A beautiful spring wedding in Buffalo NY.   The Admiral Room would like to spotlight this adorable couple. George and Katie

George and I met when I moved to buffalo four years ago to start my ophthalmology residency. We matched on hinge one of my first days in Buffalo, and went on our first date in the first week of living here. We went to Hydraulic Hearth and from the beginning, we knew it was something special. George was so intentional and planned almost all of our dates since I didn’t know anywhere in the area.

We got engaged after being together for about two years. He told me he had a work party and did a great job keeping the engagement a surprise. We showed up to The Loft @537 Main St, and he proposed there. In the video of our proposal, we know it was exactly 5 o’clock since we can hear the church bells ringing beautifully in the background. I initially thought it was just the two of us, but our families came out from the back of the loft to surprise us. His mom is an incredible cook, and our family friend, Susan Trankle is an amazing baker (she later made our wedding cake). The two of them cooked and hosted dinner and dessert for 25 of us that night. We spent the weekend staying at the Loft, and the next day our families came back for a Bills party, where we watched the game together.

The overall vibe we wanted for our wedding was classic, romantic, and joyful. We are so beyond excited that we found each other, that our families love each other, and that we are married- and we wanted our day to reflect that happiness. My favorite color is blue, and since our wedding was in May, we wanted our color palette to feature pastels- blue, green, yellow and pink. I particularly wanted to include yellow roses in the flowers, since my dad always gets yellow roses for my mom for any special occasion.

My mother in law had a huge influence on our wedding, since she’s a florist at Maureen’s Wholesale Flower Market. Since she’s been at the Admiral Room countless times as a vendor, she knew how professional, organized, and detail-oriented your team is. We knew we had to look into The Admiral Room once we started thinking about booking a venue. Once we had the chance to tour ourselves, and we met the team and saw the gorgeous space- we knew The Admiral Room was the venue for us. We are so happy to say that our experience with you lived up to and exceeded every expectation we had.

We chose our first dance song together- “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” by Frankie Valli. We loved how it was romantic but not too slow. My dad picked out our first dance song – “The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra. My dad’s main hobby is competitive ballroom dancing, so we knew we wanted to do a choreographed routine together. George and I took ballroom dance lessons for about four months at the Fred Astaire in Williamsville for our first dance, and they also choreographed my dance with my dad. Both of our dances turned out amazing, and I will always love having these videos to look back on! George and his mom first danced to “I’ll Be Around” by The Spinners, and they faded into “Livin’ It Up” by Ja Rule since this was one of George’s favorite songs growing up. They had so much fun dancing together and it definitely hyped up the energy for our reception!

After our parent dances, we opened the dance floor with “Million Dollar Bill” by Whitney Houston. George’s dad, Odis, very unexpectedly passed away as we were planning the wedding, about four months before our big day. Our whole family misses him more than words can express, but we all wanted to keep the energy joyful in the ways we remembered him. “Million Dollar Bill” was his favorite song, and opening up the dance floor with a happy song he loved felt like the perfect way to honor him. We know if he could have been there with us that he would have been cheering the loudest in the room, eating tons of our amazing wedding cake, and dancing nonstop. This song was one of many ways that we remembered him and his incredible love for us on our wedding day.

One of our other favorite parts from the day was seeing my DIY projects come together! I made our welcome sign, seating chart, dinner menus, bar signage, custom napkins, and custom matchbooks for the reception- among many other DIY projects for the wedding. I know I am biased but I think they all turned out amazing! These were labors of love but they all added to the vibe of the room and I loved seeing our guests enjoy them.

Other favorites from the reception were our wedding cake and mini desserts made by our family friend Susan and our Italian cookie table made by my husband’s family- our guests absolutely raved about how good the desserts were! We also loved our florals, made by the incredible team at Maureen’s! My jaw literally dropped when I saw the room come together! They went above and beyond for us, and I think the florals were absolutely spectacular.

Our day turned out so much better than we could have ever dreamed it to be- and we are so grateful to our many amazing vendors who helped make it possible. We will always look back on our wedding day with so much joy and gratitude for the people we love, who show up for us no matter what.