A Wedding at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, Florida, Filled with Jewel Tones

Given their “very special appreciation for nature, trees and flowers,” exchanging vows in a botanical garden was a simple choice for Yasmin Gomez (35 and a wedding planner) and Nohelia Rodriguez (36 and a restaurant manager). For their intimate ceremony among towering willow trees, only Yasmin’s and Nohelia’s families and closest friends attended. Later in the evening, they welcomed a larger group of loved ones to a glam reception with an emerald, ruby, sapphire, mustard and fuchsia palette. “We felt bold colors represented who we are and how we wanted the wedding to feel,” they share. “Our focus was to celebrate love and, to us, that meant a lot of dancing and laughing, plus plenty of food and drink. We wanted our guests to focus on having the best time possible.”

Instead of having a fully seated reception, the couple had a variety of lounge groupings because they “wanted guests to focus on celebrating and dancing. We did not want to do a sit-down dinner that would take away from that.” The duo wanted to create an area that was representative of Nohelia, so they decked out a gold bar cart with three varieties of bourbon, a box of Cuban cigars and ingredients for guests to make their own Old Fashioneds. They also had three specialty cocktails, named after their pups. When booking mixologists, hiring an LGBTQ-owned company was a decision the couple felt strongly about.


In addition to cake, the decadent dessert menu included a chocolate fountain, s’mores station, key lime pies, cheesecake and candy apples. Then, for the largest of their three cakes, Yasmin and Nohelia commissioned a topper showcasing their dogs. Beyond their wedding cake, it was important to Yasmin and Nohelia to find a way to honor their late pup Hershey. “Even when he was 14 years old, he still played with toys like he was a puppy. His favorite was a squeaky squirrel. At the reception, we had squirrel toys with a sign explaining these were his favorite toy. Our hope was for other dogs to play with the same squishy squirrel and honor his memory along the way.” "Our oldest doggie, Hershey, passed away one month before the wedding. It was the most difficult thing for us to endure," says Nohelia. Later in the evening, to keep party-goers’ energy up, the couple had Wendy’s burgers and fries passed on the dance floor.