard of so many people who never get to eat at their own wedding, and I would have really felt like I’d missed out if I hadn’t eaten every course.

Along with a dinner showcasing local ingredients, we went for dessert options that couldn’t get more Portland. We skipped the wedding cake and opted for a Blue Star donut bar and Salt & Straw ice cream kiosk instead. Suffice to say, both were a hit.

Towards the end of dinner Mike and I snuck away with our photographer for some private photos on the rooftop terrace at sunset. We then came back down to open up the dance floor. Many of our guests were surprised to find out we had been taking ballroom dance lessons as we took to the floor for a choreographed dance to Something Just Like This.

We then opened up the dance floor to all our guests, and the Blue Wave Band, our live band for the evening, kept at least one couple on the dance floor at all times for the rest of the night. We loved that the dance floor was never empty, and spent a good part of the rest of our time movin’ and groovin’.

Extra Bits

It’s impossible to share every detail of our wedding day, though I certainly tried my best to hit all the highlights. It was an amazing celebration of love and family and the city we’ve settled down in.

There are a couple more features I wanted to highlight, though. Including our amazing florist Heather of Sea of Roses, who somehow made my dreams of all green and white florals and foliage a reality, while keeping things local and in season (and on budget!). She really put the finishing touch on every corner of our wedding celebration, from the tiny, multi-purpose bouquet I held for photos to the greenery wall behind our donut bar and the beautiful installation above the fireplace for our ceremony.

Carina Skrobecki did an insane job capturing our wedding day. We will get to cherish the memories forever and get to look at an amazing collection of photos to remind us of all that transpired. On top of everything, it felt like we were spending the day with a friend by our side, cheering us on from the sidelines.

And I can’t forget to give an extra shout-out to Kayla and Valerie of CK Events, who handled our day-of coordination in a way I still can’t fully believe. They took care of every detail I had planned and dreamt up and ensured I didn’t have to worry about a single thing the entire day.

I really want to thank all the vendors that made our day what it was:
Venue: Ecotrust @ecotrustevents
Day-of Coordination: CK Events @ckeventdesign
Photography: Carina Skrobecki Photography @caskro
Florals: Sea of Roses @sea.of.roses
Officiant: Melissa Coe Ceremonies
Music: Blue Wave Band @bluewaveband
Catering: ChefStable Catering @chefstablecateringpdx
Rentals: The Party Place @thepartyplace