From the Bride: I could talk for days about all of the people and things that came together to make our wedding the most perfect day ever! Everything went so smoothly and when we walked into our venue a few hours before the wedding, we were speechless at how our vision had come together. Krippendorf Lodge is such a unique venue and the woods of Cincinnati Nature Center was the perfect backdrop for the start of our forever! The fresh flowers and smells from the rain-soaked forest just added to the vision we had for our wedding! Working with Kristen at The Yellow Canary to design our flowers was one of my favorite parts of wedding planning and being able to see (and smell) it all come together was so special! Getting married in the forest of the Cincinnati Nature Center is beautiful as is, and I wanted our flowers to enhance the beauty of the forest instead of distract from it. The smell of our flowers and the woods help transport us to an elegant woodland retreat!

I love sentimental things and finding ways to incorporate little details helped make our day so special! The robe I wore to get ready in was actually made from my mom's wedding dress! We also used the sleeve from her dress as the wrap for my bouquet. My mom lost her mom before her own wedding, so getting to share that morning with her and wearing her dress to get ready in was so special for both us! The mantle and bookshelves in Krippendorf Lodge were perfect for displaying our childhood photos, as well as our memorial photographs of our grandparents and Dylan's sister who were celebrating with us in heaven!

Dylan is from Ohio, but after we met in college at Eastern Kentucky University, he made his home here and loves it as much as I do. Since we were getting married in Ohio, we knew we wanted to incorporate special items from our beloved Kentucky at our wedding. In lieu of a traditional guest book, we had everyone sign bourbon barrel heads designed by a family friend! We also included tastes of the Bluegrass and Buckeye states in our wedding favors.

Without a doubt my favorite sight was seeing Dylan's face when I walked down the aisle! We chose to have a first look, but it took nothing away from seeing each other when we walked down the aisle. Without saying any words, I could see his love for me all over his face. Dylan's reaction was so sweet that it actually made my dad start crying too! Faith is so important to Dylan and I, and was one of the things that actually brought us together. During our ceremony, we had our bridal party and parents lay their hands on us while my childhood pastor prayed over our marriage. Feeling the people we love the most standing with us and praying for us was memorable for not only us, but for all of our guests!

Our guests are still talking about how delicious our cake and food was, but probably one of my favorite things we had was our wedding favors! I'm from Kentucky and Dylan is from Ohio, so we wanted something special to celebrate the merging of our lives (and our love for our home states)! My mom and a family friend made hundreds of homemade bourbon balls and buckeye balls to share some of the tastes of our home states with our guests! We decided to opt out of the traditional bouquet and garter toss and instead chose to have an "anniversary dance". We invited all of the couples on to the dance floor and we gave the bouquet to the couple who had been married the longest! It was such a special moment and we loved giving away the bouquet to Dylan's great aunt and uncle!

The most special part, besides marrying my best friend, was seeing how much fun our family and friends had! We still have people telling us how they didn't want the night to end (and neither did we)! We loved hearing the sound of laughter and cheers coming from all of our family and friends! We wanted our wedding day to not only be a celebration of our love for each other, but our love for the people throughout the different seasons of our lives who made us who we are today. It was also the first big event many of our guests had attended since the pandemic began, so sharing in everyone's happiness was so special to all of us!

Meghan + Dylan's Elegant Wedding