Andrea and Dylan's Skyline St. Paul Wedding

“We’re here to celebrate how, for a very long time, Dylan was significantly more interested in Andrea than she was interested in him. It’s impossible to forget the night Andrea needed a ride home in which Dylan so graciously volunteered to drive her back in his extremely loud, old maroon Buick. There wasn’t anything more romantic than the way they had to scream at each other over the radio, turned on to drown out the screeching noises from the car, losing their voices to keep up a conversation as he drove her home. “

When writing a ceremony that’s heavily story-based, weaving bits of the story into the ceremony while also reflecting back on how each of those stories told relate to the couple today strikes a balance most guests won’t expect to hear in a wedding. The opening lines of Andrea and Dylan’s ceremony reflect their demeanors when they were younger, which haven’t changed much from today. (They’re still goofy, even as I write them emails about editing this piece!) 

Like any good story, there’s always a beginning, middle, and end, and as the ceremony progressed, their story within the ceremony progressed, too. Often, at weddings I’m not officiating, the wedding ceremonies reveal stories about the couple in a non-chronological order, but to keep guests engaged, it’s more effective to speak about the couple through linear dialogue. Otherwise, guests will expend mental energy trying to piece together the timeline rather than simply being engaged in the storytelling. 

“On January 12th, 2015 at exactly 8:53pm, Dylan and Andrea began messaging each other on Facebook messenger. This wasn’t any sign of pure commitment, as Andrea kindly responded with that “maybe sometime” the two of them could hang out together. A few Snapchat streaks and vertical messages later, that “sometime” became a lifetime together. “

While we tossed around the idea of having a unity corn dog in the ceremony (they LOVE the state fair), ultimately this idea was removed from the wedding ceremony. Trust me, I’m all for going to the state fair before a wedding and casually leaving with just a single corn dog, but sometimes, the simpler, the better. A wedding ceremony doesn’t need to have tons of readings or cliched pieces to be good. Instead, the content – the couple’s story – needs to be told eloquently in relation to their views on marriage. 

“Going in to it we didn’t really know what to expect or how someone new would be able to write something so personalized, but you made the process super easy and fun!  We loved being able to be so involved throughout the process and see it all come together, and to see how you were able to pull so much from us rambling about our relationship and make it all a cohesive thing.” – Andrea

Venue: A’bulae

Officiant: Liz from Liz Rae Weddings

Photo: Bellagala