Interviewing Brides: Having a Micro Wedding & Forgetting Tradition

Nov 30

Earlier this month, I was able to attend a micro wedding at the base of the blue hills in Walla Walla.

The morning was slow, and Regan & Meaghan helped each other get ready in the morning, and greeting guests at the front door at 10am. The whole day felt calm, intimate and meaningful. I noticed there wasn’t lots of information about what it looked like to plan a smaller wedding, timeline, prices, etc — and decided to add a Blog section to Casa BRIRO.

BRIRO: When it came to purchasing your wedding attire, what was most important to you and how did it go?

R+M: Our general outlook was, that since it was such a small ceremony, we didn’t want to spend money on the classic wedding things. When we did do tailoring, I went to a wedding tailor because my dress was more obviously a wedding dress. But Meaghan’s suite could pass off as just something for an event. It took about $90 for her suite.

I (Regan) am not the kind of person that wanted to have a big wedding dress trip to try on a bunch of stuff so I got something online for $250. It just wasn’t important to me to have to fuss over trying stuff on, even if it did come a little bigger, online ordering was super helpful.

BRIRO: Based on the timeline you had, what vendors were most important to you and how did you know what to prioritize?

R+M: Carte was our only vendor, and they’re like, salt to this earth. We were happy they were even willing to do it, and sad it was their last day using the trailer. I cooked all the food, and Meaghan did all the decorations herself, so a lot of DIY.

For florals, we had maybe two buckets of real flowers and the rest were fake, but we didn’t want fuss. Our must haves were having Elle Lowen officiate, so we prioritized the cost of flying her out, and we hired you because we loved getting our engagement pictures taken, it was so comfortable, and we just knew we had to have you on the day.

Vendor wise, we didn’t have much interaction with them. The venue was an airbnb owned by family, we lucked out there, but I think for a long time we were looking at other venues and it was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Something always wasn’t quite right, so we had to think outside the box for that one. At first, having it at a house seemed silly, but once we drew it out, we thought — we can make this work.

BRIRO: How did you choose who you would invite since you had such a limited guest list, were you worried about people getting their feelings hurt?

R+M: I think more than anything, COVID helped a lot with this. People kind of starting understanding smaller gathering sizes a lot better. Neither of us are spotlight people, and people make it stressful for you when you get engaged even if they’re not meaning to. We just kept reminding ourself that this was our day and we can make it however we want, no matter what hurt feelings come. We’re in charge, no matter what. We’re both women, we’re already going the non-traditional route, so when we sat down and started planning we wanted to make sure we were planning things that were fun, and things we both wanted to do.

We settled on a 30 person guest list, people we could feel comfy with, not too concerned about making sure all the extended family was there. We are both accommodating people, but what we realized was, when you plan to make yourself comfortable, it makes your guests comfortable. Our invitations played out well what the day would look like, we told guests we would greet them at the door and show them to their seats. It gave people this expectation that there really wasn’t a traditional formality. We liked letting them have that spereation of activity (getting coffee) in between the ceremony and reception.We invited people who we wanted and couldn’t imagine the day without. Everyone has taken it in stride, there hasn’t been a problem about hurt feelings yet, but people go to a lot of weddings, and sometimes its a good thing when they don’t have to go.

BRIRO: Were you always set on having an earlier wedding with small breakfast, or did you consider other options?

R+M: We had originally wanted to do a formal dinner, which we’re glad we didn’t because it wouldn’t have fit the vibe, we did not want to be stressed, no one wanted to be stretched thin. not worth it to be stressed for a single day and let that color the memory of it. While we were planning we realized we were dragging our feet when figuring out the details of the dinner, and if we’re dragging our feet, maybe that’s not what we should do. We sat down and asked ourselves what our favorite things were. We like sunday morning coffee, breakfast, going to target and coming home to take a nap. We structured our day around sunday happies vs. sunday scaries. We thought, "Why can’t we just have that be our wedding?”

BRIRO: How did the planning timeline go? Was it faster or shorter than you expected?

R+M: As soon as we settled into doing something we were excited to plan, everything popped into place. We were engaged for a full year, and that full year makes a lot of sense when you’re planning a big wedding. But I feel like the long engagement worked against us. That is one thing I wish we had done differently. If you’re having a small wedding, it just might be easier to do a lot and get it done instead of thinking about the event for a year. Realistically we only worked on it really hard for three months, but it was on our mind for twelve. We felt guilty for not having planned anything for months, and that was so silly, we didn’t need to. So during planning, don’t feel guilty for taking time to do something for you, it’s not that deep. We’d looked at a lot of schedules online, and those weren’t really relevant to our plan or smaller weddings. I can buy all the food at Walmart and we could have just done with a lot less mental overhead.

We heard it was traditional to get engaged for a year, but ultimately it would have been better to shorten the engagement.

BRIRO: Aside from what you’ve already mentioned, what’s some advice you’d give couples considering a small/micro wedding?

R+M: We’ve seen a lot of couples, friends and family, have weddings that are so opposite to what we know their personalities are. Or we. see that they’re uncomfortable during the day. A lot of the time it’s because people are so steeped in tradition.

Remember you don’t have to be tied to anything. If you don’t want to have a specific party, or part of a traditional wedding you don’t have to. You can plan something you’re excited for. We noticed we were super excited about one part of the wedding, but then thought, why not make the whole thing something we’re excited for? Don’t do anything for show, we didn’t want to walk down an aisle, or have a first look. With the physical restraints of our venue, we found that some things just wouldn’t work, but when you see it’s easy to let something go, it means you don’t need it. We didn’t need a full dinner after the reception. If the idea of letting it go makes you relaxed, that means you don’t need it.

BRIRO: Let’s talk Honeymoon, are you having one?

R+M: The wedding took up so much brain space and we didn’t even realize. We went to the Oregon Coast for a week, but that was kind of like a seperate vacation as far as reaclimating to life. Our real honeymoon will actually be next year: London and Paris, and we get to save up for that separately.

We really have no idea how people have the energy to go to the airport after the wedding. We got into our jammies after the wedding the second we drove back. Our temptation was to, other people might fucntion differently than us, but we came home, same day as the ceremony, got take out and just took the biggest nap.

We were so brain dead, we’re not the most social creatures, so the day took it out of us. I think if we hadn’t done the little weekend trip and stayed home it would have felt stifling because we couldn’t air out our heads, but it would have been so stressful to go on a huge honeymoon trip right after. We wanted it to be carefree, we we had a mini honeymoon, a little break, then we can do everything we want for our honeymoon after more planning time, cash and brainspace. We’re excited to be able to take 9 months next summer to like enjoy it away, and that’s their plan for that

We just booked a lodge on the Oregon coast and didn’t plan out anything for the week . It was really no pressure.

S U M M A R Y —

Invest in what you value most, if you’ll be happy without catered food or a specific venue, don’t get forced into it.
A shorter engagement for smaller weddings can be beneficial.
Consider a weekend getaway right after the wedding and a honeymoon farther out, to have more energy and be financially ready.
If you’re relieved by the thought of not doing a particular part of the day, consider just cutting it out.
Plan things that are fun and you both want to do for your day
Invite people who understand you and make you comfortable, forget the courtesy invites.

S N E A K P E A K G A L L E R Y —