Photos: Emily Doane Photography - @emilydoanephotography
This month we are showcasing our beautiful Luxe Bride Brooke and her husband Alec. Brooke and Alec were married in November of 2023 at Northern Pacific Center in Brainerd, MN in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by their friends and family! Here is their story including Brooke’s journey to becoming a Luxe Bride!
Tell us about your proposal!
We got engaged at the “Kick-off to Summer” state fair event on Memorial Day of 2022. He had our song "Say Hey" playing as we walked up to the pickle stand, and he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him. Some of our friends and family were hidden in the crowd. I BAWLED like a baby. It was truly magical!
Describe your bridal style and tell us about your dress shopping experience! Did you leave with the gown you envisioned yourself in, or something different?
I had no clue what to expect when looking for dresses. I kept going back and forth on a white or black dress. My Fiance said I should get a black dress, but I didn't know. I thought I would like a clean satin, more traditional dress, but the dress that I ended up choosing was far from traditional. I LOVED the dress I ended up choosing the moment I put it on. I loved how it showed off all of my tattoos, I loved the corset look of the top and how the bottom wasn't too ball-gowny. It was so COMFORTABLE too! I thought I would annoy my stylist Megan because I didn't really have a clue on what I wanted, but she made me feel so comfortable and not rushed at all. She really did make the experience wonderful. I, of course, don't want to get married again, but if every shopping experience was as comfortable and fun as wedding dress shopping I would shop all the time. It can be a stressful experience in general shopping as a plus size queen, but Luxe Bridal seriously made it amazing.
Tell us more about your wedding. What was your theme and color scheme? What were your flowers? How did you make your wedding personal to your love story?
Alec and I wanted our wedding to feel like our guests knew us. We didn't want a traditional wedding…we wanted to put our favorite things in it, and we did just that. Our colors were black, dark green, white, and a little gold. We wanted our closest friends to be in our wedding, so we only had friends in our wedding party- one of them married us :) We ABSOLUTELY love dogs and we wanted to incorporate our dogs and our guests dogs into our wedding somehow, so when we sent our invites out we had guests that had a furry friend send us a picture of them with their name and those pictures ended up being our "table numbers" . As our wedding favors we had dog treat bags for our guests to take home, we had our dogs' faces on sticks and we danced with them on the dance floor and got some cute pictures. During our ceremony we didn't want the traditional little kids to be our flower girls and ring bearer, so we had our adult friends be our shot girls and ring BEERER and they walked down to the song "Shots" and tossed beers and shooters to our guests. Alec and I are also not huge cake people so for our desserts we had Little Debbie desserts, and one major food group was a huge hit at the wedding- PICKLES! I eat pickles on the daily and since we got engaged in front of the pickle stand at the state fair it was only fitting to have a pickle bar at the wedding. My flowers were real and they were a mixture of different types of white flowers and some mixed greenery. For my father daughter dance my dad and I danced for a minute and then we had a catch for the last little bit, because growing up I was a pitcher in softball and he always caught for me when I needed to warm up.
What was the most special memory from the day?
There are so many special memories from our wedding that it's hard to pick just one... I think seeing all the people that we love and that love us all in one room was so magical. The love that we felt was almost palpable, thinking about it makes me emotional because the love we felt was so strong.
-Our DJ was Electrifying Dynamics. His handle on insta is- electrifyingdynamics. He was amazing and kept the dance floor POPPING.
-Our venue was at the Northern Pacific Center in Brainerd and it felt like the most magical place on earth. It was everything we could have hoped for and more- insta handle is northernpacificevents.
-Our florist was a family friend, her name is Sarah Arnald and she did amazing on my flowers. They were gorgeous! Her insta is - bloomcroft_dahlias.
-Last but not least our wedding photographer was Emily Doane - she captured our day better than I could've ever dreamed, she made everyone feel so comfortable and her photos were amazing. I have nothing but WONDERFUL things to say about her. Her insta is- emilydoanephotography