Brandon and Nicole's Wedding in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The story of our wedding

We chose a January wedding. At first, I was nervous since I am always cold but I was able to run with the dark, wintery theme. My favorite color is black so naturally I would choose black as my bridesmaid’s dress color. I had a vision of something unique, modern and “moody” as I liked to call it. The girls wore black velvet and the accents were white, gold, and greenery. The darker colors really played well with the winter month and the textures were subtle, but made an impact. I didn’t want a variety of flowers, so when discussing with the florist we decided on varieties of greenery and pops of white blooms. I only had a bridal party of two, my sister who was my maid of honor and my long-time friend as a bridesmaid – they both held bouquets of all greenery. I wanted the florals to look as though they were picked from the garden, and our florist gave us a design that was beyond my wildest dreams. I included mixed details such as clear and gold mercury candle holders, amber bottles and wood elements. I made sure to create a signature drink that reflected on our dog, since he couldn’t be at the wedding. He is an American Bully so the drink was called ‘The Bourbon Bully’ and had a realistic drawing of him which sat in a frame on the bar – I was in love! We had a hashtag sign #ShourdsSwipedRight which sat in a gold frame on our welcome table next to our big letter ‘S’ as our guest book. I tried to include ideas that were different and not super traditional which is why our favors were scratch tickets in a wax bag that came with a penny and a sticker on the front that read ‘Lucky in Love’. My dad even passed out cigars that had our names and wedding date on theme at the end of the night. I think the best detail of all though was my dad singing as Elvis. He came in dressed with the Jailhouse Rock outfit and sang a few songs. It was great and something you’d typically not see at a wedding. Our guests loved it. The complete sense of calmness I felt the day of our wedding made me feel euphoric the entire night. It was like a huge weight lifted from my shoulders and I was entirely high on life. I never really thought that was a real thing until the night of our wedding. Everyone kept saying to me, wow you’re really calm and they were right. I never felt anxious or nervous like I fully expected to, it all felt right. Our family, our friends, our love for one another – it’s like the universe aligned the morning of our wedding and I was fully aware of how blessed I was. In addition though, my father being ordained and getting to marry us was another high point of the night. He was able to give his father-of-the-bride speech during a modern yet personal ceremony. I couldn’t have been more grateful that he did that for us.