Our Wedding: Cocktails & Reception

And now we've come to the last of the posts on our wedding - the cocktail hour and the reception. In case you missed them, here are the rehearsal, getting ready, our first look, photos around town, the ceremony, and some of our decor details.

Photos by Cristina G

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Our Wedding: Details

It's all about the details when it comes to a wedding, amiright? Based on the approximately 1,000 things I pinned, I decided to bling it up with lots of gold, as well as play off of the whole zoo thing, because, well, tiny gold animals are adorable. The animal placecard holders were actually the first thing I decided on for our wedding (you know, besides the venue... and the groom...) and they turned out so freaking cute - a lot of people took them home, so I see these little guys all over the place ;) 

One of my favorite decisions we made was to have a bunch of little cakes. We had around 200 guests, so we ended up with one big cake for cutting and six little cakes to go on tables. We picked 5 different cake/frosting/filling combos (my favorite was chocolate + salted caramel - yum!) and the true cake afficianatos managed to try each one. Some of the cakes were decorated with flowers and our table numbers (from Better Off Wed - message me if you want these, I'd be happy to sell them!) and others were topped with little animals - I saw that our planner topped one with a whole herd of ostriches! 

These little guys were inspired by this tutorial, although the wire they suggested did NOT work for me and actually ended up causing a few minor injuries - instead I used this. These are the little animals I used. I also bought this bigger set for other display animals - I tried a couple of other brands but they didn't particularly enjoy being painted.

We also put out pictures of the two of us from the ages that matched the tables, which was super adorable until we both turned 11 or 12 - that awkward phase is for reals. One of our friends took a photo home with him, and I saw it proudly on display at a Superbowl party over the weekend - let's just say my middle school uniform was not cute. Nor were my giant round glasses ;) 

Photos by Cristina G

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Our Wedding: The Ceremony

Phew, more wedding photos! The ceremony and reception were both at Cafe Brauer at the Lincoln Park Zoo. I go to the zoo way more often than a normal person (when I lived in the area my morning runs took me right past the lions ;) and I literally didn't realize this building existed until people started mentioning it to me as a potential wedding venue. We were looking for places that brought the indoors in (since Jeff and I are way too risk-adverse to plan an outdoor wedding!) and when I walked up the stairs into the main room for the first time I knew this was the place. It was a good thing we decided to go indoors too, because as soon as we started the ceremony it started to rain. That's good luck, right?

See the huppah? My dad made that! It was originally just for my brother's wedding, but then I decided to use it too. Now it's planted in my parent's back yard :) 

Photos by Cristina G

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Our Wedding: Photos Around Town

What? More wedding photos?! I know, I know, they're never going to end ;) After our first look on the riverwalk, we went to Olive Park and the Lincoln Park Zoo for more photos, during which the weather somehow went from cool and foggy to sunny and hot to about to pour. Oh, Chicago in the spring ;) 

Dresses - Donna Morgan (short and long). We decided on dresses just before my sister realized she was pregnant - luckily the dresses were from Nordstrom, easy returns! 

Photos by Cristina G

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Our Wedding: First Look

Okay, so I didn't "get" first looks before our wedding. I didn't actually even really want to have one. Buuuuuuuut... because of our venue's schedule, we weren't able to have the ceremony until 6. And with Chicago's traffic, that wouldn't have given us the time to go anywhere for photos. So I accepted that we would have to do pre-ceremony photos, which meant a first look.

And now that I got to do one, I am so glad I did. It was really special to have a private moment with Jeff (even though we were in a not so private area!) before the craziness of the day. We didn't quite realize that the riverwalk had just opened and that the city was crawling with extra people because the Blackhawks had just won the Stanley Cup, and the riverwalk was packed! Our photographers managed to clear out a little area for us, and everyone on the riverwalk (and in the boats on the river... and on the streets above) cheered when I tapped Jeff on the shoulder and he turned around. We were so excited that we just kept talking and talking (ahem, and waving at boats) until the photographers had to shout at us to start posing.

Photos by Cristina G

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