Seda & Shannon

Please, tell us your engagement story.

Shannon pulled off the most epic engagement. Originally Seda had accepted a new job offer so Shannon used that to keep a very nosey girl on her toes.

Seda woke up frustrated from loud construction so Shannon offered to take her to get her nails done so they didn’t have to be home listening to it. After nails they went and got her favorite lunch and changed to get ready for dinner. The biggest part Shannon had the plan to propose in front of Seda’s grandfather’s restaurant sign that hangs behind a local bar. 

Anytime Seda has a life update she’ll go to that bar take a pic with the sign and a shot in honor of her grandpa and on 10/2/22 shannon brought seda to that sign to celebrate her new job but really got down on one knee and had all her friends and family (like people flew into town) waiting at the bar to surprise her. 

You were married on 2-22-22. Was there any significance with this date, or was it just a fun date to set?

2-22 played a huge significance to this date and when we decided on this date we only left ourselves with 40 days to plan our wedding and somehow we pulled it off. 

We originally started dating on 12-22 and would see the numbers “222” pop up everywhere for us. I have our original “dating” anniversary on a ring and when I looked down on 12-22 on noticed 2-22 was in those numbers so it all kind of worked out perfectly. 

You mentioned planning your wedding in 40 days; what was the motivation for getting it done so quickly, and how did you pull it off? 

Motivation goes to our wedding date! 22 is such a symbolic number for us and originally we’re thinking of 10-22-22 since we’d still have the 222 in a row. But when we saw February would be 2-22-22 we decided to just go for it. 

We were able to pull it off first because Seda is a producer by day so she’s really good at finding vendors and working with tight timelines and budgets. 

More importantly we decided if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen. We knew the owner’s of our venue and decided to get married in the town we met in. They handled the table decor and menus. We had amazing friends that huddled around us making the custom coozies and even our beautiful cake was made by our closest friend, Stacey. Seda’s sister was our officiant and we included our people in our special day that way. 

You both looked stunning (and so cool). Tell us more about creating and defining your style vision. How did SuitShop’s Contrast Lapel White Tuxedo jacket play into helping you achieve your dream look?

Thank you! Shannon knew she did not want to wear a dress and originally wanted an all white suit. She was super discouraged at the lack of female suit options until Seda showed her SuitShop. I also knew from searching on Pinterest I wanted her to have the contrast lapel. Originally she wasn’t interested and wanted the all white look until we tried it on in store because we were SO pleased you had a Chicago store! Instantly Shan’s face was beaming when she tried on the contrast lapel white tuxedo and we knew it was the one! It played well with the simplicity of Seda’s gown that she paired with a leather jacket to add to her edgy look (since she covered all her tattoos) 

Did you incorporate any moments of your PRIDE into your wedding day?

Sadly pride was not incorporated visually into our day but we made it a point to celebrate our love with those that love our love. We decided on an intimate wedding with 50 of our closest. 

We live through our pride daily by loving each other openly, showing affection and not being scared of what people will say.

Do you have any advice for couples wedding planning on a time crunch? 

Do NOT sweat the small stuff and do not do anything either of you don’t want to do. We decided to just pull the trigger and skip all the steps of wedding planning to save ourselves the headache and over all planning. The day should be about your love and not the fanciest place setting. We even decided on skipping a wedding party to make the day really just about us and our love. 

We also relied on our vendors to help us pull off the day and allowed them to help us decide things instead of micro managing. It made it way more exciting to see it all come together the day of.