1. Real Weddings

Amy & Aaron: A Blue Wedding in Bowling Green, KY

High school sweethearts Amy and Aaron met during their sophomore year in school, when Amy’s family moved to Kentucky. “We had a blast dating in high s

High school sweethearts Amy and Aaron met during their sophomore year in school, when Amy’s family moved to Kentucky. “We had a blast dating in high school,” Amy remembers. “I went to all his basketball and baseball games with giant posters and T-shirts with his number, while he always supported all of my academic endeavors.” The two decided to stay in Bowling Green for college -- at first at Western Kentucky University; then they both made the move to the University of Kentucky. The Bride Amy Gass, 24, high school chemistry teacher The Groom Aaron Arnold, 24, civil engineer The Date July 30 After graduation, Aaron stayed on in Lexington while Amy moved home for a semester before beginning graduate school at UK. “This was the first time in nearly six years of dating that we’d been separated!” Amy recalls. “Aaron was driving hours every weekend to come visit me.” On one of those visits, he told Amy he needed to run an errand at WKU. When they got to campus, Aaron led Amy toward a bench beneath some oak trees where they’d often sat while at school there, and that was when Amy realized what was really going on. After sitting together and reminiscing for a while, Aaron got down on one knee and asked Amy to spend the rest of his life with him—through streaming tears, she said yes. Because the two had already been together so long, they didn’t want to wait another year to get married. So after Aaron’s March proposal, the two set a date for the end of July. With plenty of help from Amy’s parents, who hosted the reception at their home, the couple pulled together a rustic, elegant celebration in just a few months.

With help from the bride’s family, Amy’s parents’ home was transformed for an evening of celebration. A tent covered the dance floor area, while dinner took place in the yard. Dinner and drinks were set up beneath the covered patios and pergola. “It was extraordinary and nostalgic as we danced on the basketball court my siblings and I used to play on, and ate dinner in the grass where we had once caught lightning bugs,” Amy says. White linen accented by runners in different blue fabrics, sewn together by the bride’s mother, covered the tables, and centerpieces of hurricane lamps and cobalt glass vases filled with different wild flowers completed the scene.
“My aunt created the cake of my dreams!” Amy says. The cake brought together different elements from the wedding style, with the same blue ribbon used in the centerpieces wrapping each tier, and the couple’s monogram mixed in among the Swiss dots. Fresh flowers topped off the confection, which included layers of chocolate, French vanilla, and strawberry cake frosted with buttercream.
Amy and Aaron kicked off the evening with a first dance to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.”
“Our ceremony was very intimate and personal,” Amy says. One of Aaron’s oldest friends, who had known the groom since kindergarten, officiated, adding in anecdotes about the couple’s first impressions of each other, among other things. The bride’s grandfather said a blessing, and both the bride and groom’s parents answered vows to take on each child as their own.
Amy and Aaron gave each guest a giant sparkler, which they held aloft lining the driveway on either side when the newlyweds made their grand exit.
Finding just the right color of blue was tough, so Amy eventually gave up on finding a bridesmaid line that had what she wanted. She actually stumbled upon the perfect dresses, in tea-length blue linen, at a local department store. “I bought all four then and there!” she says.