Courtney + Sean's Lush Winter Wedding

Courtney and Sean’s winter wedding embraced the softer blues, greens, and pinks of winter in the most beautiful way for their December celebration. The Monastery Event Center was transformed with warm light from suspended votives, lush florals (the floral installation from Floral V Designs is dreamy!), roses and branches, and shades of blue-green linens.

Courtney and Sean’s color palette was wintry and approached gemstone greens and blues by appreciating all their possible hues and shades. The stationery pieces were mysterious without being moody. There was a subtle hint to the couple’s love of Harry Potter.

We incorporated a mix of rose gold foil with smoky teals in watercolor. The inspiration drew from a subtle nighttime motif conveying how one feels upon entering a forest, arriving under a winter moon in the chilly December air. The couple made sure guests were greeted by a romantic ballroom aglow with lit candles and garden delights. The day was captured by Megan Noll Photography.

Tell us a little about you and Sean.

Originally I am from Hillsboro, Ohio, and Sean is from Lexington, Kentucky. I work night shift as a registered nurse at a hospital on an orthopaedic/neuro floor. Sean teaches Latin at Sycamore, grades 7-12.

How did you and Sean meet?

Sean and I met at Xavier University in 2009. We were both in the choir and sat opposite each other every rehearsal. We met and became friends for a year and half before we started dating. After I graduated college in 2012 with my BSN in nursing, I started my career as a registered nurse. Upon graduating from XU in 2013, Sean however had to continue his education in Illinois to achieve his masters degree. We kept a long distance relationship going for three years. It was the hardest obstacle we have faced, but afterwards we knew that we were meant to be together.

Tell us about your wedding stationery vision.

So from the beginning, I initially described my wedding vision as:

Ethereal and whimsical

Elegant but eclectic

Not stuffy, but creative

For the stationery and the rest of the design, we kept saying it was “Harry Potter inspired” so to us that meant incorporating both whimsical and moody elements along with the crest to reflect your "house" as a couple.

Other aspects I emphasized that I’d love to include were watercolor effects and wax seals.

How was your everyday style reflected in your wedding day or was it a departure from your usual style?

I have been told by my friends that my style could be described as “ethereal,” “whimsical” and at times “boho chic.” For as long as I can remember (or at least since the beginning of my independent adult life), I continually strive to display my sense of style by choosing the most recent trend or something completely new but that is a combination of aspects derived from multiple styles. Since I am not a social media “influencer,” I definitely doubt myself a lot of times. However, I have honestly noticed that in a lot of cases I receive positive feedback and compliments as well as friends/peers admitting to feeling inspired and more confident in themselves to try something novel.

It is safe to say that the region I live currently is overall a bit behind the times as far as fashion and style goes. I am inspired by the updated sense of style in places like California and live for searching looks on Instagram. That is essentially how I found my wedding dress after tons and tons of searching. I wanted something unique but also not TOO unique that it would turn the more traditional wedding lovers off. I wanted to impress everybody with my wedding gown, not just women or people my age or those with similar taste. After consistently finding photos on IG that caught my eye of this ONE specific dress (called an “Avril Gown” by Rue De Seine), I knew deep in my heart this ticked all those boxes.

After further research on IG using the hashtag #avrilgown, I eventually discovered that this (and other unique boho gowns like it) was sold at a store called Lovely Bride. Lovely Bride is a franchise based in California, but you can imagine how excited I was when I discovered that someone had brought a shop to my city in Cincinnati! After visiting the shop on a whim with a friend one weekend, I discovered not only the Avril Gown was in fact the dress of my dreams but also that the owner shared in my philosophy of bringing new/updated styles of California to other regions like ours.

What detail of the wedding did you focus on the most?

I truly can say that due to having plenty of time (a three-year engagement 🙃), I was able to spend long periods of time in phases researching before making decisions on every aspect of our wedding.

For me personally, I feel A LOT of thought went into these things the most: the color palette, the music, the cake, wedding bands, and my gown. We wanted our guests to have the best experience and made sure we had the FRESHEST colors and music, as well as an amazing and fun cake (with emphasis on the confetti cake inside). Since I had a unique dress that was always meant for only one night, I also really wanted the most unique wedding bands that I could go on wearing for forever.

I focused on a lot of aspects of the wedding but what I think of most is how incredibly personal we wanted our wedding to feel. Everything was truly reflective of me and Sean and our shared interests. I feel we gave a lot of our attention to such details including our mutual love of dogs and Harry Potter.

One of my favorite things was the backdrop with a poem Sean selected, as he is a lover and teacher of Latin poetry. We tried to add little touches like that in everything we did. And of course our puppies from both sides of the family! We insisted that they had a part in our special day all along as well! We pushed for the longest time to have our puppy siblings physically there with us on our wedding day, but it ended up too difficult/chaotic to arrange. However, we were thrilled to involve our beloved dogs at the reception via our signature cocktails inspired by our dogs and their breed.

We came up with two cocktails for our guests to enjoy: “The Golden Girls” representing the English golden retrievers (based off an “old-fashioned” drink) and “Eskimo Kisses” for the American Eskimo dogs (Moscow mule). Also by mere coincidence, our wedding happened to fall on the same day of Cincinnati’s annual “Reindog Parade” in Mount Adams—right where our wedding venue was located! Or course, we pretty much planned our whole day around making sure we wouldn’t miss the parade. Although we could only enjoy a little bit of the parade due to this being the designated time for our photos, it was still glorious as ever to be surrounded by all the canines!

P.S. we also had a dog cake topper!

Photography: Megan Noll Photography | Planning: Brigid and Karen I-do weddings and Events | Florals: Floral V | Cake: Maribelle Cakery | Venue: Monastery Event Center

Tell us about the proposal.

Sean proposed when he moved back to Cincinnati. He took me to my favorite restaurant to celebrate this new chapter of our lives. After dinner he gave me a notebook in which he had drawn a golden retriever (his favorite dog) and an American Eskimo (my favorite dog) reenacting major parts of our relationship. At the end was a hollowed out compartment that contained the ring. I said yes by the way!