this is the first day of my life | our tiny minneapolis elopement

All photography by Jessica Holleque

It's been exactly three weeks since I married my best friend (two of those three were spent in total luxury on the North Shore of Lake Superior - more of that to come), and I'm finally sharing the photos! It took a long time to whittle down what snapshots I wanted to share here (our amazing photographer took almost 400 of them!), because they're all special to me. Our photographer, Jessica, was amazing to work with, and it was such a pleasure having her share the day with us. We felt totally natural and comfortable around her, which was fortunate, because for most of the day it was just the three of us! Okay... let's get to the pictures.

Our day started with bundled nerves and quadruple-checking of our packing list, but after we finally piled everything into the car, we met Jessica for coffee. We had initially planned on visiting this cafe by the river, but they ended up being closed for training. A quick change of plans took us to downtown Minneapolis and Penny's Coffee - a favorite spot of mine and Heather's (they are also one of the few places in the city that offers an oat milk latte, which is my favorite drink of 2018).

After half-eaten muffins were discarded in the trash (too nervous to eat!), Heather and I stole away to a corner of the building's lobby to spend a little time to ourselves. The day before our wedding, we had written love letters to each other. It was Jessica's idea (the woman's a pro), and it was one of my favorite parts of the day. While I had been a bundle of nervous energy before - good, but still jittery energy - reading all the sweet things Heather wrote brought everything into focus. I'm going to hold onto that letter for the rest of my life. It makes me ugly-cry rereading it now.

Thoroughly teary-eyed, we piled into our cars and headed across the Mississippi River to our ceremony site. The Machine Shop is a historic, industrial building usually reserved for large parties and events (re: Jamie Foxx's Super Bowl party last month). Once a flour factory, it's now wedding-central, and the folks there (shoutout to Stephanie!) were sweet enough to let us steal a few moments inside to say our "I dos."

Because it was just us, we kept the decor simple. Rose petals on the floor. Seven dozen, for the seven years Heather and I have spent together.

We made my bouquet and the boutonnieres the night before. Grocery store flowers and a bit of floral tape (side note: boutonnieres are v easy to make, and you should always do them yourself).

We were very lucky to have Heather's friend and coworker Emily marry us off. It was her first (!) time officiating a wedding, and she went above and beyond - she even showed up early to help Heather put on her bow tie. Finding an officiant was one of the things I was more nervous about (i.e. finding someone non-religious who was also okay marrying two women), and I feel very fortunate that Emily stepped in. It was so special having her there.

Heather wanted to involve everyone in our little family into our wedding day, so she had these cufflinks made up with pictures of our dog Doria and our cat Donut on them. I thought it might be cheesy, but they're too cute. These cufflinks got me in a heart-eyes emoji kind of way.

We got ready separately, which I would totally recommend, even for an elopement ceremony like ours. It meant a bit of deep breathing and power poses in the dressing room, which helped me stay in the moment. Even though I'd seen Heather in her suit before, and she'd seen me in my dress through a dozen alterations, it was an absolutely different feeling when she came around the corner. Took all those deep breaths away.

Emily did an amazing job, and was sweet enough to bring us a celebratory bottle to pop after the ceremony.

After the ceremony, we left the Machine Shop and took a million other photos both inside the city and in nature - but I'll save those for another day. We said our goodbyes to Jessica, then it was a quick drive home to let the dog know we didn't forget about her. We then grabbed an Uber to our favorite restaurant in the North Loop. A glass of champagne, and dinner for two by candlelight.

The perfect day.

xoxo,
-m.e.

P.S. Photos from our engagement shoot if you just can't get enough of our smiling faces.