I spent 20 months thoughtfully curating and creating every aspect of our wedding day. So much time and effort went into the decor, food, drinks, attire and every other detail you could imagine. And you know what? After all of that, I was the most excited to share this post about our actual ceremony. The one we didn’t start writing until the month before (cue panic mode!). This just goes to show that it’s not all about placecards and centerpieces… the best part of your wedding day really should be marrying your best friend! Our ceremony was so special to us and I can’t wait to go over the details with you guys!
When brainstorming what we wanted in our wedding ceremony, our number one rule was that we only wanted to include people and words that were unique and meaningful to us as a couple, nothing traditional unless it resonated with us! We aren’t religious people and quickly realized that avoiding religion in your ceremony means you have a lot of content to fill. So we had our work cut out for us. Some other guidelines we came up with:
- Medium time-length.. nothing that drags on and makes people antsy, but also enough to feel substantial.
- A lot of family and friends involved in different aspects of the ceremony.
- Someone officiating who will always be a part of our lives.
- Adjectives we thought of when picturing our ceremony: Memorable, emotional, unique, whimsical, laid-back, bright and happy.
- Above all else, we wanted people to leave our ceremony saying, that was SO Dillon and Amanda!
The year before, we asked our brother-in-law (Dillon’s brother’s husband), Richard, to officiate. Although it’s something he’s never done before, Richard seemed like the perfect choice to us because we were already hoping to involve him in our wedding party and thought his outgoing and likable personality would make him a great officiant. And we were SO right! People are still commenting to me on what a great job he did!
The weeks leading up to the wedding Richard and I started a google doc and made notes back and forth revising his script. This was a really easy and efficient way to communicate and get things settled. I’m going to add a PDF of our wedding script to the end of this post for anyone interested! Totally aware that most of you have no need to read our wedding ceremony word for word, but when we were writing ours I scoured the internet for real-life examples, so thought it may be helpful to a few of you!
As for ceremony decor, the goal was to keep it simple and impactful. Between my yellow bridesmaid dresses, big colorful florals and mismatch groomsmen bowties, I knew there would already be a lot going on visually with the actual people standing up at the end of the aisle. Because of that and also how gorgeous the greenhouse was on it’s own, I chose to keep the decor for the ceremony somewhat minimal. Okay, maybe not minimal in the mind of some people, but you know I’m a “more is more” type of chick, so this really did feel simple for me!
I thrifted the grouping of vintage rugs at the end of the aisle, Dillon made the copper pipe arch we stood under and we ordered the macrame hanging, then tea-stained it after to get the aged color I was looking for. The pampas grass was ordered online- but warning, it came very matted down and my mom had to keep it in her backyard for weeks to sort of fluff itself out. All of the signage was done on paintings, windows and antique mirrors that I thrifted and added lettering with my Cricut. I designed our programs and then my mom glued them to wooden sticks so that our guests could use them as fans to keep cool!
The week leading up to our wedding, the chance of rain started at 20% and the percentage gradually went down as the days moved closer. To the point where I was not the slightest bit worried about it… and didn’t have a rain plan! The original plan was for the whole wedding party to line up outside a side door of the greenhouse and come in one by one, but when we got off of the bus and saw that it was raining, we bolted to a tiny greenhouse for cover! The rest of the wedding party just lined up inside of the doors which wasn’t a big deal, but my dad and I were stuck around the corner in the small greenhouse so that no one could see me. After a few minutes I realized that I had no idea if anyone was going to come and get us to signal when to head in (cue panic!). Luckily, someone did, and the whole rain thing ended up being a non-issue other than a little stress going into it. The sound of the rain on the roof of the greenhouse was actually sort of magical during the whole thing and it cleared up just in time to take our outdoor photos after!
Our wedding party walked down the aisle to John Mayer’s cover of XO and I walked down to Nina Simone’s cover of Here Comes the Sun.
Some cute details from our procession- the ring bearer and flower girl held giant balloons attached to a string of greenery (my nephew was VERY worried about this) and Kiara, my junior bridesmaid, held a ring of flowers.
Dillon’s aisle reaction was super sweet and once I got to the end it all felt so real and honestly really overwhelming all of a sudden!
Richard started things off and then handed the mic to Shirley (mom of my maid-of-honor, Melissa). Shirley has been like a second mom to me for 17 years now, and I definitely wanted to involve her in our day. She’s just the happiest person you’ll ever meet and I knew hearing her voice would make me feel relaxed! Shirls read a poem titled Love is Friendship Caught Fire by Laura Hendricks.
Next, Kiara (my junior bridesmaid and “little” through the Big Brother Big Sisters organization) and Dru (my cousin) came up and led a “flower ceremony”. Basically, one recited half of a little script that Dillon and I came up with while the other dropped sunflowers around us in a circle, and then they switched. The words related marriage to the growth of a flower and I thought it was a cute way to involve the kids we wanted in our ceremony- especially being in a greenhouse.
After that, Dillon’s Grandparents came up and gave us some advice that they’ve picked up in their 55 years of marriage. We’ve always really looked up to their relationship and definitely wanted it to be showcased on our wedding day!
Right after, two of our best friends, Emily and Jeff, followed up with tips on surviving their first year of marriage. We thought this would be a funny contrast to Dillon’s grandparents, but also we just love Em and Jeff and have really sort of grown with them over the year as the four of us started dating around the same time. Jeff is hilarious *don’t tell him I said that* and I knew I could particularly count on him to give us a laugh that day!
Next, we mixed our “unity cocktail”. Yes, we mixed a drink mid-wedding ceremony…. highly recommend it! This tiki-style whiskey punch was crafted and batched by our favorite bartender, Kurt, of Sazzy B. We also served it as our signature drink that night! My Aunt Teri led the ceremony by walking through each ingredient and how it related to our relationship. We had SO much fun writing this part of the script! A few months before, we had dinner with Kurt and after giving our list of “wants” in a drink, he came up with something completely unique and perfect. I love the fact that we have a really specific drink that is “ours”. It will be a fun thing to mix at home on special occasions or anniversaries in the future! Dillon and I have shared so many fun times with Teri over the years and more often than not they involved testing or talking cocktails, so we knew she had to be the one to lead this part!
Then, we walked over with our cocktails and watched as two of our best friends, Kayla and Robbie, played Say You Won’t Let Go by James Arthur. We really wanted to have some type of live music during the ceremony and luckily for us, we were able to have performers who also mean so much to us. This is probably the part of the wedding that made me most emotional. I don’t know if we blame Kayla’s pretty voice or the whiskey… probably both! Really though, the two of them absolutely killed this and we’re so lucky to have such talented friends!
Now it was the moment I was most nervous about, our vows! It’s funny, because the months leading up to the wedding I was racking my brain for a way to do personal vows while avoiding making Dillon nervous because he hates public speaking. I eventually thought of writing our own, but then switching books at the ceremony and reading each other’s out loud. Dillon was surprisingly totally into this idea. However, I didn’t realize how freaking nervous it would make me the 48 hours beforehand when I thought about reading his words for the first time in front of 200 people. I even had us both email them to Meliss and then asked her to NEATLY write them in our vow books for easy reading. I emphasized the neat part so much, that Melissa and I were up until 1am the night before while she veryyy carefully finished writing them (best maid-of-honor ever). Anyways, when it came down to it I’m still happy we did it this way. It felt really special and unique to us and I think having to read Dillon’s vows myself made me take them in and appreciate his words.
After that, Richard read the hand holding ceremony script and we clumsily exchanged rings. We didn’t practice when to actually put the rings on at the rehearsal and both rushed to shove them on each other at the end when we realized we totally missed our cue. After that, Richard accidentally asked me if I took Dillon to be my wife *reference facial expressions and laughs below* and then announced us as Mr. And Mrs. Martinez! Honestly, little quirks like that are some of my favorite parts to look back on. Nothing goes “perfectly” and the crowd really didn’t even notice these things anyway, but they were hilarious to us at the time!
We walked down the aisle to my favorite song, Love on Top by Beyonce, while all of our guests showered us with confetti. I think that was probably the happiest 30 seconds of my life! There’s no greater feeling than that just married feeling. We kissed, hugged, laughed, cried, cheered and got ready to party!
In the end, all adjectives were checked off our list. Our ceremony was memorable, emotional, unique, whimsical, laid-back, bright and definitely happy. It was such a true reflection of Dillon and I as a couple and we felt so lucky to share the memory with all of our family and friends!
I know this was a long one, but I just couldn’t help myself! One again, HUGE thank you to Santiago Murillo for all photos in this post. He captured our day absolutely flawlessly and we are so thankful to him! If you’re planning your own ceremony and want a script example, you can download the PDF of ours below! Also, I’m embedding our wedding video that includes our vows. Shoutout to Jacob Durbin, he absolutely killed it with this and I’ve watched it probably a thousand times! Thanks so much for reading along. There are more wedding posts where this came from! I mean… we’re only halfway through the day 😉
Xo Mrs. Martinez
Re-living the ceremony this way was wonderful! It was such a perfect day💚💚💚
Thank you Amanda for sharing this. When I showed Mom she cried. She said you were a beautiful bride and had a unique wedding that is so you.