Adam and I had a very memorable, 14-plus inches of snow, completely snowed in, engagement in my home state Michigan right before Christmas in 2013.  It was simply magical and now thinking back, it almost seemed like a foreshadowing of our wedding day weather: unexpected, yet perfectly dreamlike.

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When we started the planning process, we knew right away we wanted our wedding to include all of our friends and family. We thought the best place for that was Columbus, Ohio where we met, went to school, got our adorable dog and started our lives together. We were both very busy with work – I own a few Pure Barre studios and Adam is in the Athletic Communications Department at The Ohio State University – so we knew we needed help to pull off our big day. A mutual friend recommended Meleka Jolliff of MMJ Events. The moment I met her I knew she was the planner for us. Not only did she have amazing work, but we clicked right away and quickly become friends! Meleka was there every step of the way with our planning process. We had a vision of a church ceremony and a tent reception and she helped turn it into a wedding masterpiece.

Since Adam and I had so many guests from out of town we wanted to share our love of Columbus and Ohio State with everyone. We had Brutus, Ohio State’s mascot, take pictures and dance with guests during cocktail hour and for our wedding favor everyone received buckeye candy. For dinner we did a station setup and had a “Tour of Columbus” theme that highlighted some of our favorite Cameron Mitchell restaurants, a Columbus restaurant group.

When we began the design aspect we knew we wanted my blush Vera Wang dress and our clear span tent to be the focus and the theme of the reception. We went with acrylic invitations, chairs, candelabras and table numbers to compliment the tent. We used blush draping, napkins, flowers and water glasses to tie my dress in. Both Posy and Ink and Ivory really capture our vision. When we had our big reveal with Meleka we were blown away at how everything turned out. It was perfection.

The most amazing part of the day was the double rainbow that appeared after dinner. You wouldn’t know it by looking through the pictures, but Mother Nature hit us with a downpour right as dinner was starting. Luckily, we were all under the tent, and got to watch the rain through the clear tent. And right when we were about to start dancing, the sky cleared and a double rainbow appeared. We couldn’t believe it! It was an incredible treat and the cherry on the top of an absolute perfect day.

The last thing we knew we wanted was a band to not only get everyone out onto the dance floor, but keep them there! Swagg accomplished that and more! They kept the energy up all night and our guests couldn’t stop talking about how fun and entertaining they were. Everyone was dancing and singing along to every song well past midnight!