How-To: Planning a Hockey Wedding

Now that I’ve been married for a full five days, I thought I’d take some time to share my “hockey wedding” with everyone while the details are still fresh in my mind. I decided to have a hockey-themed wedding not just because it is a sport my husband (!!) and I love so much, but because it has played such a huge role in our relationship.

I was not lucky enough to grow up in a hockey family. In fact, I’d never even been to a game before Tony and I started dating. We met while we were both attending UMass Lowell in 2007, but we started dating in the springtime so I didn’t really understand the extent of his college hockey fandom until he started taking me to our school’s games that fall. At first I wasn’t sure what to make of it all as we sat behind the net and I listened to him taunt the other team’s goalie.  He took it so seriously and it was such a different environment than what I was used to, given that I was a band geek in high school.

But as time went on, I learned the game and came to love it as much as he did.  Year after year, sitting in those seats behind the net every Friday and Saturday night, we got to know each other and I fell in love… with the game. And with Tony, too. 🙂

After five years together, he proposed in June 2012.

When it came time, we knew we had to do our engagement photos on the ice at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell…

We got married on October 20, 2013.

One of my favorite details of the wedding was using Bruins pins in my bouquet and in his boutineer.

The lace on my bouquet is also from my mother’s wedding dress.

(Probably the only good photo where you can see his boutineer, but he was happy to wear the B, which worked out!)

My new sister-in-law is an unbelievable graphic designer, and I really wanted our wedding ceremony programs to feel like the rosters you get at the TD Garden at Bruins games. I, personally, think she nailed it.

And then we promised to love each other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, whether the Bruins and the River Hawks win or lose…(not joking, our pastor actually said this during our ceremony!)

While we were off taking pictures, our guests were enjoying some more of our hockey wedding details…

Like our “guest book”…

Our seating “rosters”…

Our cake-toppers, which we got here and were custom made to look just like us, and our cakes…yes, cakes.

Of course we had a Stanley Cup cake!

For favors, we did chocolate-covered oreos which were made to resemble pucks.

And of course, I wore my River Hawk blue shoes 🙂

It was important to me to do the hockey theme in such a way that didn’t feel too over the top or like a child’s birthday party. We still wanted our wedding to feel like a romantic and classy affair – but we wanted it to reflect us as a couple.

And as a wedding gift….well, let’s just say I might be the best wife ever.