Ruta + Christopher

Her Big Day Team
Jul 15, 2016
2 min read

Bride: Ruta Shibeshi

Groom: Christopher Dew

Location: Seattle, WA.

Wedding Date: May 14, 2016

Venue: Seattle Police Athletic Association

Number of Guests: 500

Cultures Represented: Eritrean American

If you've ever been to a cultural wedding, you know that it will typically be a multiple day celebration. Unless you're a savvy and efficient bride who fuses all cultures into a ONE day celebration. Couple, Chris and Ruta Dew celebrated their Eritrean-American wedding in one day, instead of the typical two day celebration, and successfully executed a beautiful and memorable wedding! With little details such as wearing the western white wedding gown with henna to the ceremony and showing up to the reception in traditional braids and a western headpiece to match her white gown, Ruta made a short and easy transition from western bride to Eritrean princess after dawning her cultural wedding dress in the middle of her reception! We love it! Here's what Ruta had to say about her day!

Description or Theme of wedding: Red/Punch, Gold, Champagne, and White colors. I went for something romantic, royal, and a timeless look.

The most memorable part of your wedding: Slow dancing with my husband. Throughout the day, it was all about what needed to happen but when we had our first dance, it felt like it was just us, even though about 500 people were looking at us, lol :-)

Did you do anything unique, crazy or fun: Honestly, our whole day was unique but the most unique thing was probably getting my hair braided and designing it to look like an up-do and walking into the reception in my white wedding dress with braids (usually braids are done during the second day- the traditional wedding). Instead of a two day wedding, we had a one day wedding that incorporated both the western culture and the Eritrean culture, all in one.

What was the most difficult part about planning your wedding: Trying to please everyone. I couldn’t make everyone I wanted a bridesmaid so some took it to heart. The ongoing meetings were stressful because I wanted to show my appreciation to those that kept taking the time to conduct these meetings to ensure my day was well organized by showing up but it cut into a lot of what I had to do.

What was the easiest part about planning your wedding: Choosing my wedding dress. I knew exactly what I wanted and liked.

Any words of wisdom to the couple planning their wedding: Your day will come and it will pass. Make sure you make it memorable for you and your spouse. Before you plan, imagine what you would like your pictures to capture- what do you want it to look like- and then make those images your reality because your pictures and videos are all you will have left afterwards.