September 24, 2019

Courtney & Josh’s Travel Themed Wedding in Scottsdale, Arizona

Courtney first got in touch with me over an order of wedding day cards for her bridal party. I loved working on them for her, having no idea all the fun projects she would later have me work on for her gorgeous wedding in sunny Arizona! My dusty rose paint and I were on very friendly terms by the time I completed her escort tent cards, placecards, table numbers and signs! I’ll let Courtney take it from here…

How did you choose your colors? We wanted something timeless that wouldn’t look “dated” in five years, ten years, or even 20 years. We love the look of neutrals and also didn’t want colors that clashed with the natural beauty of our venue and its stunning background with the mountains.

Did you have any special traditions incorporated into your ceremony? Our ceremony was not religion-specific, however, because I am catholic it was important to me that a male figure served as our officiant. Johns uncle is a chaplain within the United States Air Force, and he really went above and beyond to make sure our ceremony was memorable. To honor my late grandfather who was a high ranking officer in the Air Force, he wore Air Force dress blues. My grandmothers wedding ring that she wore during her 64 year marriage was graciously given to me as a gift and now serves as my wedding band. My mother gifted me the same lucky penny that her father (my grandfather) gifted to her on her wedding day-I kept it in my right shoe for luck.

Welcome Table with Guest Book Globe

What inspired your travel theme? Our travel theme was inspired by John’s career as a pilot as well as the important role traveling has played in our 6 years together. Our first year of dating, John was flying small jets in Alaska in order to build up his flight time so he could fly commercial in the lower states. This meant that he split his time between 2 weeks a month in Alaska and 2 weeks a month in Texas, so I consider our relationship to have started out as being “long distance”. Also, before we met, I had only ever been to the Bahamas, but since dating, john as taken me to five countries, including our furthest journey to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). His passion for travel soon became a shared passion between the two of us as. And since there’s never a dull moment when you’re traveling standby-it has made our relationship stronger and allowed us to see that we work well together as a team. John really took the travel theme of the wedding to the next level when he pulled off a surprise fly-over at the very end of the ceremony which timed perfectly with our first kiss!

What was your favorite part of the day? Our first look was super emotional and just a whirlwind but I would say it was one of our top favorite memories from the day. No doubt about it though, the flyover was just perfect, and the fact that john was able to pull it off as a total surprise had every person crying, cheering, and completely ecstatic. It was just incredible.

Escort Card Display

Features family wedding photos from the past…

The Wedding Reception

The travel theme was brought in on the reception tables with subtle gold airplane placecard holders, each holding my watercolor painted placecards.

What was most challenging in planning the wedding? Planning a wedding out of state is no walk in the park. You have to pick everything based on how you THINK it will look and the opinions of your vendors (thank god we have a wonderful planner and wonderful team). Note to all out-of-town brides-carrying your wedding dress through the terminal will build you some nice arm muscles before the big day! The cost-we thought having a small wedding would save us some money, but in the end we totally blew our budget without intention. Also, there are WAY too many options when it comes to weddings-you can drive yourself truly insane by trying to look for “an even better option”-but I suppose this is better than the days where you had four options and that was all. Honestly though, it was worth every penny and every ounce of stress because it was truly a beautiful day and a wonderful way to start our marriage <3