Interview with the wonderful Angeli + Brandon:
HOW DID YOU MEET? Technically, we met on Match.com. However, the full story is that Brandon saw my profile where I had photos of myself along with one of my best guy friends, Brian, who he had coincidentally gone to college with. When Brandon first contacted me, he told me he knew Brian, so I immediately called up Brian who gave Brandon a pretty great review. We set up a date shortly after and now here we are!
WHAT ATTRACTED YOU THE MOST TO YOUR HUSBAND/WIFE?
Brandon: Our ease together – she was very easy to talk to and just fit in with my friends and family from the beginning.
Angeli: His genuineness. He can be sarcastic and witty, but he doesn’t put on an act with anyone – what you see is what you get, and that’s pretty awesome.
HOW DID HE PROPOSE? He went far above and beyond. We were getting ready to move from Minneapolis from San Francisco, and were heading out to Minnesota for a week to find a place to live. As we were about to leave for the airport, Brandon made me sit down on the couch to look at something “important” online. He directed me a website he’d created with photos of us, and pulled out a ring. Once I realized what was happening, I said yes and then we went outside where he had all of our closest friends waiting in a limo with champagne to send us off to the airport. I thought that was it, but when we landed in Minneapolis, we immediately went to a bar to meet my sister for a drink, and I was surprised with yet another group of our closest friends in Minneapolis all gathered to celebrate our engagement. It was pretty unforgettable.
WHAT INSPIRED YOUR VISION FOR YOUR WEDDING? We have both moved around a bit in our adult life, but because of that are lucky to have groups of friends from all over. Our dream was to bring them all together for a whole weekend long event – selfishly, one night just didn’t seem like enough. Brandon wanted to basically re-create his summer camp days, and I was on-board. So that really influenced all aspects of how we planned the wedding – we were thinking about how we could really bring our community of family and friends together.
TELL US ABOUT FINDING YOUR VENUE: Brandon is from New Jersey, I’m from Minnesota, and we met while living in San Francisco, so our wedding would be “destination” for most people no matter where we had it. We knew we wanted to get married in Florida near Brandon’s grandmother, and had an amazing time at a friend’s wedding in Islamorada a few years earlier. We took a trip down to the Keys to find a venue, and loved the setup at Chesapeake Resort. We were able to reserve the entire resort for just our wedding guests and hold all the events there so it totally fit our vision for a weekend-long celebration.
WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST PLANNING CHALLENGE? Probably just planning long-distance. We made a couple trips down to the Keys (which was a nice perk) during the process, but mostly relied on our coordinator, Julia, from Blue Water Weddings. I’m not sure how we would have done it without her.
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE DESIGN ELEMENT OF YOUR WEDDING? The paper flowers. I work in sustainability and liked the idea of using décor that could be used again after the wedding. I decided to do all paper flowers for the centerpieces, bouquets, everything. Originally I planned to buy them on Etsy, but found an easy DIY to make them from coffee filters, and decided to do them all myself. My friends were a huge help – my bridal shower was a “Crafternoon” of paper flower making where my closest women friends made the flowers that decorated our ceremony area. I loved having that personal touch that was so meaningful. Now I have a big bouquet at home and guests also took some home as favors.
DID YOU HAVE ANY DIY DETAILS? The paper flowers were the most ambitious, but there were quite a few. I really enjoy making things, so it was a fun process for me to do that for the wedding. The other special one was making our invitations. Brandon and I found Leg Up Studio in Minneapolis that offers classes on how to print letterpress. We took the class, and then worked with the teacher, Paul, on designing and actually printing the invitations. It was a fun project to do together!
WHAT WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF YOUR WEDDING DAY? Standing under the Chuppah as we got married. We had a circular seating arrangement, so we were in the center of all our friends and family. The weather was perfect, the setting was beautiful, and we just felt so loved and supported as we got to read our vows to each other and get married in front of all the important people in our lives.
DESCRIBE YOUR CAKE: Being in the keys, it was an easy choice – key lime cake with fudge filling and key lime buttercream frosting. Pretty delicious.
HOW WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER? Amazing. We had a blast doing our engagement photos with Jason, Dave, and Sara, so we had no doubts that they’d do an amazing job at the wedding. Jason and Dave were a pretty awesome team – super laid back and calm, but totally on top of it. Our photos before the ceremony went great, and honestly, from the ceremony on, I barely remember seeing them – which is impressive since they’re not small guys! They just let us do our thing and enjoy it all while they captured the experience.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND AS A COUPLE? For the near future, just enjoying being married ☺ And planning our honeymoon to Southeast Asia!

CAN YOU PLEASE LIST YOUR VENDORS:
Venue: Chesapeake Beach Resort
Planner: Blue Water Weddings
Photographer: Concept Photography
Caterer: Caribbean Catering
Dress: Sarah Seven
Bride and Bridesmaids Jewelry: SoAlla
Groom’s Outfit: Bash by Barry Wishnow
Lighting/Chuppah: Floral Fantasy Weddings
Bakery: Bob’s Bunz
Videographer: Michael Burgos Films
DJ: Visualize Entertainment

A special thank you to Dave Thomas from Love Meets Life Photography for shooting this beautiful wedding with Jason 🙂

And the next morning…