The day was completely personalized and very intimate. We had less than 30 guests in attendance of our closest friends and family so that everyone truly played a part in the ceremony. Our guests were able to submit “community wishes” to be read aloud at the ceremony and everyone was witness to our “promises” or vows that we made to each other – hearing them for the first time on the day.

One of the most unique and fun parts of the ceremony was the hand-fasting or hand-tying as it’s called. It is a Celtic tradition that we wanted to incorporate to honor our time living in Scotland together and the British half of my family (my wife is from the UK). We used tartan ribbon from Edinburgh (my wife’s home town and where we first lived together) along with our other favorite colors of purple (my favorite) and green (her favorite) to symbolize the bond we were creating with our marriage. As each ribbon is placed, vows are read and repeated aloud by both partners until they are tied in a moment similar to the modern day exchanging of rings. It was such a joyous moment to be able to quite literally “tie the knot” in front of our new family – it’s something we will never forget, and it’s a tradition that most of our guests had never seen or heard about.

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Our inspiration was Spring! The theme was very cherry blossom and D.C.-inspired as D.C. is one of our favorite cities and a place we frequently flew in and out of during our long distance relationship. Purple has always been a favorite color of ours, so we wanted to highlight different shades as well as to incorporate pinks for the blossoms. My grandmother and my wife’s mother are big into flowers and gardening so it was important to honor them with our choices. Every guest received a pink rose to go along with the cherry blossom backdrop. Our bouquets truly represented us with our favorite colors!

We both wanted to feel beautiful in dresses that complemented our figures and felt elegant/classy! We chose our looks together from the start, going to every fitting and alteration appointment together so that we could be coordinated on the day.

From the couple, Gabrielle and Sarah