An Intimate Wedding at a Private Residence in St. Louis, Missouri

Kara Pollnow (34 and a consignment director) and Dave Kelpe (43 and works in commercial real estate) met through mutual friends. Two years later, the couple went to Zoofari together at the St. Louis Zoo, and he proposed at the end of the night on the bridge at the south entrance of the Zoo. “It was the exact place he had dropped me off and picked me up on our first date,” she says. “I gave him a brick to the zoo for our first Christmas together, and it is placed at that entrance. Every time we visit the zoo with our five kids, we all go check on our brick.” Kara and Dave wanted an intimate wedding. They exchanged vows on Dave’s family farm that has been in the family for more than 140 years. Only the officiant, the photographer and their chauffeur were witnesses at the ceremony. “We truly wanted to focus on our relationship as a couple, how blessed we felt to have found one another and how important that focus would be as the foundation for our combined families,” Kara says. Afterwards, they had 20 guests for a Entre catered dinner at their home. They decorated a long farmhouse table with roses and lit the room with candles for a romantic, fall harvest vibe. They used chef John Perkins for their delicious farm-to-table, Southern influenced dinner.