Elegant & Joyful Wedding at Crago Farms // Ben & Laurel

Wedding

I know it isn’t cool to like Daisy Buchanan, but bear with me for a moment. Think of her most positive, adorable attributes, all that she could have and should have been. I love the description in the 2013 movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby when Nick first introduces Daisy. He says, “ The golden girl. A breathless warmth flowed from her. A promise there was no one else in the world that she so wanted to see.”

Take that fun-loving, inner warmth and picture it in the Columbus Park of Roses on a September afternoon, right after Ben & Laurel’s wedding ceremony in Columbus, Ohio.

“I want shouting, honking, sirens!” Laurel playfully shouted out to the void. Cue her amazing friends (the groomsmen called the bridesmaids whoop girls all day, for good reason!) with shouts, large gestures and fanfare.

This effort was rewarded with strangers looking over and shouting their congratulations to the happy couple.

And happy they are.

We were thoroughly convinced (as were Ben & Laurel) that they were going to cry during the ceremony, but neither one did (many friends and family members had that covered for them). We can only explain this because their happiness was so thorough and pure that the weightiness that sometimes comes with happiness (hey, it’s real) never came through. Ben & Laurel were happy, through and through.

Their happiness carried over into the evening at their Crago Farms reception. When Matt & I were talking about the day on the drive home, we decided the best way to describe Ben & Laurel’s wedding day was a party from beginning to end, but with feelings. It wasn’t just a party for the sake of having one; it was genuinely joyful from all angles, and you could feel it.