Travel Themed Wedding at PPG Wintergarden

Get ready for a world-wide adventure with this travel themed wedding at PPG Wintergarden…but with a twist! Missy and Tim definitely did things their own way when they said I Do on the steps of the Grand Staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse, an absolutely amazing Pittsburgh wedding venue. But the pair didn’t celebrate their nuptials with a reception until a month later! They wanted to keep the vows intimate and feel less pressure at the party. And what a party it was Taking their love for exploring the world into account, Missy and Tim designed an affair filled with wanderlust Gold and ivory globe centerpieces, a map guest book, a suitcase “card box”, vintage cameras as decor, and even table linens inspired by the color of the ocean – the couple’s love of traveling came alive. They even served a beer from the Curious Traveler brewery! While an 80’s cover band entertained guests well into the night, Missy and Tim even snuck away for some night time photos with a Pittsburgh fire truck – a nod to Tim’s profession. Captured by Christina Montemurro Photography & Video, this wedding is proof that you don’t need to take a trip to have a “destination wedding”! Happy travels!

About the Couple

This love story started way back in 1991. We went to Brookline Elementary together in 4th and 5th grade. He come to my 10th birthday party – and we have the photo to prove it! Tim blew it up and displayed it at the reception. Later that summer, I moved away and was in a different school district.

We didn’t see each other again until we were about 20 or 21 years old, when he started hanging out with a friend of mine. I immediately recognized him. However, we didn’t talk that night. I saw him a few times over the years, but things really got going at the end of 2011. On March 3, 2012, our mutual friend had a 30th birthday party. It was Mardi Gras themed and I was wearing a leopard dress and mask, looking completely ridiculous. I saw Tim walk in and he saw me in my ridiculous get-up and didn’t recognize me at first. I latched onto him for the entire night, introducing him to my friends and even to my parents and reminding them that this the object of my elementary school obsession. We went on our first official date on March 15, 2012, but we really started dating at that party.

We didn’t really “get engaged” but in March of 2016 we decided that we were going to get married that year and started planning. As we were assembling our invitations in July, Tim surprised me with a ring 🙂 We did a lot of things backward.

About the Wedding

Tim is a city firefighter and I am a public defender, and neither one of us is religious. We knew that we wouldn’t get married in a church. The Allegheny County Courthouse was the perfect combination of the grandeur you get at a church with the secular location. We knew we wanted the marriage part to be small, so we only invited our parents, grandparents, siblings, nieces, nephews and my godparents to the ceremony. It was about 30 people, however a few of my girlfriends crashed it! Our ceremony was one month before our reception.

During the course of our relationship, we’ve tried to travel as much as we can. Some of the places we’ve been to include New Orleans (six times!), Aruba, NYC, Austin, Las Vegas, Boston, Chicago, Mexico, Erie, Washington DC, an entire California adventure, and many other places. We thought we’d do a similar map/travel theme for our wedding. We found these awesome ivory and gold globes online and knew that we wanted those for our centerpieces. The rest of it fell into place – the map book as a guest book, the suitcase for the cards, the cameras, the signage, etc. The tablecloths were navy, which isn’t quite the color of the ocean, but they were still blue! So our colors ended up being ivory, gold, navy with a splash of burgundy. I think that the PPG Wintergarden dictated the feel of the reception a bit. It was big and beautiful and classy and we tried to be consistent with that throughout.

Also, since we were able to supply our own alcohol, we chose a few variety of beers that are made by breweries we’ve visited out of town. And although we’ve never been to this brewery, we chose a grapefruit shandy made by Curious Traveler because we are curious travelers!

The number one thing we wanted was for everyone to have FUN! I think we managed to do that. The band was a huge hit.

Favorite Moment

One of our favorite moments of both days was seeing each other for the first time. We didn’t do a formal first look, but Christina managed to capture our first looks anyway and it was very special. Personally, on the day of the ceremony, after I walked up and saw Tim, all of my nerves melted away. I expected to cry during the entire ceremony, but seeing him before and talking to him calmed me so much!

However, my favorite thing is that even though we didn’t do a formal first dance, I grabbed Tim when his favorite Amy Winehouse song was playing during dinner to let him know it was playing and he dragged me to the dance floor to dance to it. There wasn’t a crowd gathered to stare at us sway, we weren’t on display, it was just the two of us dancing together (albeit awkwardly) while everyone else was eating dinner and chatting. It was so fun and special.