the wedding

My sister and her fiance decided to have a small ceremony last weekend at a lighthouse in northern Michigan (where we have spent many summers growing up.) As her OCD-planner-sister, I helped coordinate quite a few of the details - and had way too much fun doing so!

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First up was a photographer. After my sister mentioned trying to find someone young, fun and local that could come out to the beach for a few hours I immediately thought of Tieka from Selective Potential. Young, fun and from northern Michigan? Check! Husband/photographer that takes great shots on the sunny beaches of Lake Michigan? Check!

A few emails later and voila - we were set! Brett and Tieka did such an amazing job! My sister and her fiance had so much fun and were able to try all kinds of unique things. The photos are STUNNING - we lucked out with perfect sunshine-filled weather and they did an amazing job capturing it!

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Next up were the flowers -aka "where Alissa gets a little ambitious." I have ordered wholesale flowers for events before in large bulk (remember the time I had 400 sunflowers in my living room?) This time I worked with American Floral Distributors because I was able to buy smaller quantities and they had all of the flowers I was looking for (red roses, red sunflowers, orange dahlias and some various berries/greenery) *As a side note I was pretty happy with AFD - the shipping was perfect on timing and 5/6 of the products I ordered showed up in perfect condition (the last showed up completely wilted and never recovered.)

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The morning of the wedding I got up early and walked around the small town and on the beach collecting gorgeous gold/orange/red leaves, small berries and a few random fall wildflowers. Luckily I brought along an aunt to point out the poisonous ones.

Armed with a few internet tutorials, I made the bride's bouquet, two bridesmaid's bouquets, a few small bouquets for family and two boutonnieres. *I might do a little tutorial on this next week - I am far, FAR from a professional, but using wire and floral tape I was able to put together fairly basic arrangements that looked great and lasted all day!

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All said and done we had an amazing weekend and I gained a brother-in-law! So happy for my sister and that everything turned out so well!

All photos from Brett and Teika of Selective Potential.