Well, today makes it official… it’s Every Last Detail’s 2 year blogiversary! Two years ago, on December 7th, I launched Every Last Detail! I had no idea what it was going to grow into- and I certainly didn’t know that it would be my JOB in just 2 short years! But here I am, and it’s all because of you wonderful readers! :) I also have something special for you all (in addition to all of the lovely weddings I’ve been posting all week), but you’re going to have to wait until Part 2 of this wedding to find out what it is! Which of course leads me to today’s wedding! It. Is. Awesome. When Abbey Hepner sent it over, I instantly fell in love with all of the unique details this couple integrated- not to mention Abbey’s awesome photography! A wedding reception at the zoo… how fun is that?! The bride Kat will be telling us a little more about all of the fun details they had…

What (or who) helped you most in your planning process and/or on your wedding day?

Our family and friends all really pitched in to help make our wedding as personal as possible, from the design to the execution of the details. Christian’s cousin made the bridal and bridal party’s bouquets/boutonnieres. My aunt designed the centerpieces and Christian’s sister in law made all of them. Christian’s mom assembled the favors for our guests. A good family-friend sang at our wedding while my cousin played the clarinet. Christian’s friend became our videographer. Since our church did not have a ceremony coordinator, my aunt chimed in and did a fabulous job helping with the ceremony.  Our go-to-girls were my sisters and my mom since day one of being engaged. They crafted up so many of the extra little details that we wanted for the wedding (too many to list, from the programs and zoo-like seating chart to kiddie goodie bags filled with homemade animal coloring books and other fun stuff!).  My husband was involved in all of the decision making, especially when it came time to making our own beer for the reception and making mini chocolate “wong-ka” bars with golden tickets/prizes.
A few months before the wedding, we were lucky to nab Lydia, from Guguly Event Planning, as our day-of coordinator. She went beyond our expectations. She put together our wedding day timeline, kept our vendors and wedding day on schedule, and even made sure that we were able to eat at our own wedding (thankful for that!). Lydia, along with our family and friends, all helped out to make our wedding day a super fun party.

What was the most important thing to you when deciding who to work with for your wedding?

We knew the only “traditional” part of our wedding would be the ceremony in the church. Aside from that, it was no holds barred. We wanted to have fun on our wedding day, and we wanted our guests to have fun too.  The vendors we chose knew how to throw an awesome party, responsibly.  We decided to have our reception at the Woodland Park Zoo since it was a non-profit organization. This was important to us since we knew the rental cost for the reception venue would be funneled back into the community that we live in, and…when we found out that we could rent the carousel at the zoo for our reception, that was a no-brainer for us.

Please tell me you saw the ice cream truck up there! After the ceremony, guests were given tokens to turn in for ice cream outside, where an ice cream truck circled the church parking lot. What a GREAT idea! Keep an eye out for Part 2 of this wedding, because there is still SO MUCH more to come! Oh and of course the blogiversary surprise too!!