Wedding company The Knot has announced that WNBA star Elena Delle Donne and her fiancee Amanda Clifton will be this year’s Dream Wedding recipients. This is the fifth year The Knot has chosen a Dream Wedding couple, and the first time the recipients have been a same-sex couple.
Elements of The Knot Dream Wedding ranging from invitations to flowers to attire and jewelry are voted on by America each week. The voting culminates in the couple having the wedding of their dreams.
Delle Donne is a WNBA MVP, player for the Washington Mystics and an Olympic Gold Medalist. The couple’s wedding will have a charity theme. Delle Donne and Clifton will register using The Knot’s Charity Registry Program which allows couples to select charities for guests to donate to in lieu of gifts. Donations will go to the Elena Delle Donne Foundation, which supports the Special Olympics and Lyme Disease Awareness, two causes close to the couple’s heart as Elena’s sister Lizzie was born deaf and blind, and Elena herself has Lyme Disease.
“Elena and Amanda met four years ago after being set up by a mutual friend,” according to The Knot. “Two dogs and three years later, they were both plotting proposals to one another: First, Amanda surprised Elena with an intimate Lake Michigan proposal where their Great Dane, Wrigley, was the star of the show, as Amanda asked Elena to marry her with a ring attached to his collar. A few weeks later, their other dog, Rasta, a black Labrador retriever, took the spotlight in Elena’s proposal. Amanda walked into her and Elena’s Chicago home to find that Elena had laid out an elaborate dinner of all their favorite meals from the places they’d lived on the rooftop of their condo. At the end of the meal, Elena brought Rasta out with a veil on, positioned next to a sign that read, ‘Marry me,’ and proposed to Amanda, ring in hand.”
The couple will tie the knot in June. Planning for their wedding will begin on April 17.
Photo Credit: The Knot / Hudson Nichols Photography
