Ryan and Elizabeth 's Wedding in Phoenix, Arizona

Ryan and I are alike in many ways, but we also differ in a lot of respects too which can make for a beautiful blend of ideas and styles. I am very eclectic, so I love everything from vintage romantic styles to rustic country chic decor. Ryan on the other hand has much more modern tastes. When deciding our wedding style, we decided we would incorporate both of our tastes by having our wedding at The Farm at South Mountain, but using a lot of gold, geometric shapes and highlight pieces to give the rural setting a more modern spin. We made beautiful succulent arrangements that were "framed" in gold geometric terrariums. Our centerpieces consisted of succulent wreaths I made surrounding a gold geometric terrarium that I turned in to a lantern with a candle to light up the table. Gold geometric votives were on every table and were even featured on our coasters.

We both value our families deeply, so many of our family members played major roles in our wedding. Ryan's mother (my new mother-in-law!) officiated our wedding, and my two sisters were my bridesmaids. Unfortunately, my stepfather Steve, whom I was extremely close with, passed away before Ryan and I were married. Although I love my biological father, it was important to me that Steve still walked me down the aisle. I had a locket made with his photo and thumbprint engraved on it and his ashes inside, so I had my florist pin the locket to my bouquet. Steve was still able to walk me down the aisle and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Because the two of us are artists, it was super important for us to make our wedding as creative and unique as we are. I made many of the decor items myself, from the centerpieces, the ceremony lanterns, designed a custom Snapchat filter and even made the bridal party "bouquets" (I used small lanterns filled with flowers instead of a traditional bouquet). Of the two of us, I am more of the illustrator. I love drawing cartoons and making animations, so for our wedding favors I decided to draw several coloring pages of us and our bridal party to give out to our guests! They were a huge hit, especially with the kids who attended. Ryan is a more refined designer and regularly creates logos and designs for clients. We used the beautiful gold monogram he made for the proposal in as much of our reception as possible. We placed it on coasters and even had our photobooth specialist include it in the photobooth "frames" that our guests used. It looked lovely!

Ryan and I are both mega foodies! One of our favorite hobbies is exploring all of the hidden restaurants and bars in Downtown Phoenix, so we wanted to make sure that the food we served to our guests (and ourselves) was mouth-watering delicious! All of the food was made on-site and many of the vegetables that were used were actually grown from our venue. We served fried mac & cheese with green chile and crab puffs for hors d'oeuvres and had a wide range of comfort foods available during the dinner portion of the reception. For our guests, we decided to offer donuts instead of the traditional wedding cake. We couldn't keep people away from the donut walls!

One of the many fun highlights of the night was the father-daughter dance with my biological dad. My dad is not exactly a coordinated person, so he wanted to help me surprise everyone by the two of us taking dance lessons together. We choreographed a two-part mashup, beginning with a beautiful waltz to Calum Scott's "You Are the Reason" and then unexpectedly jumping to a fun push-pull dance using Meghan Trainor's "Better When I'm Dancing." We surprised everyone and had the whole crowd cheering!

One of our favorite parts of the reception were the games our DJ played with our guests. The first game involved volunteers from each table to go on a scavenger hunt for various items, ranging from bobby pins to men's socks, and all sorts of other silly things! We had guests from all ages running and laughing while trying to steal items from others all in an attempt to give their table the win. The second game was even better! We had chosen specific guests to play this game where they were given costumes and had to act out a certain scene or character. This had everyone in stitches, especially after the winning guest performed Madonna's "Like a Virgin" in front of the whole crowd! We laughed until we cried and it really helped break the ice and encourage everyone to get on the dance floor.

Our perfect night flew by and before we knew it, it was time to head out. We ended the night with a sparkler send-off where our guests lit the way to our getaway car. We were sad to say goodbye to everyone and wish the night could have lasted several more hours, but we still had the absolute perfect day and it was the perfect way to start the rest of our lives together as husband and wife.