Tom and I met at work. It doesn't sound super exciting or romantic, but in a way it was. We began hanging out as friends first, because I was too dense to realize he had a crush on me. Then I realized I liked him as well, and the rest is history! At the time, we worked at a super gossipy office, and didn't want any of that to influence our relationship in the early stages, so we actually managed to keep it a secret from everyone at work. Once I (Cayla) left the company, we stopped keeping it a secret and people's reactions were so funny. Tom proposed in the cutest/cheesiest way. It was our dating anniversary and he had planned a whole day for us together. Before each activity, he gave me a little note with a clue about what we were doing. It ended up being rainy and freezing all day, which ruined some of the outdoor plans, and he was getting so stressed out! At the end of the night, he put all the notes together and I saw that they spelled out "Will You Marry Me?". For our wedding, we really wanted to make it about us and our close friends. Despite being city dwellers, we actually love spending time outside in nature-- the more remote, the better! At first, we really wanted a small wedding with just some close friends, but you know how it goes once family gets involved haha. Originally we had planned to find a venue somewhere in Woodstock, NY. But as we continued to look at places, it just seemed like it was too much to ask all the guests to commit to several nights of hotel, mandatory meals, etc. Still wanting to achieve our perfect garden wedding, but stay relatively close to the city, we found the perfect venue at Crabtree's Kittle House (with the help of our lovely planner, of course)! They were amazing the entire time. Even on our wedding day when it was supposed to be certain thunderstorms, they kept everything positive and prepared, knowing the one thing I always wanted was to have the ceremony outdoors. In the end, the clouds parted and the sun came out just in time for our first look! It was extremely humid, but at least it wasn't raining!! We chose the color palette because we really wanted something that was fun and eclectic without being too messy. I hate matchy-matchy stuff, so choosing a palette with a wider range of colors helped keep the indie vibe, while still allowing our planner to create a cohesive theme throughout the wedding. Funny, because when I started thinking about it, I thought I would NEVER include orange in my palette, but it really ended up being the hero in our palette. We used citrus to really nail the summer vibe home. Everything looked so happy, beautiful, and original! Continuing with the summer garden party theme, we had some lawn games during the cocktail hour. I was actually worried no one would want to play them, but turns out they were a hit! To keep it classy, we had some big band type swing / jazz age music going, which really set the mood. Since we were having the reception inside, we worked with our planner to create a floral wall as the backdrop for the photobooth. To me, this made it really fun and original, and kept the whole Garden theme going strong into the night. All the guests really seemed to love that. For me, my favorite part of the whole wedding was actually the ceremony. We had our close friend, Matt, officiate, and he wouldn't tell us what he had planned. Literally, almost the entire ceremony was a surprise to us! He incorporated I think 10 total ceremony traditions, from stomping on a glass to jumping the broom, to planting a tree. It was seriously amazing, and is definitely something I will never forget.