Hannah + Scott

How did you meet?

He was a regular at the athletic club where I worked. He was friends with most of the other trainers, but not me. One day, my coworker said, “You don’t know Scott?!”, introduced us, and the rest is history.

#WeddingGoals

We knew we didn’t want a traditional wedding and that we wanted it to be very “us”.

How did the planning go?

We rescheduled several times for different reasons which was stressful and ended up with a much longer engagement than we planned.

How would you describe the ceremony?

The ceremony had special elements sprinkled in throughout that made it unique to us as a couple. First, the ceremony arch was built by Scott (my wedding gift) in the style of a Japanese torii gate, because I studied Japanese and lived in Japan. Our officiant was my “surrogate mother” from childhood, and we wrote our own vows. We also did a Japanese hand-fasting ceremony called Sansankudo, which we involved our mothers in as well. Lastly, he stomped on a glass bottle to pay homage to my Jewish heritage.

Special Cultural Feature

We did a Japanese hand-fasting ceremony as well as the Jewish breaking of the glass, and everyone shouted “mazel tov!” We also had paella caterer for dinner cooked on site, because I have Spanish heritage.

#VendorRaves

All of our vendors were incredible. We did a lot of our organizing and planning ourselves, but these vendors offered their guidance above and beyond what they committed to in a contract and really supported us.

Hannah’s Favorite Detail

I loved how much we incorporated ourselves into the wedding. We had the almond croissants we ate when he proposed, there were maneki nekos (lucky cats) we had 3D printed and rigged to hold all our table numbers and signage because we love cats, we had the wedding at my childhood home, and only invited close friends and family. It felt so familiar, comfortable, and special. Like in the movie Big Fish when all the people who love and remember you pass before your eyes, delighted to be there and celebrate you—that’s how it felt.