Romantic Wedding in the Chicago Suburbs

Today we are excited to feature Jonny and Tyler’s real wedding. Not only did they share their gorgeous wedding images but throughout the blog post they were willing to share some of their wedding planning process, from choosing vendors to creating a wedding that was exactly as they dreamed. These blog posts are always our FAVORITE because they seem to get the best advice to new couples that are planning their weddings.

Enjoy this beautiful wedding feature and a huge thank you and happily ever after to Tyler and Jonny!

What was your inspiration for your wedding day?

Simple, whimsical, and elegant. We wanted everything to be classy so we planned our colors around white/ivory, lots of greenery, silvers, and a hint of blue. We also took note while at other’s weddings as inspiration for our own.

Did you plan it yourself or did you have a planner? Would you have done it differently in hindsight?

We did it ourselves and then we had a day-of-coordinator which was our saving grace. If you have the means to have a planner, it would be worth it. However, we did take such great pride in doing it ourselves and seeing the end result!

What was your (and your spouses) favorite memory from the wedding day?

There are so many it’s hard to choose. For both of us it was seeing each other at the end of the aisle. We both were hysterically crying and it was absolutely perfect, a dream we waited our whole lives for, finally happening.

Do you have any regrets or something that you focused on in planning that solved itself on the wedding day?

My personal regret was hurrying my hairstylist. She was taking what seemed like forever to do my hair (and we were away from my bridesmaids) and all I wanted to do was enjoy the day, so I told my hairstylist to just do something easier and different from our trials. I ended up hating my hair once I saw pictures afterwards. The day of, I didn’t care though, I just wanted to enjoy my time, which I did and that was more important to me. 

Also, not eating! I should have eaten in the morning and I ended up stuffing my face with carrots right before the ceremony! So silly and such an easy fix. 

How did you find your vendors?

My husband, Jonny, and I did a lot of research for our vendors whether it was from any of the wedding websites, googling things, and getting recommendations.

Any advice to someone just starting their wedding planning process?

For the planning process: take a breath. Do what the two of you want. You don’t have to make everyone else happy, it’s your day and the important thing is that the two of you are happy. A good reminder throughout the process is that you’re marrying your best friend, you won’t even pay attention to the details that you planned tirelessly for because you’ll be so caught up in all of the love that day! So just have fun with it, be a team, and make sure you still take time with each other while not talking about the wedding. We found an online pre-martial counseling course that we love and helped us prepare for what really matters, the marriage. Because that’s the thing that lasts! So just remember, have fun, build a solid foundation for your marriage, and everything else will fall into place.

For the day of the wedding: take a moment, you and your partner, and step back into a corner of the room while everyone is partying. Take it all in. All of your efforts, hard work, vision, and all of the people you both love are in one room. Get grounded and be present. It’s gratifying and fills you with a snapshot of a memory so the day isn’t as fleeting as everyone says it is.

Anything else you would like to share about your wedding day?

It was magical. I am so lucky to have found my match and married him. We truly made our wedding day, our own. It represented the two of us as a couple. Some cool things, in my biased opinion, that we did for the wedding day:

Our vows: we wrote our own vows separately but decided to compliment each other by saying “I choose” instead of I vow or I promise because we felt like it’s a choice, every day. Promises and vows can be broken and we wanted something that we choose to do for the years to come which made it so special. For example, one of my “vows” was: “I choose you to grow alongside in knowing that we will change throughout our marriage as individuals and together. To see you through each new season you grow through as beautiful and unique as the last.”

Our mutual friend officiated us (who saw our entire relationship from the beginning) and we both sent him our vows to make sure they complimented each other well and also were roughly the same length. We then read them at the ceremony and there was not a dry eye to be seen.

The ceremony: We are an interfaith couple (I am Jewish and my husband is Catholic) and decided to have a non-religious ceremony except for the smashing of the glass. In the Jewish world, the man does this and so for me, the woman, I decided I wanted to do this and it was a big deal to be able to do that as a Jewish woman and have that bless our marriage. Otherwise, our officiant/friend led the ceremony with the theme of love rather than religion and it was absolutely beautiful.

Bridal party: As we were choosing our bridal party I wanted us to, of course, have all of our siblings in it. I have one brother and my husband has two sisters and one brother. I always thought it was silly that, based on the gender, it determines where siblings stand at the ceremony. Especially since your siblings have been through your entire life with you, not your soon-to-be spouse’s. So why have them stand on any other side than your own? I asked my brother to be my Man of Honor (instead of maid of honor) and Jonny asked his sisters to be his Grooms-Maids (instead of groomsmen). It was perfect!

Reception: I’ve seen a lot of different kind of guestbooks at weddings and I always felt like people miss it and it creates a line of waiting. So I wanted to do something different. Instead, we created a time capsule, each table’s number corresponded with our future wedding anniversary years. Everyone was given a card to write on for us to open on that corresponding anniversary. For example, table number 1, we will be opening all of their letters on our 1st anniversary! We are so excited! 

Wedding Pro’s:
Venue: Lincolnshire Marriott Resort 
Photographer: Maddison Rose Photography
Flowers/Décor: MJM Occasions
Additional Décor: Events by M
Dress: Diana’s Bridal
Suit: Men’s Wearhouse
Tie: Jos.A.Bank
Makeup: Glam by Kimber
Hair: Selena at Salon Lofts
DJ/MC: Famos!
Day of Coordinator: Peter Hoffman
Videographer: Xpress Video Productions
Cake: Portillo’s
S’more’s Bars: Bent Fork Bakery
Candy: Simply Candy Buffet
Late night food: Lou Malnati’s