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Bethany and Brian at Scotland Run Golf Club

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Bethany and Brian at Scotland Run Golf Club

Posted on February 20, 2023 by New Jersey Bride

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How did you meet?
We like to say that we met in the nerdiest way possible – at an engineering conference! Both of us were nominated by the heads of our engineering departments at our respective colleges (Rowan for Bethany and NJIT for Brian) to attend Transforming Undergraduate Engineering Education (TUEE) in Crystal City, Virginia in April 2015. Forty schools from across North America were invited to participate and only one student from each school was selected to attend. The conference only spanned from a Friday afternoon to a Saturday afternoon and we happened to be placed in the same group. We instantly connected over the fact that we were both from New Jersey and big fans of Philly sports teams. We exchanged numbers and became friends on Facebook while at the conference. A week later Bethany decided to text Brian and the rest is history!

How did you get engaged?
I am a huge Disney fan and especially love the movie Tangled. My favorite scene from the movie is the one where Rapunzel and Flynn watch the floating lanterns. We had been planning to go to The Lantern Fest in Pennsylvania in June 2018 and Brian decided this was the perfect place to propose to me. When the time came and we set off one of our lanterns into the sky Brian got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! I responded with “Really? You’re not just playing?” followed by “Yes” of course! The next week Brian happened to have a conference in Las Vegas and he had planned for me to meet him out there to spend the weekend. I had once mentioned to Brian that I always dreamed of celebrating our engagement in Disney someday and what I didn’t know was that we would be doing just that! When I arrived in Las Vegas Brian surprised her by telling her that we would be driving to Disneyland to celebrate. We drove the four hours in our rented Mustang convertible and spent our weekend in the Happiest Place on Earth. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime trip that we’ll never forget!

Details of the day!
The theme of our day was subtle Disney/Happily Ever After. For our flowers we focused on purples and pinks, roses with a few other flowers thrown in, I requested that my florist match the colors rather than the exact type of flower. We did a donation in lieu of favors to Water for People, which is an organization that Brian volunteers with due to his work in the drinking water industry. We had lanterns as our centerpieces, and each one was decorated to represent a different Disney movie. We did a unity wine ceremony where we mixed a red wine and a white wine to make a blush and drank it in the middle of our ceremony, we had a s’mores station for dessert, and we had beer from our favorite local brewery (Bonesaw Brewing Co.). My grandfather passed away back in 2012 and I was very close to him so I had a piece of one of his handkerchiefs sewn into the inside of my dress in the shape of a heart. And we did a sparkler exit at the end of the night. We originally planned our wedding for May 24, 2020, after getting engaged in June 2018. When Covid hit in March 2020 we postponed our big wedding but still decided to get married on our original date in a backyard ceremony. We wound up postponing the big wedding twice, first to September 2020 and then again to September 2021. We are so happy that we got married on our original date and tried to have similar details for both of our wedding days. Although they wound up being in slightly different seasons the color of the flowers was the same for both, we also got the same flavor cake from the same bakery for both days. I was lucky enough to wear my dress and most of my wedding accessories twice.

Why did you choose your venue?
We really wanted a venue that had lots of pretty flowers and greenery for pictures and a variety of spots to take pictures in. We also loved that the ceremony space was outdoors yet undercover and it even has walls that can come down if there were to be bad weather – although we lucked out and had beautiful weather on both of our wedding days! We also liked that the cocktail hour space was partially outside. We had heard lots of good feedback about the food at our venue being great and that was definitely true.

What was on your menu?
For cocktail hour, we had a Mac & Cheese station, Chicken & Waffles station, butler passed hors d’oeuvres, and cold displays. The dinner options were Prime Rib, Teriyaki Salmon, Chicken Saltimbocca, or Vegetarian Lasagna. Our wedding cake flavor was white cake with raspberry preserves, lemon curd, and wedding buttercream (Almond, Lemon, and Vanilla). We also had a S’mores station for dessert.

All about your gown!

My dress was a tulle ball gown with intricate crystal beaded embroidery in ivory. I went to Rienzi Bridal salon after having won a gift card from them at a local bridal show. I wasn’t necessarily looking to find my dress but went in with an open mind. They were super patient with me and I wound up trying on around 25 dresses. My dress wound up being the second to last one I tried on. It sounds cliché but I knew my gown was the one because as soon as I put it on and looked in the mirror I got chills and started to tear up. I remember saying “wow” over and over again. I truly felt like a princess in it. It checked all of the boxes I was looking for – ball gown, intricate details, lots of sparkle.

What was your favorite moment?
My favorite moment was our first look. As I mentioned above we had already gotten married on our original wedding date and I had already worn my dress so technically Brian had already seen me in it. However, since we got married at the height of Covid I had to do my hair and makeup myself. I also didn’t wear my cathedral-length veil for our Covid ceremony because I was worried it would get ruined. Brian wound up wearing a suit he already owned as well. So this was the first time Brian and I saw each other with our full originally intended wedding looks. On top of that, I spent many days leading up to our big wedding bawling my eyes out because I was so worried that we would never be able to have it (due to covid still being a factor and wanting to keep everyone as safe as possible) or that the day wouldn’t feel special since we were already married. It felt like Covid had robbed us of so many of the typical wedding experiences (my bridal shower was originally supposed to be March 22, 2020 so that was postponed as well) and so much of the excitement that we should have been feeling leading up to the wedding. For our first look Brian and I decided to read letters that we had written to each other while standing back to back before turning around to finally see each other. It was a moment meant just for the two of us to really take in that our wedding was finally happening after all of the postponements, stress, and everything we had been through and it was truly a surreal and special moment.

One detail you couldn’t live without?
Our personalized hand-written vows! We purchased vow books and each hand wrote our own personal vows for our backyard ceremony in 2020, writing our own vows was super special and important to both of us. We used those same vow books and each tweaked our own vows a little and did personalized vows again for our big wedding day. We essentially treated that ceremony as a vow renewal since we were already married.

Did anything go wrong?
Thankfully nothing major other than the obvious of having to postpone twice due to Covid. A few minor things that went wrong were: We had a few people drop out within the few weeks leading up to the wedding either due to Covid or other factors, We had a few meetings with the manager of our band leading up to the wedding and had requested a certain musician way back when we booked. At our meeting the week of the wedding nothing was mentioned about this musician not being able to make it and on the day of someone completely different showed up. Thankfully he wound up being fine and we certainly didn’t let it ruin our night, it just would have been nice to be given a heads-up.

First dance song?
Everything by Michael Bublé

Any advice for future brides?
As someone who is very detail-oriented, I know how easy it can be to get lost in the details of your wedding day. So many people get caught up in the idea of their wedding day needing to be “perfect”. The reality of it is that your wedding day will not go perfectly, things will go wrong, that’s just life. However, as long as you wind up married to your best friend at the end of the day that’s the only thing that really matters. After postponing our wedding twice due to Covid and still getting married on our original date in a super scaled-down backyard ceremony with only our immediate family and a few bridal party members present I can firmly attest to the fact that even if your day winds up looking nothing like the day you originally planned, it will still be the best day of your life simply because you married your best friend! There is truly nothing like that just married feeling, everything else that happens that day is just the icing on the cake! My other advice is to make sure you plan in enough time for you and your spouse to actually spend together on your wedding day. One silver lining of still getting married on our original date was that we got to spend almost the whole day together (plus now we have two incredibly special wedding days to look back on!). Do the first look and get as many of your pictures done ahead of the ceremony. We did this plus we extended our cocktail hour by a half hour. This meant that by the end of our cocktail hour, we had greeted pretty much all of our guests, which left the reception open for us to actually sit and enjoy our dinner and then spend the rest of the night having the time of our lives on the dance floor!

Honeymoon Location?
We went to Secrets Playa Mujeres in Mexico! The resort was incredible and our room had its own private infinity pool! We did three excursions – a catamaran ride, swimming with the dolphins, and a cenotes tour, all three were awesome! A special shoutout goes to our travel agent (Vicki’s Travel Designs) because our honeymoon was postponed twice just like our wedding. She took care of everything each time we had to postpone and made it super simple and stress-free for us. She even made sure the resort would still honor their honeymoon package for us even though we had technically gotten legally married the year before on our original date.

the details

Reception Location

Scotland Run Golf Club

Photographer

Danielle Salerno Photography

Officiant

Family friend (George Cossabone)

Bride’s Gown

Morilee by Madeline Gardener (style 2818) purchased at Rienzi Bridal Salon

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Bethany and Brian at Scotland Run Golf Club

the details

Reception Location

Photographer

Officiant

Bride’s Gown

Bride’s Shoes

Bridesmaid Dresses

Hair

Makeup

Groom’s Attire

Flowers

Cake

Invites

Music

Videographer

Brides Jewelry

Brides Accessories