All the Right Reasons

Georgia Meyers, director of catering at Christos Union Depot Place, has been in the wedding reception business for more than a decade. But even she was impressed with the level of romance and vitality evident in the love of Alan and Megan Lee, who hosted their wedding reception for 175 guests at Christos on June 24.  “They are just truly in love and have so much respect for each other,” she says. “I rarely see a love so tangible. The reception was beautiful from beginning to end. They obviously got married for all the right reasons.”

It’s the kind of compliment couples hope for—to create a reception that’s memorable for the sheer emotion, sentimentality, and meaning of the event. And it was an intentional decision on the part of Megan and Alan to create a reception that celebrated both their love for each other and their love for their guests.

“It’s humbling,” says Megan, who lives with Alan in Minneapolis. “We feel so lucky to have this wonderful love between the two of us, and everyone who’s important in our lives was there that day. We were touched that people made an effort to be here.”

The guests—some of whom came from as far away as New York, San Francisco, and Korea—were as surprised as Alan when Megan spontaneously decided to serenade her new husband with the first verse of their wedding dance, “Come rain or come shine.”

“Nobody knew I was going to do this, including me,” Megan says. “About an hour before the first dance I talked with the band. When we got on the dance floor, I nodded to the piano player and started singing. It was the one really nice thing of the day that wasn’t planned.”

On the list of the many memorable details that were planned? Alan and Megan made a point to stop by every table to thank the guests for joining them. Equally important to the couple were the flowers—especially the plum blossoms that were printed on favors and ceremony programs. “Our last name, ‘Lee,’ means Plum in Chinese,” Megan explains. Prior to the wedding, Megan gave Alan a plum tree, which signifies hope in Chinese culture.

Another important nod to Alan’s heritage was the formal Chinese wedding gown that Megan changed into for the second half of the reception. She wore the gown, handmade in Hong Kong, with an heirloom gold necklace.

From start to finish, the Lees created a reception filled with love and laughter—right down to a tongue-in-cheek detail on the cake table. “For some reason I really wanted a bride and groom to be on top of the cake,” Megan says. “Not only that, I found one that was a caucasian bride and an Asian groom. That was the dorkiest thing. It cracked me up, and Alan got a kick out of it.”

Dorky or not, it was one of the many fun and personal details that made the Lees’ reception unforgettable. “They’re such a sincere couple,” says Meyers. “They were just so real.”