MODERN SUMMER WEDDING WITH A UNIQUE FLAIR

Chris + Amanda celebrated their summer soiree at Hawthorne House with a chapel ceremony, outdoor cocktail hour and scheduled a traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony before the reception. If you’re looking for ways to incorporate your personality into your wedding day this is the wedding to find inspiration in- I have never met a couple who organically incorporated so much of their story into their wedding day and it was absolutely incredible to see unfold. With a unique photo for each guest built into the seating chart, customized table numbers and a late night snack that will have you DROOLING, Chris + Amanda had an elegant and modern wedding day that, as they put it, was truly a “success”!

Photo by The Waldron Photograph Co.

Where did you meet?

We worked in the same dorm together in undergrad and became friends, but we didn't start dating until several years out of college. We reconnected at a mutual friends wedding when we were living in different states, had several near-misses for the next six months, and finally got together the day before Christmas Eve in 2016. As the saying goes, the rest is history!

What is the proposal story?

Chris and I are big on communication, so we were on the same page regarding marriage -- we had gone ring shopping together and talked about getting engaged in the summer of 2019, after he finished grad school. After all that, he still managed to surprise me with the engagement. He took me to the Overland Park Arboretum on May 25 under the pretense that we were meeting some friends there before lunch -- then told me they weren't coming and dropped to one knee. He surprised me AGAIN when he told me we were meeting our parents for lunch at Rye Leawood to celebrate...only for us to show up and 30+ people -- all my friends and family -- were there waiting! I totally ugly-cried. It was a perfect day. And I still joke that I was the last person to know about my own engagement.

What is your favorite memory from the wedding day?

Amanda: Reading our personalized vows to each other at the ceremony. It was an intimate experience, especially in front of our family and friends.

Chris: Our first look with each other.

What were your priorities during the wedding planning process?

A good guest experience was really important to us -- this may be an unpopular opinion, but we're not the type of bride and groom who think the day is all about us. We've been really lucky to be supported by some incredible people throughout the course of our lives, and we wanted the day to be as much about our supporting players as it was about us. Some of our guest-focused planning decisions included choosing a venue that could host both our ceremony and reception (we didn't want guests to have to travel between locations), and getting our wedding party photos taken before the ceremony so we could maximize time spent with our guests at the reception.

We also wanted to incorporate aspects of our personalities into our wedding day. For example, Amanda loves birds -- we have two pet cockatiels at home! -- so instead of table numbers, we used elegant watercolors of different species of parrots to "number" the tables at our reception. Chris's parents are from China, so we held a brief Chinese tea ceremony at our reception before serving dinner.

What was a last minute addition to the wedding you are SO glad you added?

We'd already booked a day-of coordinator for the wedding, but decided last-minute to upgrade to the month-of planning package, which gave us an additional coordinator on the day of the wedding. Having two sets of helping hands on wedding day instead of one was so helpful -- as the bride, I truly didn't have to worry about anything. Our day-of coordinator kept us on schedule, and she could deploy her assistant when she couldn't be in two places at once. As a result, the day went off without a hitch. That peace of mind was totally worth the cost.

What is one thing you are glad you did throughout the wedding planning process?

Both of us were equally invested in and took on an equal amount of work throughout the planning process. Often, it seems the burden of planning a wedding falls disproportionally on the bride -- Amanda jokes that if this were the case here, this wedding wouldn't have happened, lol! Sharing an equal stake in the planning process made it easy to divide and conquer tasks and let each person take on aspects of planning that were most important to them -- for example, Chris loves food, so he handled the caterer, while Amanda has a sweet tooth, so she vetted bakers for the dessert table. Above all, it was an important opportunity to practice communicating, budgeting, and planning together -- which are crucial skills for us to build as a couple with a lifetime of joint decisions ahead of us.

Photo by The Waldron Photograph Co.

What is one thing you would change about a decision that was made?

Chris and I, along with our day-of coordinator, had meticulously plotted out our timeline for wedding day, but we hadn't built in time for visiting guest tables at the reception. After dinner, we both felt a little pressure to be on the dance floor, but I think we both wish we would've spent more time circulating at guest tables and chatting with our guests who weren't on the dance floor.

What is one piece of advice you would give to engaged couples?

When you're choosing vendors for your wedding -- whether it be the caterer, DJ, photographer, etc -- we recommend choosing people you get along with and genuinely enjoy working with. These are people you'll be communicating with consistently for months, and if they're unpleasant to talk to on your vetting call, you can bet they'll be unpleasant to work with in the months leading up to your wedding (and on wedding day).

A bonus piece of advice for pandemic times: Communication with your guests and vendors is so important! Once we had decided that we weren't going to postpone our wedding, we sent regular email updates to our guests with safety updates (adding hand sanitizer stations; switching from buffet to plated meals; requiring masks for our ceremony). This let our guests know what we were doing to keep them safe during COVID, and allowed them to make an informed decision on whether or not they felt comfortable enough to attend the wedding.

Video by Moontage Films

Vendor Team for Chris + Amanda’s Wedding Day

Venue: The Chapel + Reception Hall at Hawthorne House

Photographer: The Waldron Photograph Co.

Floral: Good Earth Flowers

Coordinator: Pretty + Planned

DJ: Elite Sounds

Beauty: Hello Lovely

Caterer: Scrape the Plate

Cake: Kate Smith Soiree

Rentals: Ultra Pom

Videographer: Moontage Films

Thanks for getting #HitchedAtHawthorne!