Our Monahans Sandhills Wedding
Just eight weeks before our wedding day, we had to change all our plans. Still our Monahans Sandhills wedding turned out to be absolutely perfect for just us!
So why did we choose to have a Monahans Sandhills wedding?
Short answer is: a bunch of reasons.
One of the main reasons is that we are located in Texas and most of our family lives in Pennsylvania. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we wanted the freedom to not have to reschedule and re-plan our wedding. Our original plan was to do our wedding as part of a styled shoot with a bunch of photographers, but those plans got scrapped about 8 weeks before our wedding (so we had to re-plan everything anyways).
Our Road Trip to Monahans
The day before our wedding, we headed out on a long road trip halfway across Texas with my future brother-in-law to reach Midland. Just us and an SUV full of wedding decor!
Of course, when we reached Midland (at about 11 o’clock at night) I realized that there was one semi important thing I had forgotten at home: my bouquet. So our first adventure was to the local HEB to grab some items for breakfast and a bunch of flowers so that I could create my bouquet the next day.
Not to toot my own horn, but I think I did pretty well!
Monahans Sandhills Wedding Time!
As a wedding photographer, I’m decently familiar with wedding day timelines and the hustle and bustle of wedding days. One of the things that I knew I wanted for my wedding day was that I wanted to spend most of the day with my husband. So our wedding morning we spent all morning together relaxing by the pool at our AirBnb, and then he and his brother (our only other wedding guest) spent some time having fun in the pool while I had my hair done and did some detail prep!
Of course, during the course of their having fun our minimalistic timeline got thrown a bit off and we ended up being 45 minutes late to our own wedding. Somehow, me being a stickler for being on time, was still fairly calm about everything.
After picking up some local barbeque for our dinner, we headed out to Monahans with our “chauffer” (my husband’s brother) wearing sunglasses and playing a Spotify wedding playlist. It was a quick setup as we created our own space at Monahans and then it was wedding time!
Even though we had spent the morning (and afternoon) together, having a first look before our ceremony was still a moment that I wanted to have.
And it was absolutely perfect getting to see Brendan’s expression up close when he turned around and saw me in my wedding dress!
One of the first wedding vendors we secured was a good friend, Sam, to be our officiant. We lucked out that he was willing and able (and enthusiastic about it) to drive round trip from Waco on our wedding day with his adorably sweet girlfriend!
I’m totally biased, but I do think that it was absolutely the perfect day!
Romantic Monahans Sandhills Wedding Portraits
We were so fortunate to have Chelsea Farner Photographs to do our wedding photos and get all the cute, romantic photos at sunset in Monahans. And the photos turned out absolutely perfect!
Even though we didn’t have any sled wax, we still wanted to fake a sand sledding exit to complete our evening because – when in Monahans!
Find Out More!
Read all about our Love & Proposal Story surrounded by floating lanterns! (P.S. it’s one of my favorites!)
Check out some of our engagement photos in our Engagement Photos: Tips & Tricks post!
Want to know more about our decision to elope? Find out all about it in our Wedding Planning 101: When to Elope blog post!
If you’re a hopeless romantic like me, you can also watch our full wedding video on YouTube!
Special Thanks
Thank you to Monahans Sandhills State Park in Monahans, Texas for letting us hold our ceremony in your beautiful park!
A very special thank you to Chelsea Farner Photographs for providing us with beautiful pictures we’ll treasure forever!
Thank you to PureBeauty 210 for making my hair visions come to life!
And to BRIDESCouture on Etsy for making my absolute dream dress!
Plus all of the extra special thank you’s to AJ with Damascus Woodcraft for custom making our custom ring boxes!
