Chic and Modern Micro-Wedding in Portland, Oregon

College sweethearts, Samantha and Stephen, converted their grand wedding plans into a stunning micro-wedding celebration in Portland, Oregon. Featuring elegant decor and accents with all-white floral arrangements, their black-tie wedding was practically perfect.

They chose not to reschedule their wedding due to the uncertain schedule of the groom’s professional European basketball career and because they simply could not wait to get married!

See more beautiful details below.

Couple: Samantha and Stephen Holt
Occupations: Digital Media Planner for a marketing agency / Professional Basketball Player in European leagues
Wedding Date: August 15, 2020
Wedding Location: Portland, Oregon

How They Met

We met while both attending & playing our sports at Saint Mary’s College of CA (me on the Volleyball team and him on the Basketball team) as the tallest on campus our teams often hung out together, shared a gym, and training schedule! After a quick intro from our teammates and a shake of the hand, it was fate from there!

The Proposal

It was the week before we were going to fly to Chicago for his mom’s family reunion. One of the days. he said he had a “surprise” planned for the next day! I had assumed it was a nice lunch or activity, but noticed him acting a little strange. He also has this inability to keep secrets from me (even fun gift surprises haha!). I was very interested that he was keeping this secret. We ended up downtown and parked at this very tall building where we took an elevator up. When we got to the top we were on the “Oregon Helicopters” helipad! In my head, I was thinking this has to be it because it was such a crazy and “spontaneous” thing for him to plan! We started taking pictures in front of the Helicopter and in the middle of it, he took both my hands, dropped to his knee, and proposed! I said YES and we flew off on a tour of the city where I was literally on cloud 9 and he was hanging on for dear life because he is afraid of heights!

Wedding Style

Samantha wore a gorgeous, beaded, open-back dress from Kyha with delicate jewelry and modern, white chunky heels. Stephen wore a classic black tux.

Memories

Both of us were just so happy to be celebrating with our closest friends and family, outside of actually getting married and saying our vows (of course). For me, my favorite memory was during the dinner when we were FINALLY able to sit back and absorb all the love that was in the room from those that have supported us through it all. For Stephen, it was definitely the dance party at the end!! Since we have to go without a DJ to fit within the gathering limit, he curated all the music that played that day and put together the most perfect dance party playlist!

Advice

I would 100% recommend hiring a wedding planner or at least a day of the wedding planner. Brooke made sure everything went down perfectly and she is the reason we were able to have such a special wedding despite all of our challenges!