Monday, March 18, 2024

Summer 2018 Wedding Guide

Aja and Dale Pope

Married June 18, 2010 | Renewed their vows April 7, 2018LBP_Aja-and-Octavia_152

Bride | Aja Pope, 32

Occupation: Intensive Care Nurse at St. Charles Hospital
Three ways to describe your partner: Man of integrity. Funny. Hard working.
Your first impression of him: My first impression of my husband was that he was cute and very quiet. At first I thought he was too quiet, but that ended up being one of the things I love most about him. I knew he would keep me grounded.

What did you wear?
When Dale and I first got married we kept it very simple. We went down to the courthouse with a few close family and friends and had a BBQ afterward. This time around, for our vow renewal, I had two different dresses. One for the ceremony and one for the reception. My ceremony dress was the last one I tried on after a day of shopping, an Essence of Australia gown. My reception dress was the very first dress I tried on, a Madison James gown. Both were purchased at a great price at Belle Amour during the week of National Bridal Sale events (July 21-28, 2018. nationalbridalsaleevent.com).

Groom | Dale Pope, 34

Occupation: Manufacturing Operator at First Solar
Three words to describe your partner: Smart. Beautiful. Caring.
Your first impression of her: My first impression of my wife was that she was a girl that knew what she wanted. When everyone else was still trying to figure themselves out, she always had a plan. That’s what made me fall in love with her.

What was it like seeing her walk down the aisle?
I had the biggest smile because I knew this was the woman I would spend the rest of my life with. I thought she looked so beautiful.

How did the renewal compare to your wedding?
The renewal was great! It was really a day to remember. Our original wedding day was amazing as well. Simple good fun! The only thing that set the 2 days apart was my mom’s presence the day we first married (she’s now deceased).

Flowers: Bartz Viviano. Amanda was awesome.LBP_Aja-and-Octavia_157

Ceremony and reception venue: Parkway Place. We toured Parkway Place and fell in love immediately! The staff there was excellent. Everything turned out great.

Décor: We did most of the decorating ourselves. Chairs were from Chiavari Chairs.

Coordinator: Elizabeth from Parkway Place.LBP_Aja-and-Octavia_458

Music/entertainment: DJ Pete.

What made your renewal special?
What really made our renewal special was that our kids, parents, and the people closest to us were there to witness this time. It was also special because we were making the commitment AGAIN, with the understanding of what it takes to make a marriage successful.

What made you want to renew your vows?
We wanted to celebrate still being in love. People often celebrate new love, but we seldom see couples celebrating continued love for one another. We wanted to show people that marriage can be great!

How did you two first meet?
We actually met at Burger King back when we were in high school. My cousin, Octavia, was dating his brother, Nate (that’s the couple we had the double wedding with). The three of us worked there at the time. I was working when Dale came in and I told Nate to give him my number. We went to prom together and always remained good friends. We finally ended up really dating in 2007 and he asked me to marry him on my birthday in 2010. We’ve been together ever since.

Was your renewal ceremony big or small? How did you decide?
Our renewal ceremony was ginormous! We renewed our vows with his brother and my cousin (who are also married) and we had a wedding party of 40+ people. We decided to do a double ceremony after Octavia and Nate had already started planning their vow renewal. We originally planned on renewing our vows with a destination themed wedding, but since we literally shared the same family and friends on both sides we decided it would be a better idea to do it together.

Cake/sweets: Paula with Toledo Wedding Cakes.LBP_Aja-and-Octavia_647

Other details: Renaissance Hotel for getting-ready photos. We had the most amazing photographer (Lindsay with Luckybird Photography) and Belle Amour was simply phenomenal! Couldn’t have asked for a better experience.
LBP_Aja-and-Octavia_062

Tips and tricks for future couples

For the brides: Shop for your dress during National Bridal Sale event—you will save a lot of money that way. (July 21-28, 2018 | nationalbridalsaleevent.com).

For the couple: Just have fun during the entire process. It can, and will, get stressful, but try to enjoy the ride because it goes by very fast. Lastly, hire a wedding coordinator! That will take a lot of stress off of everybody.

Eylene & Kevin Wachowiak

Married Saturday, June 24th, 2017LBP__Eileen-and-Kevin_0142

Bride | Eylene Wachowiak, 32

Occupation: Tax manager at Rehmann.
Three ways to describe your partner: Funny. Adventurous. Loyal.
Your first impression of him: He was very confident and bold. And I noticed his cute dimples.

Did you imagine your wedding day as a little girl?
Honestly, I don’t think I was a normal little girl that fantasized about my wedding day much, but it turned out to be absolutely perfect.

Tell us about your dress.
I bought it from Atlas Bridal. I worked with Candy, who picked up on what I liked right away and found me this beautiful dress. It was ivory lace, and I guess the shape would be closest to mermaid or trumpet. It had a semi-low back and spaghetti straps with some beading on them and on the bust. Jo was the seamstress that did my fittings. She went above and beyond, and I was so grateful for her. It took a lot of alterations to get my dress to fit and she was so patient and understanding.

Groom | Kevin Wachowiak, 34

Occupation: Traffic signal technician.
Three ways to describe your partner: Beautiful. Smart. Quirky.
Your first impression of her: Oh, she’s a tough one.

What was it like seeing her walk down the aisle?
Majestic, like seeing a unicorn for the first time.

Flowers: Bokay Boutique. Cristina was so bubbly and fun to work with. You can tell she has such a passion for what she does. She did an amazing job with everything. I didn’t have specific flowers in mind, just told her colors, and she ran with it. She created a beautiful arrangement for our ceremony arch, and I loved our bouquets with an assortment of a bunch of different shades of purple flowers and some of those fuzzy, mint green leaves. They were gorgeous.LBP__Eileen-and-Kevin_0184

Decor: I kept it pretty simple. I bought a bunch of loose flowers, and one of Kara’s staff arranged them for all the tables. He did an excellent job! Our colors were purple and gray. I chose purple napkins and chair sashes, that were all part of the package with Stone Ridge.LBP__Eileen-and-Kevin_0498

Wedding coordinator: Kara Higdon is part of the deal when booking with Stone Ridge. She was awesome.

Photographer: Luckybird—so great to work with! I loved their easygoing and fun style, and they captured so many perfect moments. I am really happy that we chose them to photograph our wedding. We have some incredible photos that we will cherish forever!

Music/entertainment: DJ Diamond Lee (Damon Lee) did an awesome job with keeping the timing of events moving smoothly and getting people on the dance floor! He was really fun and professional.

Wedding venue: Stone Ridge Golf Club in Bowling Green. I loved the layout of the reception area, and the idea of it being right by the green that we got married on, so guests didn’t have to leave and go anywhere else. There is this awesome patio that connects to the reception room that is all along the whole side of it. We were able to open the doors and enjoy the perfect summer night. Kara Higdon, the wedding coordinator, was absolutely amazing. She was a big factor in our decision on the venue. She made me feel super comfortable about booking with them, and she took care of all the details and made sure our day went smoothly. Everything was perfect.

How did you two first meet?
We met at Chuck’s on Monroe St. I was at the bar ordering a beer, and Kevin came up behind me, reached over my shoulder, and paid the bartender for my drink before saying a word to me.

Who popped the question, and how?
Kevin did. It was in a very random and low key, but perfect way, because it was totally unexpected. It was a really warm and nice summer night, and he borrowed a convertible to drive around in. He took me to dinner, then afterwards we just drove around in the convertible for a while enjoying the weather. When we got home and he pulled in the driveway, he asked me to open the glove box to push the button to close the convertible top. The ring box was in there. Then he just casually said, “What is that?”

Did you have a long engagement?
It was just shy of two years, which I don’t think was that long.

During the wedding planning process, did you ever want to elope and just get it over with? Sometimes yes, but it’s a one time thing, and it was really awesome to be able to celebrate that day with all our family and friends.

Three words to describe the wedding: Fun. Memorable. Happy.

Was your wedding big or small? How did you decide?
We had about 170 guests, so I feel like that is right in the middle.

Couple: This was one of our stops in BG after the ceremony and before the reception. I wanted to make sure we had time after pictures, to get a couple drinks, because we were all ready to start celebrating!
Couple: This was one of our stops in BG after the ceremony and before the reception. I wanted to make sure we had time after pictures, to get a couple drinks, because we were all ready to start celebrating!

What made your wedding special?
We both love a lot of the same bands from our high school days, so the string duet played an old Fall Out Boy cover for our ceremony exit song, and our first dance was to a New Found Glory song. For the garter toss, Kevin ran off then came back dressed in a Top Gun outfit, with the song “Danger Zone” playing, and ran around with his arms spread out mimicking an airplane.

Tips and tricks for future couples

Our photographer suggested doing a first look, which I was initially against, but it ended up being a great idea for us. It made the timing less stressful throughout the rest of the day, and helped calm my nerves before the ceremony.LBP__Eileen-and-Kevin_0847

Rehearsal dinner: Tea Tree Asian Bistro. Relaxed but classy atmosphere, closer to the venue than coming back to Toledo, and my family owns it so I got a discount (laughs).

Cake/sweets: I won a raffle for our cake from So Sweet Bakery and also bought a sheet cake to make sure we had enough for everyone. Our cake was three tiers with simple white frosting, we went with buttercream. We had a few flavors. One was fresh strawberries and white chocolate and there was also a chocolate one. I actually didn’t get a chance to eat any at the wedding cake other than what was on my face after the cake cutting! So Sweet was great to work, everyone there is so nice.

Any other fun details: Shout out to our friend Evan Lanigan, who jumped in the pond at Stone Ridge. The coordinator told me that a groundskeeper found his shoes the next day. I am also really thankful to my cousins for providing a photo booth for our wedding gift. My cousin Jade owns Picture This Picture Booths, and although we weren’t planning to have a photo booth, it ended up being a lot of fun for our guests.LBP__Eileen-and-Kevin_0510

Recent Articles