Multicultural Wedding at The Broadmoor
When it came time to select their wedding location, this couple worked backwards. They knew they wanted photographs that would stand the test of time, and Colorado-based Lisa O'Dwyer was just the right vendor to capture. What followed was an incredible wedding day at The Broadmoor, celebrating both American and Indonesian cultures, and you can dive into each bit inside The Vault.
From The Bride...I was overjoyed when Kai proposed on Christmas day, but the timing for planning a wedding couldn't be any worst. I was in Missouri as a first year medical student while Kai was in graduate school in Michigan. We knew that our biggest obstacle to plan this wedding is to match our hectic schedule. Kai and I were having trouble deciding where should we have our wedding. I had the unconventional idea to compile a list of wedding photographers whose work I admired. I told Kai, "Here, look through the list and imagine which photography you want to show our kids and grandkids many years later. Wherever that photographer is based on, that will be where we are having our wedding."
That was how we chose Lisa O' Dwyer as our first vendor and Colorado as our location. Lisa's work and attentiveness really didn't disappoint. Her focus was not only in capturing beautiful photographs, but she cared about our wedding as if she was a good friend brainstorming about wedding ideas with us. Lisa was also the one who introduced us to our wedding planner, Isabelle Kline Designs, whose work was as spectacular as hers.
We chose September as our date because it fell on my school's fall break. Kai's mother suggested to have it on the 26th because it was supposedly a good number for us according to the Chinese tradition. However, we also realized that we won't have any honeymoon since the next day Kai had to fly to Alaska and I had to go back to Missouri.
Our dream honeymoon had always been traveling to Europe. We chose The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs because of that European feel and the fact that they paid attention to every detail, from the decor, the food, and top notch service. We decided to do a Brunch wedding because of that picturesque backdrop of the mountain and the lake in the early morning, perfect for sipping morning coffee or a mimosa. Planning a wedding from another state would not be possible without Isabelle's help. Her inspiration for the decor was our wedding invitation that my mother had custom made for us from Indonesia. We also wanted to incorporate our tradition and love for travel as a part of the wedding detail.
For instance, having tin can of TWG tea from Singapore as part of the Sweetheart table or having travel pouch filled with personalized fortune cookies as our wedding favors. Instead of a guests book, our guests wrote their wishes in origami paper which we made into wall art paper cranes to symbolize good luck. In Indonesian culture, wedding cake was always tall and grand (sometimes as tall as the ceiling) so that the couple looked up to their bright future as they were cutting the cake. However, our baker could not put fake layers to our cake. So, Isabelle found the tallest bar table there was, decorated it with orchids, and voila! I got my dream cake! Not only that, she also somehow found a way to create us an arch despite our budget.
When Isabelle said that wedding day would go by so fast, boy! was she right! The day before, we practiced our first dance for the first time, created a seating chart and put together welcome gifts for out of town guests with my bridesmaids. We wrote our vows at 3 am on the wedding day and never been so glad to be able to pull off an all nighter for 7 days straight (Being a student really help with the no sleeping thing). Nevertheless, our guests was truly entertained despite waking up early on the weekend. They enjoyed the mini doughnuts and the coffee before the ceremony.
They also loved the twist that we put on our wedding timeline, such as having an Indonesian dancer performed before we walked down the aisle and the string quartet that played top hits music, like One Direction. I decided to write our experience planning the wedding into a parody of Taylor Swift's song, Blank Space because Kai loves Taylor Swift. The icing of the cake was having two of my best friends as my bridesmaid, especially one of them just had a baby the week before. We were thankful on how smooth our wedding was and we could not have done it without the help of everyone in our wedding.
That was how we chose Lisa O' Dwyer as our first vendor and Colorado as our location. Lisa's work and attentiveness really didn't disappoint. Her focus was not only in capturing beautiful photographs, but she cared about our wedding as if she was a good friend brainstorming about wedding ideas with us. Lisa was also the one who introduced us to our wedding planner, Isabelle Kline Designs, whose work was as spectacular as hers.
We chose September as our date because it fell on my school's fall break. Kai's mother suggested to have it on the 26th because it was supposedly a good number for us according to the Chinese tradition. However, we also realized that we won't have any honeymoon since the next day Kai had to fly to Alaska and I had to go back to Missouri.
Our dream honeymoon had always been traveling to Europe. We chose The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs because of that European feel and the fact that they paid attention to every detail, from the decor, the food, and top notch service. We decided to do a Brunch wedding because of that picturesque backdrop of the mountain and the lake in the early morning, perfect for sipping morning coffee or a mimosa. Planning a wedding from another state would not be possible without Isabelle's help. Her inspiration for the decor was our wedding invitation that my mother had custom made for us from Indonesia. We also wanted to incorporate our tradition and love for travel as a part of the wedding detail.
For instance, having tin can of TWG tea from Singapore as part of the Sweetheart table or having travel pouch filled with personalized fortune cookies as our wedding favors. Instead of a guests book, our guests wrote their wishes in origami paper which we made into wall art paper cranes to symbolize good luck. In Indonesian culture, wedding cake was always tall and grand (sometimes as tall as the ceiling) so that the couple looked up to their bright future as they were cutting the cake. However, our baker could not put fake layers to our cake. So, Isabelle found the tallest bar table there was, decorated it with orchids, and voila! I got my dream cake! Not only that, she also somehow found a way to create us an arch despite our budget.
When Isabelle said that wedding day would go by so fast, boy! was she right! The day before, we practiced our first dance for the first time, created a seating chart and put together welcome gifts for out of town guests with my bridesmaids. We wrote our vows at 3 am on the wedding day and never been so glad to be able to pull off an all nighter for 7 days straight (Being a student really help with the no sleeping thing). Nevertheless, our guests was truly entertained despite waking up early on the weekend. They enjoyed the mini doughnuts and the coffee before the ceremony.
They also loved the twist that we put on our wedding timeline, such as having an Indonesian dancer performed before we walked down the aisle and the string quartet that played top hits music, like One Direction. I decided to write our experience planning the wedding into a parody of Taylor Swift's song, Blank Space because Kai loves Taylor Swift. The icing of the cake was having two of my best friends as my bridesmaid, especially one of them just had a baby the week before. We were thankful on how smooth our wedding was and we could not have done it without the help of everyone in our wedding.
