the dream team:
THE VENUE: Bissinger’s Caramel Room website
THE CATERING: 23 City Blocks website
THE DJ: Allegro Entertainment website
THE PLANNER: Aaren Muex / Divine Events website
THE CAKE: Celebrating Life Cakes website
BOSNIAN DESSERTS: Zlatne Kapi website
THE HAIR/MAKE-UP: Refeyeance website
THE DRESS: Bridal Manor website
THE SUIT: Downtown Tailoring website
THE FLORALS: Alex Waldbart Florist website
THE DECOR: An Affair To Remember website
THE PHOTOGRAPHER: Arndt Photo & Cinema website
THE REHEARSAL DINNER: Lemmons website
the dream proposal:
Amir and I love to travel. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for me to come home from work on a Friday evening to Amir asking, “want to go somewhere this weekend?”. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Amir to plan a week-long trip but leave the destination a surprise as it also happened to be the week of my 30th birthday. Amir had recently been asking a lot about camping, so my inquisitive mind was certain I had it all figured out. We packed up our pups and hit the road. We arrived in Saugatuck, a picturesque little town on Lake Michigan. We stayed in a beautiful farmhouse with a secret garden feel. Our first evening it rained, so Amir surprised me with an itinerary he had created. This isn’t his norm. I immediately thought, he is going to propose on Wednesday on the retro boat ride he had planned. Despite the rain that evening, Amir was insistent on driving by the beach. I wondered how he came across this charming little town. Knowing him and his love for researching things, I wasn’t the least bit surprised. Fast-forward to Tuesday and I know tomorrow will be the day that he is going to propose. We visit the beach at evening to catch a glimpse of the sunset. Amir is insistent we go see the sunset. We walk the beach and make our way up to a pier that overlooks the beach. We had both been taking photos of the sunset, but Amir had asked if he could take a photo of the sunset through my phone. Thinking nothing out of the ordinary, I turn back toward the beach. When I turned back around, I see him on one knee. My heart was smiling. I was so shocked I couldn’t say YES fast enough!
what was your favorite wedding day memory?
Amir: One of my favorite moments from our wedding was hearing the how heartfelt Lynlee’s vows were Another favorite moment was from the day of our rehearsal. Lynlee surprised me with a Groom’s Cake that looked like a Bosnian coffee pot and cup. We rode to rehearsal together but had to pick something up before. She wouldn’t tell me what. She drove and had me ride all the way with my eyes closed. We are terrible at keeping surprises from each other. She couldn’t wait until dinner to show me the amazing cake she had made for me! Lynlee: It’s so hard to pick just ONE favorite memory. I often ask Amir when we can have another wedding because it was so amazing and fun. I decided last minute to wear my veil over my face, something we didn’t really practice or talk about. I texted him to let him know, but he didn’t see the message. Amir looked surprised when I made it down the aisle. I had to whisper to him a couple of times to flip the veil back! Our favorite memory collectively has to be, our officiant, who is also a friend of ours got caught up in the moment and forgot to tell people to be seated! Luckily, it was a short ceremony. She realized mid-way through the ceremony, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as she whispered her realization. We all get a good chuckle out of this!
where did you go on your honeymoon?
Our honeymoon was nothing short of magical. Before our real adventure began, we immersed ourselves in one of Scandinavia’s most beautiful cities, Stockholm. Here we enjoyed traditional Swedish cuisine and some of Stockholm’s many museums. From Stockholm we traveled to Helsinki, Finland before making our way to the far North above the Arctic Circle. We experienced an Arctic winter with well below freezing temperatures, frozen seas, and snow more than four feet tall. On multiple occasions, we were fortunate to witness one of the worlds most beautiful natural phenomena, the Northern Lights. An adrenaline-charged evening of mushing a team of sled dogs to a calm relaxing sleigh ride led by reindeer, our honeymoon was full of new explorations. Traveling more than 100 km by snowmobile, we explored Lapland’s snowy forests and frozen lakes and swamps. We spent some nights in all glass igloos not to obstruct the sensational views of the dark night sky. However, it wasn’t all comfort on our Honeymoon! We spent a couple of nights “cold”. We spent nights in both a snow hotel and an ice hotel, where the temperatures remain a constant -5 to -8C. Despite being cold those were experiences we didn’t want to miss. One last thing we couldn’t miss while on our honeymoon, visiting the official hometown of Santa and meeting Santa Claus himself!
how was your experience with allegro?
When we first started talking about music selections, we thought “how hard can it be?”. We are so thankful to Allegro for easing this process tremendously! The packet is beyond helpful and having preset due dates is honestly a stress reliever. When we needed help working through something, Dori was able to guide us. Eric was our DJ. He called a few days before to work through things with us, how we may want things announced, pronunciation of names just to be sure, among a few other things. We had some not so typical requests such as traditional Bosnian music, but Allegro did everything to make sure we found what we were looking for. Needless to say, he did an awesome job!
did you enjoy working with divine events?
Aaren Muex with Divine Events was AMAZING! When we first asked Allegro about Day-Of-Coordinating, we were referred to her, and booked with her that same weekend. Aaren was really the glue that held everything together, and made sure that our night turned out perfect! From coordinating everything, to her extreme attention to detail, we could not have had such as amazing and relaxing time without her and her team’s support! We would not have had as smooth and perfect of a wedding without her♥
give us a post-wedding update…
Life is flying by! We were fortunate to have family from Europe here for our wedding. We loved getting to spend time with them and show them some of our favorite places in the city after the wedding. We waited to honeymoon so we could spend time with our visiting European family, so we just returned from our honeymoon mid-February. One of our favorite things post wedding is getting to refer to each other is “husband” and “wife”. We are hoping to get back to traveling as soon as possible. Exploring the world is one of our favorite ways to spend time together. We travel with our boxer, Lenox, and our goldendoodle, Sanders, whenever we can. In the meantime, we are learning a new language together!
