When it comes to planning your wedding, deciding on a color palette can be daunting, so you’ll want to steal this Bride’s ingenious idea. “To choose a color palette for our wedding I started in my closet…. I took a step back, squinted my eyes and noticed the color I saw the most was fuchsia.” From there, the rest of her fairytale vision came to life in this beautiful day captured by Stepan Vrzala. See it all in The Vault!

From The Bride…Every girl grows up dreaming about her fairytale wedding day. I was no different. I wanted a beautiful castle with a sweeping grand staircase, the perfect sunny warm day, bright colorful flowers and let’s not forget… Prince Charming! My Prince Charming, otherwise known as Jeremy, and I, LOVE to travel, so deciding to have a destination wedding was easy. Picking a location was a bit more challenging. We knew it needed to be a castle (obviously), but wanted our guests to travel to a place they had never been before. We decided on Prague, the beautiful Czech countryside and Chateau Mcely. That’s when the dream of my fairytale wedding started to take shape.

To choose a color palette for our wedding I started in my closet. Isn’t that where all color palettes start? I took a step back, squinted my eyes and noticed the color I saw the most was fuchsia (and black, but we’re going to forget about that part). It’s true, bright vibrant pink is my favorite color. I just never realized it until that day in my closet. Now, what to put with fuchsia? I came out of the closet and flipped through bridal magazines, searched Google and scoured the pages of Style Me Pretty until I found a picture of a bouquet I fell in love with. It featured fuchsia roses and various lighter shades of pink peonies with a touch of green. Right click, save as, color palette complete!

Having a two year engagement is both a blessing and a curse. It gave me lots of time to plan and even more time to DIY. Our Save the Date is probably my favorite part of our invitation suite. Jeremy and I sat down together at the dining room table one Saturday and we painted a picture of Chateau Mcely. We scanned the picture and had it turned into glossy postcards to send our guests. Our guests loved finding out we were the artists. It added a personal touch right from the very beginning.

Before we knew it, the plane was landing in Prague and the wedding celebrations had begun!

On Day one, we asked guests to meet us under the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square at 1pm. As the trumpeters finished their arrangement and crowds began to dissipate we started to find one another. Together we walked the cobblestone streets to an old pub where we spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and drinking.

Day two, guests had a leisurely day as they checked into their rooms at Chateau Mcely. We had a lazy afternoon in the sun as we lounged around the natural pool and tossed beach balls. That evening we took a bus to a neighboring town for a chateau and brewery tour. The highlight of the evening was a medieval dinner complete with sword fights and fire breathers!

Day three was about team building and bragging rights. Guests were given colored t-shirts in their welcome bags. They were asked to wear their team t-shirt and meet on the lawn of the Chateau for a Geocaching event. Each team was given a GPS tracking device and raced to be the first to each secret cache. It was exhilarating and competitive. Yellow team went home with gold medals engraved with our wedding logo and the date. After guests cooled down they joined us for our rehearsal dinner on the Chateau Patio. Guests were offered homemade lavender lemonade and Chateau Mcely’s own Nine Flowers Herbal iced tea to sip from mason jars.

The wedding took place on day four. By this time our guests were like family, laughing and joking as if they had known each other all their lives. As the string trio played familiar tunes guests began to gather once again on the Chateau patio. Bright pink hydrangeas, peonies and roses lined the white carpeted aisle. I never felt more beautiful than the moment I walked down the aisle in my Badgley Mischka gown. It was my princess moment. Our florist, Marketa, tied my Grandmother’s ring, given to me by my father, to the base of my bouquet, so that she was there with me on my special day. The ceremony was sweet and made personal with readings from two family members and a unity candle lighting with our parents. After the ceremony, guests enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and Champaign on the lawn before moving into the Chateau dining room for dinner. Guests dined on grilled Chilean sea bass, beef sirloin and roasted duck prepared from an old Czech recipe. Mini jars of Chateau Mcely’s wild thyme hand balm were placed at each guests’ place setting as a token of our appreciation. Guests were invited onto the dance floor after dinner. Shortly after, our 4-tier wedding cake adorned with cascading fresh roses and peonies was rolled out by the pastry chef. The cake was the sugar rush our guests needed to keep them fueled for a night full of dancing.

The next morning, the fifth and final day, guests enjoyed a delicious chateau brunch while recounting memorable moments from the previous days. Old and new friends eventually said farewell to each other before departing Chateau Mcely, many continuing their travels to new destinations before heading home.

Looking back on this experience, my advice to future brides would be to enjoy your engagement and be realistic with giving yourself enough time for planning your dream day. There were several couples engaged after us and married before us and I have no idea how they did it without being stressed. It took a full year and a half of planning to put our wedding together. With a full time job and a busy schedule I can’t imagine doing it in less time and enjoying it as much as I did. We met some amazing people in the process who helped make everything come together seamlessly. Katka, Stepan, Marketa, Milli and the staff at Chateau Mcely, thank you!

Photography: Stepan Vrzala Photography | Floral Design: Inspirito | Wedding Dress: Badgley Mischka | Invitations: William Arthur Fine Stationery | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Alfred Sung | Hair + Makeup: Mili Dvorakova | DJ: Radim Keith | Ceremony Music: Musica Festiva | Venue: Chateau Mcely | Bride’s Shoes: Betsey Johnson