Puppy Love at the Courthouse

When Molly Jackson and Jackson Schultz first met, her first impression was of a guy her co-worker had spent a good half of the day crushing on, while his first impression was "I absolutely hate her last name." After developing a strong friendship through summers working at the theater together, that friendship quickly developed into making every decision with each other in mind. Safe to say, Jackson's second thought after meeting Molly was, “Maybe one day I will get to change it for her.” And here's their wedding story

From the Bride:

"My partner and I plan to get married in Iceland on June 5th, 2019. However, we wanted to do a private service one year prior so that certain family members who may not make it to Iceland could attend our marriage. We also thought that might help with the legalities of getting married in another country. We decided to get married exactly one year prior on June 5th, 2018 in downtown Chicago at the courthouse.

To make the day special, we hired an amazing photographer (Melanie Principe Photography) and booked a session at Salvage One to take photos. In my early twenties when I was still interested in a more traditional wedding (not the adventurous elopement we now have planned), I had wanted to get married at Salvage One, so this felt like a great way to pay tribute to that former obsession. We were even more excited to learn that Salvage One is dog-friendly, so we were able to bring our little family with us for our special day. Our puppies were super excited for the little road trip.

After Salvage One, we headed to the loop to get married at the courthouse. We have a couple photos we took quickly in the loop when a man stopped traffic for us (shortly after we were yelled at by a police officer). We pretty much took those photos in front of about 22 stopped cars at the crosswalk honking.

However, warning, the marriage part of the courthouse is super sad looking (see the picture of the dollar store congratulations banner). It’s tucked away in the basement and has none of the glorious vintage ambiance of the upstairs. We had a good sense of humor about it since our WEDDING-WEDDING is next summer in Iceland! We’ve always said that our wedding is about us, not all the crazy extras, so we just laughed at things like the sign that said no food or drink allowed, and the lack of decor.

Don't think that just because you have a small wedding, there won't be wedding crashers. Randomly, a man leaving the courthouse to go to work saw (and knew) my partner's sister, and then he ended up dropping his stuff off at work, and FINDING US in the basement to just show up at the ceremony… It was kind of ridiculous but too funny to not allow. Actually, some of our favorite photos are of us taking a minute to talk in the stairwell after the wedding and laughing our heads off about having a wedding crasher.

We’re very lucky that this was only the beginning. Even though that day was over in a matter of hours, we get to do it all over again on our terms next summer on our one year anniversary in Iceland. That’s when we will add in all the special, personal wedding touches like writing our own vows, having a killer bridal party, eating dinner at Reykjavik’s Ikea, and having the adventure we have been talking about for the past two years!"

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