Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + Mike

Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + Mike

Jennifer’s walk down the aisle was a bittersweet moment. For years, she had been dreaming of the perfect day, with the perfect man. But soon after she got engaged, Jennifer’s beloved mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Jennifer’s dream of the perfect wedding soon felt uncertain. When life hands you lemons, you learn that the most important things in life are the people you love. Congratulations to Jennifer and Mike – and mom – on a lifetime of happiness!

From the bride: There are two other standout pieces of our wedding story – the proposal and the dress. For the proposal, my now husband took me back to the small college town where we first met. Many weekends in college were spent with my best friend going to our boyfriend’s college football games, so when it came time to pop the question, he felt it was only fitting to bring me back to a place that meant so much to our journey. He got my best friend in on the secret and her and I took her dogs for a walk on our college campus. She coerced me over to the football stadium where I found him waiting on the 50-yard line. I walked out to meet him and in a perfect moment with just him and I, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Little did I know, that he also had our parents there watching from the clubhouse, which meant a lot to me to be able to celebrate in that joy with them. My parents flew out from Arizona to Ohio just to be there for that once in a lifetime proposal. It was picture perfect.

Shopping for the perfect wedding dress was both exciting and stressful. I was excited as any bride would be to find the perfect dress to walk down the aisle in, but stressful that not a single one of my bridesmaids lived in state so it was only my mom and I to go on the adventure of wedding dress shopping and we were on a tight deadline. It wasn’t a tight deadline before the wedding, it was a tight deadline given the events coming up. After we had set the date for our wedding and started the planning process, my mom received a diagnosis that no one wants to receive, she had breast cancer. We felt like we had to find a dress before her surgery in just a couple of weeks not knowing what her recovery and treatment would look like. We tried and tried to find the perfect dress, but just couldn’t find one in time. We worked with the wonderful staff at Uptown Bridal Boutique where I had found one Essense of Australia dress that I loved parts of, and one Stella York dress that I loved other parts of. They offered the solution of an upcoming Stella York Designer Show. The show was just four days after my mom’s surgery to remove her breast cancer, but the sales associate eagerly offered to schedule an appointment not knowing what our reservations were. We haphazardly set up an appointment, knowing that I may be shopping for my dress by myself and hoping that my mom would be feeling up to it. Luckily when the day came my mom was up for the adventure out of the house and I was able to find my perfect wedding gown at the Designer Show. My mom was able to beat her breast cancer before our wedding and enjoy in every moment and memory from the perfect day. I was so thankful to have her along for the dress shopping experience and having her by my side through it all made it even more special.

On our wedding day, my fiancé and I wrote letters to each other, but decided to wait until after our first look to read them. On a day full of beautiful chaos from hair and makeup and time with my girls to ensuring every detail was taken care of, the quiet moment after I had seen my groom for the first time where we got to pause and reflect on what got us to that moment was absolutely beautiful. We were able to soak in the moment as just the two of us, and of course photographers, and reflect back on two college kids, in a small town in Ohio, that fell in love and now we were just hours away from becoming husband and wife.

Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + Mike

Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + Mike

Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + Mike

Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + MIke

Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + Mike

Real Stella York Bride Jennifer + Mike

Photography by Erin Ashlee