A Simple Wedding

Weddings are full of traditions, they are inescapable. For many couples the true meaning behind each one is not even truly understood. It’s just the way things are done.

On March 28th, 2015 I had the privilege of marrying Ace Ahn. Let me explain how we kept our wedding simple and unburdened by countless traditions.

Guest List

This is the single most important part of having a simple wedding. If you can’t keep the guest list small and simple then it will have huge consequences on everything you try and plan.

Ace & Kevin Muncie Wedding Crowd

We tried really hard at this and still ended up inviting around 45 people from out of state to join us. Even when inviting only your closest family and friends the list can grow rapidly. Closer to 90 attended the wedding since all the local friends were invited as well, but this was about what we had planned for.

There is no way not to hurt some feelings in your quest for a small wedding. You have to simply accept that and plan for it. We tried to get ahead of this with a two pronged defense - a letter to all of our friends and family, and a live stream of the entire wedding. This ended up being one of the best things we could have done because over 300 people ended up being able to watch our wedding live online. To this day we keep finding out that people we barely know saw our tweet or Instagram post and tuned in. If you would like to see the recording it is available on YouTube.

Ace & Kevin Muncie Wedding Family

Location

We looked for a long time for the right location for the reception. But this was also an area that benefited from having a small guest list. Eventually we found a local nature center with a beautiful space that fit our needs perfectly. It also did not cost us enormously like many of the spaces we had looked at.

Ace & Kevin Muncie Wedding Friends

Bridal Party

We had no bridal party. We had our closest friends fill some of the duties that the best man or maid of honor would normally take care of but they were not required to buy any special clothing or walk down the aisle. This turned out wonderfully because we love so many of our friends and the idea of singling out just a few can add a heap of stress to an already complicated event not only for the bride and groom but those chosen.

Ace & Kevin Muncie Wedding Friends

Food

Rather than spending a lot of money on an outside caterer, which would have been nice and simple from a logistical standpoint, we had the Korean friends and family offer to provide food for the reception. This was wonderful and offered many of my personal guests the chance to have authentic Korean food for the first time. The downside of this is that many of the family and guests ended up working very hard to organize and maintain the buffet line.

Dancing

We didn’t have any dancing.

Photography

Ace & Kevin Muncie Wedding Friends

A professional photographer would have captured some beautiful photos, but at great cost. We decided to crowd source many of our photos and also ask one of my cousins to be the official photographer. She used my personal camera and got some fantastic shots as you can see below. We also ended up with tons of beautiful photos from the week by creating a unique hastag, #ahnothermuncie, on Instagram and encouraging all the guests to use it.

Visit our Flickr album to see all the amazing photos from this amazing week! Our wedding website is also still up if you would like to see it or send a gift.

A few photo highlights…

Mom and Adam at Cannon Beach

Disc Golfing in Portland, Oregon

Fun with friends before Muncie Wedding

Portland, Oregon

Our amazing honeymoon cabin

Friends on Cannon Beach

Ace & Kevin Muncie playing in the ocean

Muncie Brothers

Signing the wedding license

Beautiful Ace with flowers

Happy Ace

Happy mom

Happy Mom's

Ace & Kevin Muncie - Family