With an array of colors and an effortlessly cool vibe, Emma and Scott’s wedding at the Pump House is bringing SOME HEAT! Add in numerous efforts to keep their big day earth-friendly and you’ve got a recipe for a celebration that will live in infamy. After meeting on Tinder in Detroit, later moving back to Emma’s hometown of Pittsburgh, and eventually adopting two dogs together, this pair knew they wanted a wedding day that focused on laid back vibes and a casual PAR-TAY! That meant food trucks, a color palette of fun jewel tones, upcycled decor, and homemade cookies baked by the bride herself. A traditional wedding dress would so not have suited the day’s vibe, which is why Emma chose an AH-MAZ-ING airy mustard yellow skirt, pairing it with a custom-made lace top from Blanc de Blanc Bridal. All we can say is WOW! With minimal effort, Emma and Scott managed to offset their wedding’s carbon footprint too! Atop a rainbow of colored linens from Mosaic sat fresh, locally grown florals from greenSinner, some of which were housed in repurposed growler bottles. Compostable plates and utensils, as well as compost bins, were utilized by guests. Our favorite eco-conscious wedding idea, however, was the night’s glassware. Emma and Scott amassed a giant collection of quirky and cute mugs from which their guests drank all evening. The best part? They got to take them home at the end of the night! Overseen by Exhale Events and captured by Kaitlin Powell Photography and Traveling Heart Productions, this feature is all kinds of good!!!
About the Couple
We met in Detroit in the fall of 2014, when I moved to the city to teach. Wanting to make new connections in a new city, I joined Tinder and, within the first week, connected with Scott, who’s from the area. From our first date – which lasted way too long for a school night – to eventually moving in together and adopting a dog (and later another one), everything just felt natural.
Fairly early on, we started talking about “when we’re married…” and making plans for “when we’re old…”, almost as though we both knew that that’s where we were headed. We even had a wedding date picked out more than a year before officially getting engaged (our 5 year anniversary fell on a Saturday, which was too perfect to pass up)! In the summer of 2017, we started planning an engagement getaway weekend and designing my ring together.
That year, just after Thanksgiving, we took a trip to Toronto to make our engagement official. Once we unpacked in the B&B, Scott got down on one knee and popped the question, too excited to wait any longer. We spent the rest of our trip exploring the city, visiting the holiday market, and taking pictures that sneakily included the ring, which we then used to surprise our families.
About the Wedding
We’re pretty casual people (and neither of us like being the center of attention), so when it came to wedding planning, our goal was to plan the kind of laid back party that we would want to attend. From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to have food trucks, which helped to narrow down our venue search. After touring a handful of venues, we started to get worried, because none of them felt quite right. However, as soon as we walked into the Homestead Pump House, we knew that we’d found exactly the vibe that we’d been looking for (and the warm brick would look perfect with our rich color palette)!
With our venue and colors nailed down, our wedding planner – Nicole from Exhale Events (she’s the best!) – took over, helping us work through all of the details and the plan for the day. Knowing that Nicole had everything under control, I got to work baking, experimenting with new cookie recipes and eventually baking (almost) all of the cookies for our cookie table.
We wanted our wedding to be as eco-conscious as possible. We made many trips out to find a giant collection of fun mugs for people to choose from as wedding favors and to use for their drinks throughout the night. All of our plates and utensils were made of compostable materials, and we had a compost bin at the reception to avoid throwing most things away.
When the day came, the Pump House was filled with the vibrant colors and the kind of energy that we had been shooting for, and a dance floor that was packed throughout the entire night.
Favorite Moment
As cliche as it sounds, the whole day was perfect, so it’s impossible to pick just one.
One of our favorites was during the ceremony, which we held at the labyrinth. Overhead, there is a train bridge, and prior to the wedding we had joked about how funny it would be if a train passed through during the ceremony. Sure enough, right after our vows, we heard a low familiar rumble, and a long train forced us to pause. The timing ended up being perfect, as it allowed us to regain our composure after sobbing through our vows.
Another was at the very end of the night. We had asked a few of our friends to stick around and help bring all the tables and chairs inside so that the venue could be packed up. When the time came, not only did those few friends help out, but everyone that was still there pitched in to gather everything up (and, according to Nicole, they did so in record time). It was a wonderful end to the day, reminding us that the people in our lives are there for us, and will volunteer to help, without us even needing to ask.
Finally, while not a singular moment, it was so much fun to experience the city and the wedding through our guests’ eyes. While I am from Pittsburgh (and we moved back in 2018), most of our guests were from out of state and came to the area for the first time. Knowing this, we tried to incorporate some Pittsburgh history and traditions into the weekend. Even now, we have guests raving to us about how much they enjoyed Pittsburgh and the wedding, and it makes us so happy to know that we were able to share both with our family and friends.
