Hi ! Welcome to the Jessica Schmitt Photography blog from a Colorado Wedding Photographer. I journal about my couples, photography, life and travels. Stay a while and say hello!
Susan and Jordan were married on a beautiful September day in Denver at Brittany Hill.
Jordan shares, “My mom surprised me with a watch from my grandpa from when he worked for and retired from Coca Cola. She had it restored and it was really touching.”
Jordan’s favorite moment of the day was “Seeing my beautiful wife for the first time during our first look. She was breathtaking, and it was nice to have a few moments alone after the rush of the morning.”
Susan shares, “I was most anxious for the Western ceremony and to hear Jordan’s vows. We talked about our vows earlier in the week and I was so nervous about whether or not mine felt like they were authentic enough or if they struck the right tone. It was so nice to be in the moment with Jordan. People talk about how you really don’t end up noticing the crowd, and I really couldn’t tell you who was sitting where or what was happening around us. It was truly one of the most grounding moments of the day for me, and a huge sigh of relief that it happened.”
Jordan continues, “I echo the same thing. I was so nervous about saying my vows in front of everyone, but it went pretty well and wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be.”
Susan shares, “We were both so surprised by our officiant, Mike, who is a dear friend. He was so phenomenal and really set the tone for the ceremony in a way that was funny, personal, and sweet.”
Congratulations to the couple!
One of the couple’s favorite parts of the wedding was wedding favors that they made. They share, “We were inspired by an Asian Australian company that made blind boxes but were outside of our budget, so we took up the challenge of making them ourselves, and they were perfect. It was an iterative process over the span of 2 months to design, print, cut, and assemble the boxes at home. We filled them with mini Legos since that was a meaningful hobby to incorporate for our guests.
I loved that we were able to build in so many Easter eggs – an educational moment for the double happiness symbol; the product number being 88888 to mirror how exclusive blindboxes are marked with 99999, but the number 8 in Chinese culture represents luck and prosperity. We also used to joke around about combining our last names into Huance, and how it sounds like ‘once,’ so it was appropriate to use Huance Upon A Time as our company name. For our barcode, the numbers are our anniversary date “60921” and the zip code where we first met “80206.”
It’s been fun to get photos from friends who have put their Legos together! We saved some at home as well so now we have matching Legos that represent our family and friends.
Our first date location also made an appearance in our wedding bands. We each have half of the coordinate of the bar where we had our first date and Forget Me Not, the name of the bar.”
The couple’s first dance was to Make You Feel My Love by Adele.
Susan shares, “The parent dances were particularly special. We danced to “You’ll Be In My Heart” from Tarzan in both English and Cantonese and transitioned from Jordan and his mom to me and my dad. It felt like a great way to honor two languages and cultures in such a seamless way.
We also spent a lot of time curating our playlists – our string trio played several popular Mandarin songs, each of our siblings and their partners contributed a song, and then they played some Carpenters songs for Jordan’s mom, amongst other favorites, like the Star Wars Cantina Song. Our dinner time playlist was jazzy 50’s Shanghai. It felt meaningful to be able to have so many pieces of blended family and culture as part of the day.”
After dinner we were able to sneak outside for some portraits and enjoy the gorgeous Colorado sunset.
Susan had a great time on the dance floor! She adds, “Once we actually had a chance to hit the dance floor, I had such a blast dancing with all of our family and friends. I would not call myself a dancer, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was so fun to just spend time with them.
I also need to shout out my cousins who lived up to the charge of taking down the establishment! The cousin shots will forever live in my memory.”
Susan shares, “Looking back, our wedding weekend perfectly captured who we were. We had a traditional Chinese banquet for rehearsal dinner at Empress Seafood in Denver, which was one of our favorite dim sum places. They were fantastic about dietary restrictions and customizing a menu for folks who weren’t as familiar with Chinese banquet dishes. We then hosted our welcome drinks at the Stanley Marketplace Beer Garden, back in our old stomping grounds where we first lived together.”
Susan and Jordan moved from Denver to California earlier this year. She continues, “While we’re still planning to take an actual honeymoon trip, we did a minimoon in California, after we got home. We had driven 18 hours to Colorado for the wedding, and made the trip home over two days on the way back the following week. After unpacking the car at home and re-packing, we drove 3.5 hours south and spent three days in Atascadero at an Italian villa-inspired AirBNB that had a lovely private hot tub with a waterfall.
The weekend was packed with couples massages, challenging Susan’s fear of heights with ziplining, exploring downtown San Luis Obispo, a tour of Hearst Castle, and being headbutted by a donkey, sheep, and goats. It was the perfect way to “end” our wedding journey. After the big move from Colorado to California in April, coupled with the stress of work and wedding planning, it didn’t feel like we had invested time back into just being us. The weekend trip felt like a reset and a return to who we are as a couple and one of our hobbies – traveling to new places together.”
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