Venisa & Stephen

1. How did you two meet? Steven and I met 10 years ago when we both worked for Lockheed Martin in Goodyear. He was an Engineer on the Program that I supported as a Material Planner for Supply Chain Management. One day I had a pallet of material delivered to his building and while we were taking a quick inventory of the material we got to talking. He noticed my NMSU lanyard which we both attended during the same time frame but didn’t know each other. We went on a few dates, and loved spending time with each other, we moved in with each other the following year and the rest is history!

2. Tell us about the proposal. Steven proposed in December 2015, he had been unemployed for about 6 months, one of his honey-do items was to finish painting the inside of our home. One beautiful day in December (12/22/2015 to be exact), I decided to leave work early to treat Steven to Happy Hour on a patio somewhere. When I text him to tell him I was coming home his reply was far from excited. I think his reply was ‘oh, you’re coming home early’. I thought that was pretty odd and made my way home. When I got home he was in his work clothes and was winded. I rushed him to stop lollygagging and to change so we could go and get me a margarita or sangria. He asked me to close my eyes so he could show me how our room had turned out after he had painted it, again I thought that was odd as we both picked out the paint and I knew how it would look. I hesitated but gave in so we could get going, I closed my eyes and he lead me into our bedroom where we surprised me with his proposal written on the wall with purple paint, roses and our two dogs as witnesses. The proposal was complete with our dogs paw prints painted as their seal of approval.

3. Describe the theme and color scheme of your wedding, and any favorite details (ceremony and/or reception) you included in your special day. There really wasn’t a theme to our wedding, we love spending time outside on our patio so Provencal at the Wright House was perfect for us! We loved the outdoor space, all the greenery, etc. I tried to keep green in our floral arrangements and added Sangria as our accent color which were also the color of our bridesmaids dresses. I also love succulents, I have quite a bit on our patio so made a special request to have succulents added to our wedding cake and my bouquet. I was able to give the coordinators at the Wright House my high level ideas and they made it all come to life beautifully. One of my favorite pass times when I have a free Saturday is to ride bikes over to Sip Coffee House to listen to live music, drink coffee and catch up with my husband or friends. I was able to book a great musician that plays at Sip, Taylor Anderson, who played cover songs during the ceremony and cocktail hour. The song he played while I walked down the aisle was perfect, still makes me tear up every time I hear it. The Girl by City and Colour. Our guests all raved about Taylor and how his sound complimented the venue. Another favorite detail was a small one but it was perfect for Steven and I. We were able to incorporate running bibs from runs we had done together for our guests table assignments. I received the suggestion from a coworker and we both loved the idea. We don’t keep medals but we do keep our bibs, we picked out 10-12, had them laminated and used the bib numbers for the table assignments.

4. What words of advice would you give other couples planning their big day? It really is all about you two! Early on I became very overwhelmed trying to accommodate everyone’s ideas and suggestions, I was constantly on Pinterest trying to figure out how to make everything happen, while on a budget (I am not much of a do it yourselfer, I try but have failed miserably). I realized we are both pretty low maintenance and don’t need or want all the bells and whistles, we just wanted a beautiful venue with great food and music so that our friends and family could all gather to celebrate our relationship and new chapter in our lives. And that we did, we didn’t let wedding planning consume our lives.

5. Tell us about your photographer: Why did you choose this photographer and were you happy with the whole experience? I had attended a friend’s wedding the year prior and loved all of their pictures. I text Steph asking her if she had availability to talk with me about our engagement and wedding pictures, she replied immediately and we got the ball rolling. My husband and I both confessed to each other on our way to meet Steph for our engagement pictures how much we were not fans of taking pictures, but Steph made us feel so comfortable and made it fun! She had just started using film so she was switching between digital and film, and it was well worth it, all the film shots came out great.