Real Weddings Wednesday: Presenting Morgan and Michael Motia

The Couple: Morgan and Michael Motia
Wedding Date: July 2, 2011
Photography by The Goodness Photo & Design
Tell us a little about you and your beloved:  Morgan and I are both trying to become doctors. Morgan wants to be one of those doctors who helps people, so she is in medical school. I am in a doctoral program in religion, so I can ramble on about fourth century church councils or French philosophy, but if you’ve got the flu, I’d go to Morgan.
We met though Morgan’s roommate who was a classmate of mine, and became friends when a group of us started watching that romantic show, 24. Morgan and I found ourselves doing everyone’s dishes. We didn’t mind. In fact, that was our style.
A few months went by and after a facial hair experiment (i.e. fasting from the razor for the 40 days of lent)—I shaved on Easter Sunday, asked her out on Monday, we went on our first date on Tuesday… and we haven’t looked back.
We’ve road tripped across the country and have had our fair share of other adventures, but you’d be most likely to find us sitting on a couch, watching TV, talking about life, or, well, studying. Truth be told, we’re probably at our best sitting in a coffee shop reading material full of words that the average person has never heard (khôratic pyelonephritis), enjoying great coffee (we’ve been all over the country exploring coffee shops), and looking up a little too often to tell a story, to make a joke, or to just say hi.
After a little more than a year of dating, we were engaged June 22, 2010 and were married July 2, 2011 at The Citizen Hotel in Sacramento.
What was the most amazing part of your day?  Morgan will tell you that nothing will ever compare to walking down the aisle with her mom and dad to me and the people we love most (the bridesmaids and groomsmen). Walking into a room full of all the most important people in our lives wasn’t bad either—it is the only time we’ve ever been able to have that many people in our lives in a room for a night.
For me the five minuets or so between the “you may kiss the bride” and when the room cleared out and we started pictures was incredible. It was chaotic, everyone was happy (it was a short ceremony, so people didn’t get bored), people were trying to congratulate us, we were bouncing up and down with excitement. And then pictures started—which was great because we were taking pictures when we were as happy as we had ever been.
What else would you like to share about your big day?  Just as we were about to walk into the reception, Morgan peeked into the room, got a look at our cake and screamed. She was crying walking down the aisle; she was glowing after seeing the cake.

Ceremony Site & Reception Venue: The Citizen Hotel
Photographer: The Goodness Photo & Design (Lisa and Geoff were incredible before, during and after the reception)
Caterer: The Grange
Cake: Freeport Bakery
Flowers: Blooms by Martha Andrews
Favors: DIY. Each table had a “theme” based on something about us (coffee, med school, etc.) And each guest got a favor in line with the theme (coffee beans from our favorite coffee shop, a first aid kit for med school)
Road Trip – CD of music
Pizza Night (our Friday night tradition) – Homemade pizza sauce
Coffee – Coffee beans from our favorite shop
Sushi (every Tuesday for the first year we were dating) – Chopsticks
Vegetarians – Mini tomato plants
Dishwashing (how we met) – Dish soap
Baseball (Mike) – Crackerjacks, baseball score card
Harvard Divinity School (Mike) – Moleskin notebooks
Medical School (Morgan) – First-aid kit
Running (Morgan) – Shoe laces
California – Rainbow sandal keychains
Wedding Dress: David’s Bridal. Altered/detachable black straps at Alterations by Melody.
Bridesmaid Dresses: We had them get any black cocktail dress, necklaces were from Etsy.
Hair & Makeup: Ashley Alice Artistry
Invitations: The Goodness Photo & Design (They were amazing! They did our place cards, logo and thank you cards as well)
DJ/Entertainment/Band:  Extreme Productions Entertainment
Photo Booth: The Goodness Photo & Design
Honeymoon location:  We flew to Paris, then got on a cruise in Copenhagen (Denmark, Norway, Germany, Russia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden), then finished in Geneva, Switzerland.
First Dance Song: “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” by Ingrid Michaelson
Any advice you’d give to our readers who are planning their weddings right now?  Do personal things. Our favors took a lot of time, but our guests loved them, and (more importantly) they were a reminder of why we were getting married. Or to say that another way, have fun planning. The year of our engagement Morgan was a first year medical student in Scranton, PA, and I was finishing my master’s degree in Boston, and we were planning a wedding that was going to be in California. It was a lot of work and logistics but we made it stress free by having fun with it.
Making our day special meant doing something special for the people we love. We put a lot of thought into the food, candy bar, cake, DJ, photobook and favors because these were the things that our guest were going to enjoy. We didn’t want people to feel like we took them coming (especially across the country) for granted.
Anything that you would have done differently if you were given the chance?  We choose to have a served dinner, which I think worked great at the wedding because everyone got to eat at the same time. We hate the waiting in line for buffet food. But it was really difficult the week before trying to make sure we have everyone’s meal correct and it made doing the seating chart that much more difficult.

Photos courtesy of The Goodness Photo & Design.