A “Tinderella Story”: The Most Fantastic Music-filled Wedding in Madison History

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For serious. I’m not exaggerating. Ally & RJ’s wedding was the most fantastic wedding for music. Well, I guess I’m not 100% certain this is true for all of Madison’s history. But I’ve photographed 100s of weddings and I’ve never seen or heard of such an epic display of music at a wedding in Wisco. The second line is a tradition in New Orleans, which is amazing, and I’m glad they were able to secure a parade permit (?!?!) to bring this tradition from RJ’s roots up to good ol’ Madison.

I had SO much fun listening to this music and seeing how happy EVERYONE was at this wedding was to rock out. The rest of the wedding was epic as well and Allyson and RJ are both such lovely humans. I hope their wedding photos show how truly wonderful their wedding was.

Allyson was kind enough to answer some Qs about their love and their wedding. Without further adieu, here’s Allyson:

  • Our love story:
    • We’re a good ole fashioned Tinderella story. 
      • The two of us independently moved to New York almost 3 years ago, Ally from the North (WI via MN) and RJ from the South (LA via TX). Neither of us knew many people here, so like the rest of Millennials, we decided to give app-based dating a whirl. 
      • RJ super-liked Ally on a Sunday, and that following Thursday we met at the elegant and historic Campbell Bar at Grand Central Station, enjoyed old fashions, a cheese plate, and most of all, each other’s company ;).
      • That was May 2018 and the following summer was a bucket list. Ally led RJ on tours of her favorite parks and RJ shared with Ally his favorite art at the Met Museum. They biked the beach, tried and loved sea urchin sushi, grooved to live music, explored Chinatown, and took in Broadway shows. Ally planned a trip upstate to see an opera and to a Rhode Island beach with friends, and RJ introduced Ally to both New Orleans and Houston.
      • RJ and Ally exchanged I love yous that summer, and by fall they were looking at rings, giving credence to the phrase that when you know, you KNOW.

Where our wedding was and how we chose the venues:

We decided to host the wedding in Madison to make it simpler for at least one side of our community to join us. Ally grew up in Madison, where September is typically gorgeous. But in RJ’s familial outposts of Houston and New Orleans early September is reliably hot and miserable. Both of us were raised in the church, so it felt natural for us to host the ceremony at Ally’s home church, Bethel Lutheran Church.

We knew we wanted to invite our guests to partake in the New Orleans (NOLA) tradition of a Second Line (where the couple takes a NOLA-style brass band and leads their guests to dance down the streets from the ceremony venue to the reception venue) – so we preferenced reception locations within dancing distance of the church.

Working in architecture and landscape architecture, Ally immediately fell in love with the clean modern openness of the Overture Center’s Main Lobby, which felt so “Madison” with views of the skyline. The Overture Center is very professional and hands-on with timelines and keeping us on track, which was needed based on our short engagement period.

Our favorite part of the wedding:  Besides getting hitched…?!?: the Second Line!! Dancing with a marching band through downtown Madison from the wedding to the reception venue was incredibly special and memorable.

What was definitely worth it.  Live music. We did our best to bring a garden-feel inside the Overture Center with potted plants, cut tree boughs, and some cut flowers. Ally nearly cried when she saw it complete.

What was definitely not worth it. Unsure honestly. Perhaps we could have done things less expensively, but then we would have either had to compromise the vision or gotten married later to get more creative with the budget.  

Our greatest challenge planning the wedding: 

  • Timeline. We got engaged in February 2019 and got married 7 months later. 
  • Distance. We planned this Madison wedding while living in New York City.

Resources that helped us along the way:  Our families! This event would have been impossible without our wedding-planning mothers, and music-organizing talents of Ally’s sister, for example. Many shout outs to other family members, great friends, and vendors who did so much to help us full this off so quickly.

Advice for people planning their wedding: 

  • Dig down and consider what’s important to you and what is not. 
  • Live music and visual beauty were important to us – not an open bar.
  • Trust talented creative people. We shared basic intent with people like our musicians, photographer, and florists, and they all internalized these principles and brought so much more to the day than we even knew how to ask for.

Other cool stuff people should know: In order to dance down the streets with the Second Line, it turned out we needed to secure a parade permit with the City of Madison, an entity who had no idea what to do with the foreign NOLA tradition of a Second Line. They worked with us though, and eventually we settled on a parade route that did not conflict with the Taste of Madison festivities. We were required to obtain a short term insurance policy to cover event liability and hire two off duty Madison police officers to pull it all off. ENTIRELY WORTH IT!

  • Why we chose Maureen as our photographer: 
    • Her extraordinary talent and experience, level of commitment she demonstrated with us, and her easy-going, thoughtful, goofy personality! 
    • Her wedding work speaks for itself, but once we came across her artful boudoir work, we realized that if she could help people relax enough in their own bodies wearing little to no clothing, then she could help us relax and feel like ourselves in front of the camera on one of the most memorable days of our lives! Her work is emotive and funny and she and her assistants really nail the candid shots, which we were really interested in. 
    • We reached out, telling our story and describing our vision for the day. Maureen responded promptly and with energy and excitement. The good fit intuition was confirmed after FaceTiming with her from our tiny NYC apt and digging her strong, committed, badass, star-child vibe. 

VENDORS

Planned Budget $40k

Actual Budget $45k

Where we allocated the most funds and the least funds:

  • MOST FUNDS:
    • Venue/catering – important to host our people right!
      • Working with the chef at Fresco was really great – we spent a little extra doing a semi-custom menu that integrated Creole/Cajun flavors that honored RJ’s side and showcased local Wisconsin ingredients.
    • Live band #1 – integrate groom’s Second Line tradition
    • Live band #2 – Ally’s favorite activity is dancing and RJ’s is singing – Live band #2 delivered both
    • Florals: Ally is a professional landscape architect and recruited a talented florist to help us create a garden in the Overture Center  
    • Bride/groom garments – we both had a lot of fun collaborating with talented tailors and dressmakers for one-of-a-kind looks
  • LEAST FUNDS
    • Dessert
    • Ceremony location and decor
    • Print
    • Fancy linens, table settings
    • Videographer
      • Our church inexpensively taped the ceremony
      • Between our friends’ and families’ iPhones capturing the Second Line and special moments at the reception and our kickass photography team, we felt confident the day was covered.

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