Becky + Cole

How did you meet & When did you know they were the one?

Cole and I met the way many classic millennial love stories begin: online. I was on vacation visiting a brewery in Ardmore, Pennsylvania and posted a picture to a private Facebook group for craft beer lovers in Oklahoma, where I live. I was wearing a shirt that said “Sad Songs” in the picture. Cole, a stranger from Ardmore, Oklahoma living in Dallas, TX, commented and said “Sad songs are the best songs”. After thoroughly creeping on his profile, I sent him a friend request and we started talking and never stopped. Three months after our first date, we took a spontaneous trip to Chicago. It was there, in the peaceful moments between frigid wind chills, walking the streets of Lincoln Park, that I knew I was in love with him. I never wanted to let go of his hand.

What are your three favourite attributes of your partner

Cole reminds me so much of all the important men in my life: he is hardworking and quiet like my father, well-liked and extraverted like my brothers, silly and lighthearted like my grandfather. He shows up for me and has never once, in our five years together, left me feeling embarrassed or lonely or unloved.

Where did you fall in love with your dress and why?

I’d been looking at dresses online for years. I’m 100% that girl that always dreamed of her wedding day. I found Made With Love almost immediately and fell in love with the bohemian, unique details of their gowns. One, in particular, took my breath away and I knew I desperately needed to try it on: the Mimi. I traveled to Dallas to try on dresses after being told the Mimi was too unique for the standard Oklahoma bride-yeah okay whatever. I found her at A & Bé Bridal Boutique and knew immediately. I cried. My mom cried. My MoH cried. It was a done deal. The details, the lace, the subtle sparkle, those wings ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! It was and is the dreamiest dress I’ve ever seen. I knew I’d never be the classic Oklahoma-rustic-strapless-sweetheart bride. The wings sold me; the were so different than anything I’d seen.

Who proposed and how?

The November of 2018 was a hard one for me; I experienced a lot of personal devastation, and the stress made my autoimmune illness flare up big time, adding pain and embarrassment to an already heartbreaking time. But I was turning 30 in a month, the holidays were fast approaching, and we had planned a big European adventure for after the New Year, which included Valentine’s Day at the top of the Eiffel Tower. “If he doesn’t propose to me during one of these *perfect* opportunity, I’m going to say ‘fuck it’ and propose to him,” I thought to myself. We’d been dating for over three years, and he didn’t propose to me during any of those amazing moments.

He proposed before all of it.

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, two weeks after watching my grandmother die, one week after another devastating loss, we made plans to go to Walmart for groceries when I got off work. Cole has spent the day putting up our new Christmas lights and asked if I’d come inside to look at what he did with my old Christmas lights (which I am weirdly sentimentally attached to) in the backyard. I was annoyed; I wanted to get Walmart over with.

I knew as soon as I walked in the house. It was spotlessly clean, he’d put up the Christmas tree, and had lit candles. In the backyard, I found bouquets of flowers, a fire burning, and my old Christmas lights creating a path to my sweet man, standing in a suit with our baby French Bulldog, Dolly Parton, watching on. He said my name when he proposed, which was weird, because I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard him say my name out loud. He got down on one knee. I cried for thirty minutes. Between heavy sobs I repeatedly asked “are you sure?!” and “what about Walmart?!” and “but I’m crazy!” It didn’t feel real. We went out to dinner and shared the news with the waitress. When we came home, we FaceTimed our friends and families. It was better than the Eiffel Tower.

What was the best moment for you at the wedding?

Our wedding day was an actual dream. The forecast was rain the entire two weeks prior, but when I woke up the morning of October 19, 2019, it was a clear, cool, sunny day. Magically perfect. My bridesmaids entered to Hysteric by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I walked down the aisle of our forest ceremony to Sea of Love by Cat Powers, at sunset, with glitter on my eyes, a penny in my shoe, and my groom smiling through tears back at me. I have that mental picture burned into my brain forever. His vows shocked and shook me, they were so thoughtful and beautiful. We exited to First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes. His extremely introverted brother gave a beautiful toast, my dad made everybody cry with his. We drank champagne out of my parents’ wedding glasses and I smashed cake in his face. We’re still finding gold confetti from our exit to this day, hidden in corners of pockets and jackets and shoes. We stayed up late eating leftover cake in bed and brunched with our out-of-town family and friends the next morning.

What advice would you tell other brides?

My biggest advice to other brides would be: do it your own way. If it’s weird or contradictory or 100% traditional conservative. Just do it your own way. Make it feel like YOU. It makes everything so much more special. I have zero regrets.

What was the one thing you did differently for your wedding?

Our wedding had a lot of traditional elements for the sake of our families: my dad walked me down the aisle, we did a bouquet and garter toss, we danced with our parents. But my favorite parts are what looked different and true to us: our rehearsal dinner was casual tacos and margaritas, all of the greenery at our ceremony and reception, my pink hair, our mismatched bridal party (because who cares about what other people are wearing as long as they feel beautiful? Took away a lot of stress for me and them!) We did a private champagne toast with just our families in the bridal suite during the reception. We had cake flavors that reflected us perfectly: bourbon vanilla, chocolate mocha, and pumpkin cream cheese. We asked our guests to not bring their children (sorry not sorry). We curated our music playlists for all the big moments around songs we love, not traditional wedding matches. We didn’t do a first look, we didn’t get married by a priest, we didn’t get married in a church. We changed the language of the ceremony to be less antiquated and sexist, I wrote in a parental blessing, and we used an Australian unity ceremony tradition instead of a candle or sand, as an homage to Cole’s Australian heritage.