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How to Have a Magical Rainbow Wedding

How to Have a Magical Rainbow Wedding

I always knew if I got married, it wouldn’t be exactly traditional. It wasn’t until I was engaged that I started planning the magical rainbow wedding of my dreams.

My partner and I got married in 2015. At that point, we had been together for 7 years. What can I say? We wanted to make sure we were really compatible!

We got engaged in 2014, and we picked a wedding date at random. In retrospect, I wish we had given this some more thought. We moved across the country so I could attend a full-time graduate program at Harvard. I graduated in May 2015, and we moved across the country *again* so I could start a new job that June. And our wedding was in September 2015. As you can imagine, there was a lot going on! We’re pretty grateful to our family and friends who helped us plan.

We knew we wanted a wedding to reflect who we were as a couple: fun and magical. And obviously, we needed rainbows. As someone on the LGBTQ+ spectrum who also has many LGBTQ+ friends, rainbows held an especially significant meaning for me that year. Same-sex marriage was legalized in the US on June 26, 2015.

We prioritized the aspects of our wedding that mattered most to us: the venue, our attire, and events and activities. We delegated everything else to our loved ones who volunteered to help.

The Venue

We originally planned on having a simple backyard wedding at my partner’s grandparents’ house. However, we realized this was potentially stressful for them. It was also not big enough for the amount of people we planned on having (around 125). We started looking into all-inclusive venues because we didn’t want to deal with juggling multiple vendors and contracts.

My father-in-law had an existing relationship with The Odyssey Restaurant, which is where his school’s formal dances were held (he used to be a principal). They had numerous ballrooms, an outside courtyard and gazebo, and a wonderful view overlooking the city. They had a variety of reasonable packages to choose from and took care of pretty much everything. We had such a wonderful experience with them!

Our guest book was a picture frame that spelled out our last name

The venue looked especially beautiful with all the decorations my mother-in-law, her best friend, and my sister-in-law made! The rainbow roses I ordered arrived somewhat wilted, and they worked their magic to basically create new bouquets out of the roses and other decorations. It was amazing!

The Attire

I knew I wanted a non-traditional dress. I went to a few bridal stores to figure out what styles I liked, and photoshopped colors on to them. I sent out these pictures to a few designers on Etsy, and someone was able to make me my dress!

My dress ended up being a little longer than I hoped, and I was getting quotes of $300-400 just to hem it! I ended up buying rainbow platform wedges instead.

For our bridal party, we wanted each person to represent a color of the rainbow. The bridesmaids wore a colored petticoat under their dresses. The groomsmen had corresponding ties.

Events and Activities

It was important to us that our families be involved in some way, as we felt our wedding was an opportunity for both our families to come together. We had a sand ceremony to symbolize this. My partner and I each had a color of sand, and our parents had one as well. We took turns pouring our sand into a larger glass container. The thinking is that over time, the colors will blend together. This container has survived several moves and is currently on display in our dining room.

We also had a handfasting ceremony to symbolize our unity – we were literally tying the knot! I made ribbons with different colors to represent aspects we wanted to bring into our union:

  • Red: passion
  • Orange: kindness
  • Yellow: joy
  • Green: prosperity
  • Blue: patience
  • Purple: power

We also wanted people to have a great time. We had a one-hour open bar before our ceremony, which I think helped people relax. We spent a considerable amount of time putting together a playlist with songs all generations could appreciate and dance to.

We opted for a small rainbow cake to cut and cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles for our guests. These were chocolate chip cake with whipped buttercream frosting.

We had such a wonderful time. People aren’t kidding when they say it goes by really fast!

If you’re thinking about having your own rainbow wedding, I recommend making a list of what’s most important to you and how you’d like to use different colors. While we wanted a colorful wedding, we also didn’t want to overwhelm our guests. This is why we still incorporated traditional colors like black and white. I guess you could say we were going for something that was whimsical and elegant.

It’s easy to look at different pictures on websites like Pinterest and think your wedding needs to look a specific way. While it’s great to get inspiration online, it’s really up to you to decide what it looks like!

Vendors

Have you had a rainbow or other “non-traditional” wedding?

Meri