Bethany and Liz met in grad school and were best friends for two years before they got together. Apparently none of their other friends were at all surprised when they started dating! They were married in November at Georgia State Railroad Museum and they wanted the day to be the “best party for adults ever!”
“Our goal was to throw the best damn dress up party for adults ever”, they explained. “To accomplish this, we focused a lot on our guests instead of ourselves. We kept the ceremony short and sweet so we could move on to food, drink, and lawn games at cocktail hour. We skipped a lot of the traditional events like cake cutting and super long speeches, so that guests didn’t get too bored. We also held off on the first dance and parents dance until after the eating happened, so our guests didn’t have to wait through hunger pangs.”
“We set up our DJ with songs from the 1930s to now and DIYed special request cards so that our guests could ask for, literally, any song their hearts desired. We had lawn games open in the courtyard all night long and a photo booth in the back of the reception room away from the dancing, for those who don’t like dancing or got tired and wanted to step away.”
“Our wedding was so full of the love of our friends and family”, they continued. “Since same-sex marriage isn’t legal in Georgia, we asked our dear friend to ‘officiate’ the ceremony. Liz’s niece held our rings during the ceremony and then passed them to our bridal party, each of whom read a line from Louis de Bernières’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (“Love is temporary madness…”) as they warmed our rings and passed them up to us. Since we’re not religious, we had our officiant recite a poem during our ring exchange. We wanted our parents to be involved, but knew that after two years of living together no one was ‘giving us away’ so we had our parents walk us two separate aisles at the same time, we hugged them, and then we walked the rest of the way ourselves, meeting in the middle and walking to the altar holding hands.”
Liz was a master DIYer and made as much as she could for the reception. “I made the lawn games for cocktail hour, including ladder golf and corn hole boards. I went to Home Depot and cut raw lumber pieces exactly to measurement and then screwed, nailed, and glued them all together. I also customised the corn hole bags with L and B for each team. My other major project was creating all of the signage for the wedding, including a #L&B marquee, a whiskey bar sign, a ‘treat-yo-self’ sign for the dessert table, and signs for the ceremony and reception seating. I also customised the bottles and vases for the tables with a spray paint drip and turned miniature plastic woodland creatures into place card holders for the guests. Bethany created the bar menus (with descriptions of our custom wedding cocktails), the photo booth sign, the DJ song request cards and the guestbook sign.”
The music choices throughout the wedding were also super important to this pair. “The family members and bridal party processional walked in to My Love by Sia, the brides/ parents processional was a Crazy in Love cover by Sofia Karlberg and our recessional was Just Say Yes by Snow Patrol. Our first dance was How Long Will I Love You by Ellie Goulding. One of our best moments was when our best man and best lady got all of our guests so serenade us with Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You right after we finished the speeches. It was epic, we were totally shocked and our faces were priceless.”
“Our advice to other couples would be to expect that some things may go wrong”, they concluded. “We do wish we had had a better rain and cold weather backup plan! Also dance more and mingle less. This party isn’t just about you, but it is for you, so enjoy it! And finally, if you plan to DIY, start now. We were DIYing across two states and during the start of new jobs, and if we hadn’t started a year out we would have never finished. Also don’t compromise what you want. Have the exact wedding you want and nothing less—it only (well, hopefully) happens once, so make it everything!”
