2024 Wedding Season

It’s always fun to do an end of year recap of my wedding season so here it is! This year I was able to do 4 weddings with Gather with Mimi. This was the second year Mimi and I have worked together, you can read about last year’s wedding season here. For me, this year’s weddings were much more condensed compared to last year. In 2023 my wedding season started in March and ended in November and this year it started half way through July and ended the first week of September! Also, interestingly enough my season started and ended with weddings at Fox Hollow Farms.

The first wedding was on July 19 at Fox Hollow Farms in Issaquah. I was one of two assistants for Mimi who was the designer and coordinator. The day started off a little rough with heat, humidity and Mimi getting an awful bee sting. We spent the first bit assembling paper airplanes into little holders and then alphabetizing them for the guest seating chart. The florists were very late which was stressful and the bees were going absolutely nuts in the tent where the reception was going to happen later in the day. There were para gliders coming off the mountain all day, perfect blue sky, and amazing sunshine! The dessert was a sorbet cart which had an amazing vegan flavor that I really enjoyed. Also guess who has the job of picking up all the flower pedals and the venue doesn’t allow a rake? Yep, that’d be me! Also the catering vegan polenta I had for dinner was surprisingly delicious! The only major issue of the day was during tear down because the family members that was supposed to help us tear down did not do so. This left Mimi and I running, and I mean running, trying to clean up all the decor and get out of the venue on time.

The second wedding of the year was on August 2 at The Manor At South Bay in Olympia. This was for a family friend of Mimi’s so she was the designer/coordinator and I was the assistant for this barn themed micro wedding. This wedding was super low key and easy, very chill vibes which is so unlike most weddings, and the only issue we had to overcome was wind-proofing decor! Oh I also ended up being the “DJ” for this wedding with my phone connected to a vintage-looking bluetooth speaker and playing the Spotify playlist! ha! This wedding had the couple’s table and then only 3 tables for family so overall the decor was pretty light. Mimi was also the florist so that added a bit of work to do as well. All the food was homemade by the family and it looked incredible(not vegan), and the bride’s mom made the wedding cake! I also was the one to cut the cake and plate it at which was a first for me! Very intimate and beautiful and I was home before 8pm since it was local!

The third wedding was on August 12 at the Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington and it was Mimi’s wedding. For this wedding I was the designer and co-coordinator and it was a big undertaking! This venue is beautiful but working with the staff and some of the vendors proved to be difficult and stressful. There was lots of hands to help but not much experience and when the wedding is for the business’ owner there’s a lot of decor, layers, and vision. Mimi had done an amazing job and everything was labeled, but we needed more time! Thankfully she was running late and some guests were running late, so the timing with the set up running late ended up working out just fine! Mimi had friends to get ready with and take pictures but the wedding itself was family only-now don’t you think that means small because there were still over 40 people not including vendors! This wedding was absolutely beautiful, Mimi poured her heart and soul into it and everyone could feel it. Every little thing had been thought of and personalized for her family, there were handwritten notes for guests, fresh fruit on all the tables, their favorite pizza for dinner, and some amazing wedding cake! There was so much decor we had multiple trips with multiple cars and it still ended up being me having to have a car come back for this single cane chair because it just wouldn’t fit!

The final wedding of the year was on September 6 at Fox Hollow Farms. I was an assistant again along with a few other ladies. We were grateful for the extra hands when we had to move all the wood chairs 3x that morning in the most humid conditions! This wedding was fancy, vendor heavy, and absolutely stunning. There was confusion between the parties of which chairs were being used for what and it ended up being a ton of work but the end result was incredible. There was a party light vendor that came and set up lights around and above the table arch that was the reception location in front of the manor. It was the most beautiful and intimate dinner setting. The whole wedding was minimalist, high end, and so well designed.