Elevate Exclusive: Celebrating Kelsie & Jason's One Year Wedding Anniversary

Hi friends! Kelsie here. Believe it or not, I just celebrated my one-year wedding anniversary with my beloved Jason! While it feels nearly impossible that one year has already come and gone, it has been quite a year, to say the least. It was filled with lots of new and exciting adventures, like our incredible honeymoon in Italy and Greece and purchasing our first home together, while also bringing on losses and challenges that ultimately strengthened our marriage and brought us even closer. I wouldn’t have wanted to go through it all with anyone else, though, and everything we’ve been through absolutely reaffirms my love for Jason.

Celebrating an anniversary during quarantine definitely changed our plans a bit, but we found ways to reminisce nonetheless! We picnicked at Viking Park (where we had our first look) with takeout from one of our favorite local restaurants, then ended the day by cozying up on the couch watching our wedding video and sifting through photos… truly the perfect day for us.

As for our background story, Jason and I have actually been together for ELEVEN years, and got married on our ten-year anniversary. We met when we were 15, him living in Wisconsin and me in Illinois. I traveled often to play soccer in Madison, and we happened to have mutual friends on our soccer teams so… we eventually met and the rest, as they say, is history. 😊 Our relationship took a complex (and long distance) turn when we both went to college – Jason headed to Iowa and I chose a school in Pennsylvania. After eight years separated, I finally made the move to Madison to be with Jason, and it was SO WONDERFUL to be in the same state as him for once!

After a couple of years of bliss together, I said “yes” to forever in October of 2018! It started as a typical Sunday morning, and I had just had a wedding in Lake Geneva the day prior, so Jason and I went to brunch at one of our go-to spots, Merchant. Afterwards, Jason suggested we walk up to the Monona Terrace to explore (not so unusual for us so I wasn’t very suspicious). However, shortly after our walk began, Jason started to say really sweet things about us and our relationship, and before I knew it he was down on one knee and I was bawling with joy! We had always spoken about how special it would be to get married on our ten-year anniversary, so with the official promise of “I Do” and less than 7 months to do it, I got right to planning!

In establishing the vision for our day, I wanted to infuse the feeling of spring with lots of romantic flowers in shades of blue and hints of mauve. I also had known well before we were engaged that I wanted to get married at the Lageret – working quite a few weddings there myself, I saw it as the perfect “blank canvas” over which we could paint any design we wanted! I knew that I wanted to infuse lots of whimsical and showstopping floral elements into the day, so the venue manager and star florist, Jamae, and I worked together to develop the floral columns and cloud floating above us as we said our vows – they turned out perfectly!

Finally, since I wanted this day to be as much Jason’s as mine, I asked him to take full creative freedom on what he and the groomsmen would wear. The light blue suits were actually his idea – he has such an incredible sense of style and loves to incorporate prints and colors into everything he wears, so obviously I was very much on board! When he suggested we put our little ring bearers in matching blue suits, that little detail definitely made me weak in the knees!

Since we had the opportunity to get married on our anniversary, too, I wanted our wedding to tell our personal story in several ways. Jason and I had kept many of our letters we exchanged over the past ten years, and made a shadow box of them, dating all the way back to 2009. While we separately knew many of our guests for practically our entire lives, we wanted everyone in attendance to feel like they really got to know us during our celebration, so it was so special for us to include these notes in that way! In writing our vows, Jason noted several memories that took me back all those years, and I recited a quote of his from a note he had written at the very beginning of our relationship. To see how far we had come to get to that day was so powerful and overwhelming, so I’ll let our pictures (and a link to our video!) do the rest of the explaining. Thanks for following along, I hope you enjoy memories from this beautiful day as much as I do!

XO,

Kelsie