Our Wedding Day

Chris and I finally tied the knot! After knowing each other since 2009, and living together for over 6 years, we made it official on February 4th, 2023. Here I share all the details of our big day, documented in these beautiful photos by our wedding photographer, Lauren K. Downing.

The Dresses and Tuxedos

It took me forever to decide on a wedding dress! I actually chose and ordered a dress from David’s Bridal about 10 months before the wedding, but when I got it in, I changed my mind. It was a beautiful dress but there was just something about it that I wasn’t 100% happy with. I started looking for other dresses and I think I visited every bridal shop in Orlando! I was getting pretty frustrated.

One day I decided to try out one more bridal shop, One & Only Bridal, and found a couple of dresses that I really liked. I didn’t buy anything that day, but went on the website for Essense of Australia (the brand I liked the most at O&O) and saw a gorgeous dress I wanted to try. I reached out to the store, and they had just placed an order to get that dress in! A week later I went in to try it on, and it was perfect! I ordered it that day and am so happy with that dress!

My bridesmaids wore pink satin dresses from David’s Bridal, all in different styles they chose. Our flower girl also wore a pale pink dress from David’s Bridal. Chris and his groomsmen, as well as our ring bearer, had tuxedos from Men’s Warehouse. Chris’s one request for the design of the wedding was to have navy blue tuxedos, so that’s what we chose for them! And yes, he let me have full control of the choices for our wedding day! Hence the reason there was so much pink!

My bridesmaids and I all had our hair done by Jessica and Abraham with Triangulum Beauty.

The Venue, Food, and Drinks

Our wedding was held at The Citrus Club in downtown Orlando, Florida. The Citrus Club is located on the 18th floor and has panoramic views of the city. As a city girl at heart, I immediately fell in love with this venue and knew it would be the perfect setting. They do all their own food service and drink service, so we did not need to search for an outside caterer. It was very convenient. The Citrus Club’s event coordinator, Elba, was fabulous and helped calm my nerves before I walked down the aisle.

The club does require that you hire a day-of wedding planner. After a friend’s recommendation, I hired Nicole Squared Events and my day-of coordinator was Alexandria. She was amazing! If you are getting married and do not want to hire a wedding planner for your whole engagement period, at least hire a day-of planner. She kept us on schedule, helped us stay organized, and even bustled my dress and put on my shoes! One hundred percent recommend!

We decided to do a sit down dinner for our wedding reception. Guests had a choice of filet mignon or chicken with prosciutto. As the only vegetarian in the whole wedding, they made me a special pasta with Alfredo sauce. It was divine! We also had an open bar and two signature drinks- the Katniss, a Malibu Mojito; and the Kobe, and Old Fashioned. Our wedding cake was from Morgan Hunter Desserts. She designed our pink cake exactly as I imagined! Our cake was almond flavor with dulce de leche filling. Yum!

The Decor and Flowers

The Citrus Club provided all tables, linens, silverware, glassware, lighting, and draperies, which made the decor pretty easy on my part! We did ivory linens and pink uplights on the walls. We also had gold chevalier chairs for both ceremony and reception, with gold chargers and gold silverware at the dining tables.

Our wedding florist was Danielle Evans from Dream Designs Florist. She was another fantastic vendor! She was very invested in my ideas and really brought my vision to life. We didn’t want to spend a fortune on flowers, so we went more minimal, but it turned out perfect. We used pink roses for my bouquet, white hydrangeas for the bridesmaid bouquets, and a mix of those two flowers for the centerpieces and two large arrangements at the alter. And that’s it! We opted out of boutonnieres and corsages and reused the ceremony arrangements for our sweetheart table during the reception. We also placed mine and the bridemaid’s bouquets at the sweetheart table. It was so beautiful and I couldn’t be happier! I did add my own silk rose petals down the ceremony aisle which I bought off of Amazon and it looked gorgeous!

We added gold glitter letters “E & C” to the sweetheart table, which I found on Etsy. A lot of people suggested skipping favors to save money, but I just couldn’t do it! I figured everyone appreciates food as a favor, so we had the mini cookies from Crumbl Cookies at each place setting. I bought the plastic baggies from Michael’s and ordered the personalized stickers from Zazzle.

We also provided our guests with foldable flats for their dancing feet! These were very popular and I definitely recommend having these available for your guests. Some people provide flip flops, but if you know me, you know how I feel about flip flops!

We didn’t want a traditional guest book that just has signatures, so we added a Fujifilm Instax instant camera so guests could take pics and add them to the guestbook. We provided several packs of film at that table, and it turned out well!

The Music

We hired White Rose Entertainment to DJ our wedding. They played both our ceremony music and the reception. They were so great! Very professional and met with us weeks beforehand for over 2 hours to make sure they played exactly what we wanted. I walked down the aisle to Pachebel’s Canon in D, and then we all exited to Let’s Get Married ReMix by Jagged Edge. It was so fun!

Our first dance at the reception was to Lover by Taylor Swift. Chris and I practiced our self-made dance for weeks! And I think we nailed it!

Then we danced the night away with our family and friends and really had the most incredible night! We also had a private last dance while our wedding planner was coordinating our exit with our guests. We danced to New Year’s Day by Taylor Swift, and it was magical.

Since we couldn’t have sparklers or confetti at the indoor venue, we had our guests send us off with light-up glow sticks I found on Etsy. They had our names and wedding date inscribed on them. It worked out so well, except for the guys who decided to hit Chris in the head with the glow sticks as we exited! Luckily they were foam and it was all in good fun!

Mr. and Mrs. Bower

Our wedding day was the most perfect day. I couldn’t have asked for more- except maybe to be able to do it again! Chris and I stayed at The Grand Bohemian that night, which is right across the street from the venue. About half of our guests stayed there too so we were able to hang out at the lobby bar for a while after everyone changed after our wedding. The Grand Bohemian was stunning and the customer service was on point. I want to stay there again and check our their newly re-opened rooftop bar and pool!

I hope you enjoyed reading more about our wedding and seeing more of the photos. If you want to hear the story of how Chris and I met and how we got engaged, check out my post here!