Gabby and Chris never sent me a mood board. On the morning of their wedding at Mountain Crust in Denver, they were getting coffee at Wash Perk and walking their dog, Phoebe, around Washington Park. That's who I was designing for, and they knew it was enough.
They're book people. Coffee people. Deeply, almost suspiciously easygoing. And they did the thing every designer secretly hopes for: they told me who they were and got out of the way.
When someone trusts you that completely, you don't coast. You try to get it exactly right.
So I read them like a book. I made the runners myself and filled them with their favorite lines from books and songs, so every guest ate dinner on top of the words Gabby and Chris love most. The flowers had to feel like them, not like a wedding: soft pink, peach, and lilac, loose enough to look picked rather than placed, the kind of garden an Austen heroine marches through with something to say. Gabby's bouquet trailed pure silk ribbon almost to her knees.
In an industry that talks almost entirely to brides, they planned it as a pair. Friends who'd known them before they were a couple stood up to bless them. Then Mountain Crust's crew set up pizza making for the reception, and Gabby tossed dough in lace and an apron next to a turquoise truck, laughing.
Wed Society featured them in its Vows that Wow series, and their wedding was up for Wed Society Wedding of the Year. Not because of one showstopper. Because every part of it was so clearly theirs.
You don't need a mood board. You don't need to know a single flower by name. Tell me who you are, and let me get it right.
Planning a wedding at Mountain Crust or anywhere in Denver? Tell me about it.