Preparation Location- The Coach’s Boardroom at the Hilton Garden Inn
Ceremony- Notre Dame Basilica
Reception- Hilton Garden Inn
Florist- Wygant Floral Co.
DJ- 27 Entertainment
hair- Emily Smith (Zach’s cousin)
makeup- Krystal from Sephora will be doing my and makeup for the 6 bridesmaids. She also did my makeup for our engagement photos. Her email is krystalwhyte@hotmail.com
Cake Artist- Mother of the Groom, Becky Bloss (cakebloss@gmail.com) In addition to a 5-tier cake, she is also making around 600 mini cupcakes and setting up the entire dessert display herself!
Father of the Groom, Danny Bloss is carving a bar out of 1800 pounds of ice! The staff at the Hilton will serve from the bar at our reception. Danny sculpts ice for events at Notre Dame and also does weddings, graduations, and private and corporate events around the country. He’s a member of I.O.A. (Ice of America) and does incredible work!
First dance song- Wonderwall by Oasis (We’ve considered this “our song” since before we were even dating. It was the song that was playing the first time Zach asked me to dance.) We had a dance choreographed to the first two minutes of the song. We didn’t tell anyone that we took lessons so it’ll be a surprise.
My gown is from Greta’s Bridal, a great little boutique in South Bend. I also purchased my headband from there. I actually bought TWO of the same headband and had one sewn on the waist of my dress to bring the whole ensemble together. I love it!
My shoes are TOMS to go along with my charity theme of helping less fortunate kids (1 for 1). Specifically they are cheetah print TOMS. Cheetah is one of my favorite things in the world! I have lots of cheetah shoes, underwear, sweaters, etc. I made a joke at my bridal shower about wearing cheetah shoes at my wedding and now the guests are holding me to it 😉 The bridesmaids are also wearing TOMS, but theirs are silver sparkles and less outrageous than mine.
I will be wearing a necklace with a single ruby pendant on it. It is one of the best things about the wedding because it’s a wedding gift from my dad. He collaborated with our family jeweler (who also made my engagement ring and wedding band) and bought 4 matching oval rubies. He had 2 of them made into earrings for my mom, 1 set in a ring for my sister, and 1 set in a necklace for me. He’s going to give us each our gift on my wedding day. He chose the ruby because it is my mom and sister’s birthstone, as well as the birthstone of my wedding month. It’ll be so special to always have a piece of jewelry that ties me to my family.
Another awesome personal touch is my bouquet. It will be wrapped with lace cut from the wedding gown that my mom and her mom wore. Since the dress itself was way too small for me, using a part of it around my bouquet is a way that I can have their dress with me. My sister (the maid of honor) will also have some lace from their dress wrapped around her bouquet. So will my cousin, the older flower girl (she shares the same grandma and my mom is her aunt).
Zach & I volunteered together at the Center for the Homeless in South Bend while we attended ND. We noticed that they didn’t have many educational resources for the kids, and we’d always leave there wishing we could do more. So for our wedding, we’ve pledged to donate children’s books to the center. We’ve been collecting them in lieu of birthday gifts for the past year and hope to raise money at our wedding by doing a donation dance and setting up a display about our mission at the reception. We will shop for more books with the money we raise and deliver the books in person to the kids after our wedding ☺ To go along with our “book” theme and our passion for education, we made bookmarks to give our guests as wedding favors. They have a “thank you” on one side and the Irish Blessing on the other. It ties together our favorite things- Notre Dame and reading!
We made table numbers ranging from 0 to 23 with a photo of each of us from when we were that age. It was time-consuming, but also a lot of fun to go through old photos and put the table numbers together!
We made awesome t-shirts for our wedding party in Notre Dame colors. They say “wed like a champion today” on the back and on the front, we put a shamrock with our last name and wedding date. If you see people wearing those around, you know why!
Kelly and her dad worked very hard on the ceremony program. Since much of Zach’s family is unfamiliar with the Catholic Church, Kelly spent a lot of time adding notes and explanations that will make everyone feel as comfortable as possible during our wedding mass.