This Harry Potter-inspired wedding will make you belive in magic

Magical Modern Harry Potter Inspired Wedding – Ashlyn Savannah Photo 3

No shame, I’m a total Potterhead. A tweet I recently saw from my husband “If my wife isn’t asleep on the couch with Harry Potter playing when I come home at night, I’ll know she’s an imposter”.

So, I am ALL about this magical, DIY-filled Harry-inspired wedding – we adore when brides & grooms follow their hearts and plan a day that’s totally them, especially when it means bucking or mixing traditions. Monica & Mikhail managed to do just that, mixing loads of decor & details one might find at Hogwarts, modern moody florals, and even throwing in some Filipino cultural customs!

But not everything was ‘explicitly Harry Potter’. The couple & their planning team made efforts to give their wedding day a ‘magical feel’ rather totally on-the-nose theme-y. One example is the triangular ceremony altar, with angles that feel similar to much of the Harry-inspired imagery but could easily be a gorgeous altar for any geometric or woodsy bride & groom.

Our Love Story

Our how-we-met story starts as your typical “Millenial Age” story. Mikhail first saw a picture of Monica posted by a mutual friend on Instagram in December 2012. As soon as he saw her picture, he knew he had to meet this girl! They officially met on January 31, 2013 at a UNLV fundraising event where they hit it off. With his smooth moves and before the night was over, Mikhail asked for her number. They fell in love and officially became a couple on July 4, 2013, a date they share as their anniversary each year and the birthday of their firstborn, Matcha the Shiba Inu! Forward to five years later on February 9, 2018, alongside the amazing presence of their family and close friends, they decided to spend the rest of their lives together!

Mikhail took Monica out to a nice celebration after passing the exam that allows her to practice as a registered nurse! Afterwards, Mikhail said he had a “surprise activity” planned for Monica afterwards and put on a blindfold on her. Monica had no idea what was about to happen but Mikhail ended up leading her into a beautiful garden venue that had a tree that reminded him of The Whomping Willow from Harry Potter. He then takes out her blindfold and to her surprise, opened her eyes to all her close family and friends right in front of her yelling, “SURPRISE!” Then Mikhail got down on one knee, with the ring inside a custom made Golden Snitch, and asked for her hand in marriage.

The Dress & Attire

Our event was formal black-tie so we had our bridesmaids and groomsmen in formal wear with dark burgundy dresses with a hint of velvet for the bridesmaids and for the groomsmen, they wore charcoal gray tuxes with a velvet dark burgundy bow tie to match the girls. Our parents also wore long formal dresses with the mothers wearing a dark forest green and my dad wearing a dark burgundy suit.

My shoes also were a dark burgundy velvet chunky heel to match a bit with my bridesmaids and Mikhail wore black velvet shoes to match his groomsmen. Again, our main theme was burgundy and going for dark fall colors. My headpiece was custom made in the shape of the Deathly Hallows symbol all around to have a hint of Harry Potter on me! I wore Mikhail’s mom’s necklace as my accessory that day.

We also had our dog Matcha wear a Hufflepuff pin on his bandana tux since he is a “loyal” pup!

The Planning

Our vision for our wedding was to have a magical, Harry Potter-inspired wedding – keyword ‘inspired’ because we didn’t want it to be cheesy or too “on the nose” where it would end up being a kid’s birthday party, haha!

We chose the location based on how the ceremony venue at Mount Charleston gave off “The Forbidden Forest” vibes from the movies and chose the reception venue A Simple Affair which would be turned into “The Great Hall” with plenty of moody fall colors with our main focus on burgundy as our motif and since we are both Gryffindors, of course.

We also based our cocktail lounge and photo booth to look like The Gryffindor Common Room. Overall, we were going for whimsical and vintage but also a hint of minimalist and modern.

The Flowers

We were going for “moody” vibes and wanted dark flowers so we went with the dark burgundy ranunculus, earl gray roses with a hint of blush roses, gold amaranthus, dark burgundy scabiosa with Italian ruscus leaves and burgundy foliage for greenery.

Magical Modern Harry Potter Inspired Wedding – Ashlyn Savannah Photo 1

Favorite Moments

Our favorite part was definitely the vows of the ceremony; we had both written ours separately about a week or two before and had not really explained to each other what we were going to say and what tone we were going for. But then when we read the vows to each other, it turns out that we had pretty much talked about the same thing and our vows ended up matching!

Other favorite parts included getting ready with my bridesmaids and how emotional we all got after I gave them, my sister (MOH) and my parents their wedding gifts before we left for the ceremony. It was such a touching moment and we all just started crying after I said, “Thank you all for everything.”

Magical Modern Harry Potter Inspired Wedding – Ashlyn Savannah Photo 2

The Cake

Our wedding cake was an ombre marble design (light gray on top, darker gray in the middle, and black at the bottom layer) with rose gold flakes and a “brushed” burgundy strip with my personalized Harry Potter tattoo design on it in gold! The top two flavors were matcha and white chocolate buttercream and the bottom was cookies and cream with cookies and cream buttercream.

Magical Modern Harry Potter Inspired Wedding – Ashlyn Savannah Photo 4

The Reception

My sister’s maid of honor speech was perfect and I just loved how she brought everyone back to when my sister and I were kids and in our “nerdy” phase which had everyone laughing and also in tears. We also enjoyed the first dance since no one was expecting us to do a hip hop routine and Mikhail to start breakdancing out of nowhere. Mikhail used to breakdance in high school and I used to dance hip hop as well so we wanted to have fun with our first dance and show that side of us to our loved ones.

Another favorite part was the amazing duet performance by my uncle and Mikhail’s sister – they had not rehearsed at all leading up to their performance and they killed it and everyone was so amazed and asking for an encore!

The Favors

We had vintage key bottle openers that were in the shape of a stag that stated on one side “Thank you for being a KEY part of our lives” and the other side was a silhouette of a stag and doe that stated “Monica and Mikhail / 10.19.2019 / Thank you for celebrating with us. Please enjoy this to Alohamora (open) your bottle.” We did this because, in the books, Harry Potter casts a spell where a stag emerges to protect him and is there for Harry in his most crucial time, just as our guests were there for us on our big day.

The Traditions

We included the Filipino tradition of “The Money Dance” where guests can come pin money on mine and Mikhail’s sashes and can come and dance with us on the dance floor. Another Filipino tradition is to have “sponsors” which are our aunts and uncles who will guide us throughout our marriage, walk down the aisle as a thank you and were recognized as our “Ninangs and Ninongs” which in Tagalog is our aunts and uncles!

Advice to Other Couples

Be aware of the “week of” wedding stress because we definitely didn’t expect it! Just try to enjoy your big day as well and to be in the moment because the day will go by super fast and try to eat and drink as much as you can that day because we had a hard time to while trying to keep up with the day and saying hi to all our family and friends!

Also, try to budget your wedding on things you definitely do and don’t need because we noticed afterward there were things that we had previously contracted with our vendors to rent but we didn’t even end up using them the day of.