A wintery library wedding with the most magical reception at the George Peabody Library in Baltimore

A wintery library wedding with the most magical reception / George Peabody Library

It’s always so sweet to hear about the journey that led a couple to the wedding photos we’re seeing now. Briana and Jonathan met back in freshmen year of collage at Loyola University in Baltimore, and they were together 8 years before he popped the Q (with both their parents there to witness the proposal!)—so there was a lot of history to wrap into their wintery December nuptials.

Even sweeter, J + B tied the knot on campus at Loyola, with a chapel ceremony and a reception at the George Peabody Library, which is just about the most magical place a couple could say I Do. See all their fun college-inspired details planned with the help of 1423 Events, not to mention their epic library dance party (yes, please) in Sarah Murray Photography’s images below…

Briana’s father is the talented artist behind their watercolor artwork on their paper goods (including the Humanities building at Loyola the menu with a greyhound as a nod to their mascot). After the wedding, they sent out thank you cards with a photo of them in front of that same building taken on the big day.

Side note: These green heels? Supposedly they’re the most comfortable heels ever…

Little nods to their alma mater were incorporated throughout, beginning with their green + grey wedding colors.

Anyone here dreaming about a Christmas wedding next year? The ceremony was right on campus at Loyola University Alumni Memorial Chapel, beautifully decked out for the holidays.

Fun note about open-back wedding gowns… The groom will probably see it last so he’s in for a nice surprise ;).

Seeing rain in the forecast for their wedding day, they expected to be in for a chilly, drizzly walk across campus, but they were so happy they didn’t even notice it. Not to mention it gave the photos that pretty winter feel!

Briana explains, When we started planning our wedding, we knew we wanted our guests to take away a few things from the weekend: that we were so happy to be getting married after almost a decade together, how special Baltimore and Loyola (our alma mater) are to us, and how much we really love a good party. We wanted to stay true to ourselves and ultimately made each and every decision with the mindset “would we do this/like this” rather than what had been done or what is the norm for a wedding. For example, our first dance to Brown Eyed Girl (an upbeat sing-along versus a slow dance), bold colorful touches (like my red nails and my red lip), and not cutting a cake (we both don’t love cake!).

Did you know that this spot inspired the library in Beauty and the Beast? It’s pretty epic. All they added were the string lights!

All of the table numbers were inspired by special places they had been. For the escort cards, they wrote names and personalized notes to each guest on the back of library cards.

We told our band that we wanted our first dance song to feel like a sing-along. We weren’t sure if people would get into it that early in the night but sure enough, the dance floor was PACKED from the moment our guests walked into the main room after cocktail hour. We came out about 20 minutes later and truly the party never stopped. Dancing to Brown Eyed Girl, with 154 people singing along, will be a moment in time we will always remember. Every time we hear that song, we will think about our favorite people cheering and singing as we danced for the first time as a married couple. There is no other feeling like that in the entire world.

Talk about a good dance party. IN A LIBRARY, you guys.

After pictures and before cocktail hour, I changed my lip color to a bold red from MAC. I wanted to set the party tone without changing my look too much and this felt like was a fun simple way to do that. Jonathan’s mouth was red all night long from kissing, a minor “oops” we never thought about! Now, I every time I wear that color, I think of my wedding day and Jonathan’s red lipped smile.