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Trend Wedding 2007

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Photo by Kate McGough of Perspective Studio

The Making of a Vineyard Wedding Experience

> > Preview more of Trend Wedding 2007 online at www.twincitybridal.com

The media is abuzz with wedding trends; from what fashions celebrities are wearing down the aisle to unique destinations couples are choosing to celebrate their commitment. Everyone seems fascinated by the most elaborate affairs, but only a select few know what it takes to pull them off.

Enter The Wedding Guys®, Matthew Trettel and Bruce Vassar of Twin City Bridal Association, known best as the design team for The Wedding Fair™. Each year they set out to define wedding trends for Twin Cities couples. Their signature Trend Wedding™ event is the most publicized wedding in the area, garnering attention from local and national media.

Reverend Patricia Drury of Rites of the Heart performs the ceremony under the 100 year old elm tree at the Chateau St. Croix Winery & Vineyard. Unique portions of the ceremony included love knots and aisle arrangements created by Sassafras Floral & Garden Design and specialty linens, swaging, fabric aisle runner and gold chiavari chairs from Après Party & Tent Rental. Sonic Sound Entertainment played soaring classical choral pieces to enhance the ceremony.

After last year’s Trend Wedding 2006—valued at $200,000—Trettel and Vassar saw a new focus. With a trend toward smaller, more intimate experiential weddings, they set out to plan Trend Wedding 2007, dubbed the “Vineyard Wedding Experience.” The elegant affair would feature a unique ambiance, a fine-dining experience, a ceremony-and-reception venue all in one, and offer a memorable collection of moments for the guests. Additionally, The Wedding Guys envisioned the event as black tie with refined details, with each guest seated at one large table. The price tag? Slightly under $150,000.

Each year Trend Wedding is the place to find what’s new in decor, colors, fashion, culinary, stationery, and just about anything wedding-related. Trend Wedding offers an opportunity to showcase innovative concepts that can be incorporated by brides and grooms into their own wedding plans. This year The Wedding Guys partnered with the Twin Cities most celebrated wedding experts to design a gorgeous, over-the-top wedding embodying the romance of a 1920s vineyard wedding, with a modern twist.

Part of what makes Trend Wedding so unique is that one lucky couple wins the wedding everyone will be talking about. Plans started evolving almost a year in advance, long before the bride and groom are selected in a live drawing at The Engagement Party™, produced by Twin City Bridal Association each November. The Wedding Guys host this talk show-style event, featuring the latest in wedding trends. The highlight for many attendees is when one lucky couple is drawn as the winner of Trend Wedding, an all-expense paid wedding created in dynamic style.

Photo by Kate McGough of
Perspective Studio

Although 6,000 couples had hopes of their names being drawn, it seemed to be almost fate that Samantha Kemming, a project manager for Digital River, and Nate Flaherty, a business analyst for United Health Group, became the lucky couple. When The Wedding Guys consulted the couple about how they envisioned their dream wedding, they provided a description with striking commonalities in line with both Trettel and Vassar’s vision. The Wedding Guys had already decided that the rolling hills of the Chateau St. Croix Winery & Vineyard in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, was the picture-perfect backdrop for Trend Wedding 2007. The Chateau features a Great Hall for dinner, an art gallery (that would double as the ballroom), a quaint courtyard (perfect for cocktails) and a stunning 100-year-old elm tree that would provide a pretty setting for the ceremony.

Within a few weeks of winning this all-inclusive wedding, Samantha and her maid of honor, Katherine Racine, were escorted by limousine, provided by Sonic Limousine, to Mestad’s Bridal Salon in Rochester. The Wedding Guys tagged along with champagne and petit fours. Along the way they surprised Samantha with a selection of linen swatches from Après Party & Tent Rental that were to be used for the cocktail reception and dinner table.

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