CJ & Lorraine
FROM THE BRIDE'S PERSPECTIVE
Describe Your Engagement
My finance CJ and I are pretty laid back. We enjoy staying in when
perhaps many other couples would prefer to go out. We certainly
didn't want a flashy public (not my style) engagement. To us,
marriage is a very serious personal commitment and it's not just
about how he asks or the diamond. He wanted it to be just us and
very simple. We had planned to go out to dinner for Valentine's Day.
He got one of my very best friends from grad school to take me
out to lunch and convince me to get my nails done. I went up to
his apartment at the appointed time and walked in to a beautiful
bouquet of my favorite flowers (tropical with orchids). He had our
favorite band (The 1975) playing in the background and simply
got on one knee right there in what is now our shared downtown
Chicago apartment. I said “yes” right away! We probably spent
about the next 20 minutes texting pictures to our parents and
family. Then we went out and enjoyed a delicious dinner.
Describe Your Wedding Vision
I call it "romantic tropical" with a Latin flare all the way from
Ecuador. My husband is from Ecuador, so I wanted to honor his
heritage. We had the majority of our flowers flown in from his
home town of Guayaquil. My in-laws are friends with the owners of
The Bouqs Company, so they had the flowers flown in. The flowers
were then arranged by MichaelAngelos Events of South Bend and
they turned out SPECTACULAR! They're a combo of my favorite
romantic flowers and the best of Ecuador's tropicals. It was the
perfect representation of our lives combining to be one!
Our cake was made by Adams Cake Shop of Elkhart and my topper
was a rather silly, fun custom topper of my cat. I'm a crazy cat lady
and I'm not ashamed of it. My cat Mitt is the "King of Sass" just like
the topper says and I knew I was marrying the right man when I
told CJ I really wanted to have Mitt as the topper on the cake and
he said he loved the idea! As you can see in the picture, the topper
didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped. It's a little wacky and,
trust me, Mitt is a beautiful cat and his eyes don't look in opposite
directions. Despite the topper's "quirks" I decided it was still going
on the cake. You've got to have a little fun and can't take everything
too seriously!
I struggled to find a dress. I'm very petite and all the dresses I
tried on were way too big and it was hard for me to get an idea
of what it would look like in my size. Also, I found that a lot of the
dresses out there today are all about showing off and showing
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