The Meeting
Morgan and Oscar first met when they were sophomores in high school during a cooking class. They became friends but didn’t start dating until Morgan’s senior year of college.
When I came home for spring break, Oscar told me that he liked me and when
I was home for summer, he would be taking me out on a date. I told him, “We’ll see.” And he still doesn’t let me live it down! Four years later… we got married!
The First Date
Morgan and Oscar shared a mutual interest in each other, but because they had been friends for so long, Morgan was hesitant to date him.
I was afraid it wouldn’t work out and I’d lose a good friend. Eventually, Oscar made the first move, and now I’m so glad he did.
Our first date was to Casa Margarita for dinner. We love Mexican food. We even had a taco bar at our wedding from our caterer, Cuisine America. I highly recommend them!
The Moment
I actually wasn’t interested in getting married before we really started to date.
Oscar changed my mind somehow… he’s been a huge part of my life for many years and with him, it felt right to get married. Oscar says he knew he wanted to marry me right when we first started dating.
The Song
One day, Oscar sent me a song called “Someday” by The Growlers. A line in the chorus goes “someday you’re going to be my wife.” Admittedly, I got a little freaked out at first! We ended up using the song as our introduction song when walking into the reception.
The Proposal
We like to play video games together, so Oscar told me he wanted to go down into the basement and play Mario Kart. When I plugged, in the game, there were string lights on the wall that lit up and said, “Marry Me?” He got down on one knee and proposed. I was so excited and wanted to go to my parent’s house to tell them, but he said he wanted to go to Beer Market to get a skillet cookie. I was confused why he didn’t want to go to my parent’s but went along with him. To my surprise, he had invited both of our families and all of our friends—we even had our favorite waiter, Justin!
The Wedding
Our favorite part was seeing all of our family and friends who came out to celebrate
with us. Oscar had a lot of family come in from Mexico for our big day, which was very special. All of the anticipation and waiting to see Oscar was finally over and it almost felt like a relief to be able to be with him again. Plus, he cried when he saw me and I thought it was so sweet!
The Dress & Tux
I got my wedding dress and topper from BHLDN. The bridesmaids dresses were from Kennedy Blue, and the tuxes were rented from Men’s Warehouse.
The Venue
My brother and sister-in-law were married at The Haight and it was so gorgeous. I knew I wanted a loft venue, but all the venues in Chicago either weren’t in our budget, had no parking, or were too small for the number of guests we wanted. The Haight was perfect for us! It was everything I wanted and none of the downtown Chicago headache. They also knew exactly how to help us bring to life our vision for our wedding—it was easy to personalize the day. I also love that the ceremony and reception are in the same building. Plus, every part of The Haight makes for a great photo opportunity!
The Marriage
Our relationship really hasn’t changed much since getting married. We are still the same people we were before getting married, now we just introduce each other as our “husband” or “wife.” Some days, Oscar will suddenly remember we are married and when it hits him, he says,” Morgan. We’re MARRIED” and he will get excited all over again.
The Advice
I would say, start the planning early so you won’t be stressed and cramming to get it all done in time. That way you have time to also enjoy being engaged to your fiancé! Using the preferred list of vendors was a huge help as well. We used all preferred vendors and they were all familiar with The Haight and what they had to do/where everything had to go. Some even gave discounts!
The Shoutouts
Every vendor we used was perfect—no complaints about any of them! We used Oh So Lovely Photography for our engagement and wedding photos. Esther is so talented! We love our photos and so does everyone who sees them. She really captures the moment by taking candid shots. Cuisine America makes amazing food. We had a taco bar that I still crave to this day. Our guests loved it too! We used Kyle from Sounds Abound for our DJ and the dance floor was packed the entire night. Herb’s Bakery made our cake for a great price. It looked great and tasted so good—we got tons of compliments! My flowers were from Town and Country Gardens. I used King Protea as my focal flower and each bridesmaid carried one king protea with blue thistles.
I actually got my dress on a second-hand website called Still White. It cost me less than half the price of a brand new one. I was able to get exactly what I wanted at an awesome price. The designer was Maggie Sottero and it was an Ivory A-line sheath style dress.
We love making natural looking portraits that aren’t overly posed along with capturing moments as the happen and not interfering with them. Our work really strives to capture the real human interactions and not fake ones.
It’s literally our most favorite thing. We do understand not doing it; and we’ll totally photograph couples that don’t do them. But if you look into the tradition of not seeing the bride before the wedding, it stems from way back when most marriages were arranged; people didn’t want either party to run away before getting married!
Don’t put off getting married. Do pre-marriage counseling. Set a budget for your wedding and do your best to stick to it. Compromise; nothing is worth getting into a huge fight with your family or fiancé regarding wedding planning. Prioritize your wants for your wedding and then allocate money accordingly; whatever is your most important item is what you should spend the most on. Pick vendors that you gel with as well as enjoy their work.
We were each other’s first match right out of the gate… and forever.
It sounds simple, but from the sheer easiness of being together, I knew I wanted to marry Roy. All relationships require work, time and patience; but, this one always feels like we are working in the same direction. And we laugh all the time. Nothing is ever so serious that we can’t make it work out.
We sing a lot of songs in our house, and our shared Spotify playlist really runs the spectrum of genres! Because she’s such a talented musician, great writer and puts on a HELL of a show, our song is Butterflies by Kacey Musgraves. If you haven’t heard it, go do it now.
The “right time” was just a regular day. Roy likes to go on what we call “Roy-ventures,” where he just hops in the car, puts on some music or a podcast and goes for a drive alone, or with our dog Sarge (who loves to be in the car). On January 6, 2017, after work and kinda late, Roy asked me to go on a Roy-venture with him. It was cold outside, and I was already in my pj pants and a sweatshirt…I wasn’t into it. Then, when he asked, my response was, “Do I have to put on a bra?” Finally, he talked me into it, and we packed up Sarge and hopped in the car.
So, as a surprise to our guests, Roy and I became ordained online. We wrote a short ceremony and invited all of our guests who wanted to take the time to renew their own wedding vows to each other to do so. It was an amazing thing to see the love that made each of us as individuals be renewed as we began our next adventure together! One of my favorite pictures Nicole captured for us was of my parents during the vow renewal. I get choked up thinking about it now!!
The Venue
He wanted nothing but to try and figure out this thing between us.
In 2014, the first heavy snowfall of the season prompted us to bundle up and play in it (as we did every year). We walked hand in hand around the town, enjoying the silence when suddenly Chris stopped and turned towards me. He got down on one knee and proposed. It was such a dream come true on a beautiful snowy evening, there were no other words except, “YES!”
My favorite part of the wedding was finally getting to read the vows I had written Chris almost 5 years before the wedding. I love that I get to have the BEST last name ever (Sweet). I loved having our family dance with our baby girl, Luna. I loved all of our closest family and friends there to celebrate with us. I really loved EVERYTHING about that perfect day, even dancing to Metallica (requested by Chris) with all of our friends.. WHO PLAYS METALLICA AT THEIR WEDDING?… The Sweet family does!
When we walked into The Haight and saw the beautiful drapery, the seats and everything set up, Chris turned to me and said, “Yep! This is the place!”—taking the words right out of my mouth. The bridal suite wasn’t there when we had first seen it and it turned out to be EVERYTHING! We are so happy to have chosen The Haight. All of our friends and family said they LOVED our wedding location. The farm tables are gorgeous and all of the decorations and help from the staff made everything a dream come true! Best decision ever!
I love my new name. It took a while to get used to husband and wife, but we did try to go out of our way to say it for the first couple of months. Ha! Our relationship has for the most part stayed the same considering we had been living with each other for years before we got married. There is less anxiety now that the wedding planning is over with and now that people are treating us as husband and wife. I feel more secure and it has made me want to be better. The more we are together, the better we understand each other, and the more in love we are!
Nicole at The Haight was honestly SO AMAZING! She gave me the best ideas and helped me set everything up perfectly. 
