When I receive submissions of real weddings to be featured in my weekly wedding blog post, I am always interested in reading about what a couple decided to do to make their special day unique. I always stress to couples that it isn’t necessary to spend a lot of money to achieve a wedding with very meaningful, memorable elements. Personalized contributions from family and friends, for example, are always great touches at weddings.
Today’s featured couple really took this to heart in the planning of their wedding. Celebrity Makeup Artist and Hair Stylist, M’chel and her husband Dennis, a producer/director for Dark Wing Productions were married in Portland, Oregon. There were so many incredible elements to their wedding that I couldn’t even accommodate everything in today’s blog.
On the couple’s behalf, I would like to extend acknowledgments to Ty Burlingham and Tony Lindstrom of Sunset helicopters (www.SunsetHelicopters.com) and the cake designers at Lamb’s Thriftway (www.LambsMarkets.net). I’m sure you will agree that they really helped make this wedding quite remarkable!
Here is M’chel and Dennis’ wedding story, as shared by the happy bride:
MEETING: We met on January 15, 2009 at a TV station in Beaverton, Oregon at a pre-production meeting for a show Dennis was producing. I was a weight-loss contestant on the show “Northwest Health Challenge”, hosted by Debra Gilmour, and I was referred to the show by Oregon Int’l Pageant Executive Director Lesley Nardini.
PROPOSAL: Dennis is a host of his own talk show called “On The Fly TV” where he interviews celebrities and other people of interest. He had arranged for a live time slot on May 20th, 2009 with 2007 Mrs. Oregon International, Tamara Wissbaum, and 2008 winner, Debra Gilmour. Since we are friends with and work with both women, Dennis invited me to be a guest on the show, as well. Dennis had been working with Debra for sometime to pick out the perfect ring and hide it during the show. Not even his then-16-year-old crew volunteer son, Gabe, knew about it. My sister Allison had unknowingly participated when the day before she sent us a karaoke version of the song “Love Story” by Taylor Swift where she had changed some of the words to fit our personalities. Dennis incorporated it into the show using it as a lead-in for the proposal. Near the end of the show after the video had been played, Dennis whipped out the ring that had been under Debra’s leg the whole show and proposed to me right there on live TV. My heart was pounding and emotions were running wild as my dream had finally come true. The proposal can actually be viewed on the show’s website (www.OnTheFlyTV.org).
LOCATION: We chose the World Trade Center in Portland, Oregon as the wedding venue because of the sophisticated and modern feel of the solid white truces that offered an ideal setting that would leave a lasting impression on our guests. It was centrally located for those guests on both sides of the city and neighboring Vancouver (Washington). The spacious, open-air terrace and relatively quite Sunday downtown was perfect for a wedding.
MORNING OF THE WEDDING: The morning of the wedding, I couldn’t wait to marry the love of my life. I woke up with a smile on my face. I was also very excited to give him his surprise gift at the end of the night, on which I had been working on for six months. It was HUGE! In addition, I was very anxious to get to the venue and start helping decorate and see our vision come to life! Dennis was full of energy and was clearly just as excited to finally settle down and give his two acquired kids a real “Normal” household.
THOUGHTS WALKING DOWN THE AISLE: I could not believe it. Was I “actually” getting married? There was a smile on my face from ear to ear. I was so delighted to be walking down the aisle with my dad, and then to see my future husband waiting for me to take me as his wife. The most amazing short song “Circulatory of Life” composed by Rotem Hecht (an Israeli composer) played as I processed. My heart was beating out of my chest to every beat of the song. Dennis, his groomsmen and my bridesmaids were all gleaming with joy watching me approach and I could hear the “ooo’s”, “ahhh’s” and “she’s so beautiful’s” from our guests that made me feel so special. During the ceremony, there were tears, laughter and lots of smiles as we said our vows that we wrote to each other (Dennis memorized his, I was impressed). Dennis and I danced while leaving our ceremony to my favorite song on the planet “The Way You Make Me Feel” by Michael Jackson. Our wedding party exited to “We Go Together” from my our favorite movie “Grease”.
MOST MEMORABLE PARTS: We intentionally designed our wedding reception to have special entertainment going on all night, which made it very unique. It’s hard to say which part stood out more than others. The ones that stuck out to me are my dress (baby blue, long train, I designed myself), Michael Allen Harrison’s song to us, Dennis’ volunteer story, Amy Roloff’s garter hide n’ seek, water layered cake and Jones Sodas, and perhaps the biggest being the surprise, hour-long helicopter ride. Dennis was blindfolded and chauffeured in a red 1930′s Ford to the helipad where there sat a beautiful royal blue helicopter.
UNIQUE/PERSONAL TOUCHES: Nearly every aspect of our celebrity “Red Carpet Wedding” was a unique and personal touch. It came to life with an amazing event planner to the stars, Carrie Zack (www.CarrieZack.com) and new wedding planning sensation Jessica Dunn of JD Wedding Design. My outfit was a baby blue silk, modern, couture wedding dress designed by myself and made by Allison of Amai Unmei, (www.AmaiUnmei.com), and my shoes were covered with small blue topaz Swarovski crystals that took me about 15 hours to put on with tweezers. We then complemented these elements through the rest of the wedding party’s attire.
I carried a 6-foot scepter/bouquet designed by Kim Foren of Geranium Lake (www.GeraniumLake.com). She also designed four large red lacquered trees dripping with clear crystals and candles for the beginning and end of the aisle. We also wanted to give thanks to our grandparents who have passed, so we designated several chairs with their names in place cards up front, showing everyone how much we miss them and how we wish they could be there on this day.
At the reception, we had a 40-foot red carpet welcoming guests into the reception area to several paparazzi photographers and step & repeat banners with our “G” signature logo made by Wonderful Graffiti (www.WonderfulGraffiti.com).
The cake was made with square, Red Velvet tiers with solid white frosting. Surrounding each layer was a red satin ribbon with 200 square blue topaz Swarovski crystals attached with red roses in alternating corners. The middle of the cake was made up of a 12″ square glass vase filled with blue water with large red and clear crystals inside. Small blue topaz and red Swarovski crystals decorated the outside of our 8″ metal “G” cake topper, handles of the cake server, cake knife, and stems of the flutes made by Shera Rowley of Wedding Mountain (www.WeddingMountain.com).
Throughout the night we had a lot of entertainment, including Caricaturist Barbara Pikus, (www.BarbaraPikusCaricatures.com) and a video booth by Hybrid Moon (www.HybridMoon.com). The video booth was open to anyone who wanted to say something silly or profound.
Then towards the end of the night we had a surprise guest and friend, Michael Allen Harrison, a famous composer, singer and songwriter come back after the ceremony (and a performance in Vancouver) to play a song he wrote for us on the baby grand piano. We ended the night a couple of blocks away at the Nines Hotel and headed out the next evening for the U.S. Virgin Islands where we had our honeymoon in our own private villa for a week before returning to “normal” life.
ADVICE: Have a motivated and caring wedding planner who will be able to help you with design ideas, selecting the right vendors, working within your budget and helping to do the running around on the wedding day. Depending on who your coordinator is, they can help out with a lot more. We are perfectionists and wanted our dreams to come together the way we had envisioned it, and the way we knew it could be done. In our case we had a great duo of people helping. Being in the entertainment industry ourselves, we also put in a lot of time to save money and ensure it was done the way we wanted it to (because even the best in the world can’t fill your shoes, right ladies?). Just as important, you need to have competent day-of coordinators who can figure out how to make everything happen.
Thank you, M’chel and Dennis, for sharing the details of your wedding with all of us! Do you have a real wedding story you would like to share? If so, please email me at the address below with your experience and some photos. You might be the next bride featured in this wedding blog!
If you have questions on this or any other wedding related topic, please post for me here or send me an email to susan(dot)southerland(at)pwg.com. You can also find me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.
Your partner in perfect planning,
Susan
