“Eric and I met through a mutual friend, Aaron. Aaron and I had been friends for years, and Eric and Aaron were friends all through college. Aaron had been meaning for us to meet for a few years, but for one reason or another we hadn’t crossed paths yet — Eric lived in Milwaukee and I lived in Neenah, WI. He said if we met he knew we would end up getting married. By chance, a year later, we all ended up getting together for drinks. Aaron was exactly right, we started dating right away and just knew we wanted to be together forever. We did things a little out of order. We had a beautiful little girl first, then got engaged when she turned one. We knew we didn’t want a large traditional wedding, and preferred to do a destination wedding. However, with different health concerns and high costs we knew a destination wedding wouldn’t be feasible for some of our closest friends and family. So, we had to come up with a way to keep it small and intimate without offending our large families. We decided to throw engagement party (really our wedding) with just our closest family members and a few friends. Everyone that was invited receive an invite for our engagement party and we told everyone we were having a destination wedding location to be disclosed at the party. It was difficult to plan a wedding without being able to bounce ideas off friends and family since it was top secret however the flip side to that was it was fantastic not having anyone elses opinions and doing it exactly how we wanted start to finish. The other huge reward was how excited everyone was when they got there and realized they were going to be a big part in our special day. Many people cried and were in complete shock. I think that shock and excitement tied everyone together in a way that made our wedding even more fun! We still had many traditional aspects of a wedding, held it at a bar/restaurant where we had aisle setup with chairs and sign saying suprise! We served only heavy appetizers and covered all drinks and had a DJ throughout. The only thing we didn’t have we’re bridesmaids and groomsmen.”