Loza + Isayas: A Faith filled & God Inspired Affair

Her Big Day Team
Jul 26, 2017
4 min read

Bride: Loza Dejene

Groom: Isayas Theodros

Location: Chicago, Il

Date: Sunday, June 25, 2017

Venue: Chicago Cultural Center

Number of Guests: 350

Culture Represented: Ethiopian

The most memorable part of your wedding: All of it! If I had to choose only one memorable part, I would say the wedding ceremony. It was truly a dream. Our prayer consistently during the planning process was that the wedding and our marriage would stir up faith, inspire hope, and leave people experiencing the love of Christ. Hearing all of the testimonies of how everybody we love was inspired by DeVon’s word, our vows, and all the love they felt in the room was, and is a priceless feeling.

Did you do anything unique, crazy or fun: My wedding inspirations were the movies “Jumping the Broom” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” These movies inspired much of the style and vibe we wanted for the wedding weekend. Both movies had brunches, dinners and activities planned throughout the wedding weekend. We wanted to follow in similar fashion. Isayas and I live in Los Angeles and had the wedding in Chicago. We wanted to create a wedding weekend experience for all of our guests so we planned something for everyone from Friday through Monday.

Outside of the wedding, we did a wedding welcome mixer and called it our “All White Windy City Wedding Welcome Mixer.” We wanted to welcome our guests into the city by doing it atop a rooftop lounge in Chicago. We encouraged all our guests to wear white (who doesn’t love that look?!). It worked out perfectly! It provided our guests a chance to mix and mingle and provided us another opportunity to kick it with our guests outside of the wedding day. It gave everyone something to do that Friday and was the warm up for all the wedding fun and festivities to follow.

We also didn’t do a huge Ethiopian Melse since the wedding was on Sunday and many of our guests were flying out that Monday. As a result, we made sure to include culture all throughout the wedding process. We had morning robes with tillet. We included a Kaba Ceremony during the wedding ceremony in which our dads placed the Kabas on us before we were pronounced husband and wife, and had the wedding catered by an Ethiopian restaurant. This restaurant, Demera Ethiopian, also hosted "Family and Friend Brunch" the day after the wedding. We invited everyone to come as they were and had breakfast/brunch food (i.e eggs, chechebsa, firfir, shy, buna, etc). This was the cap to the wedding weekend. It was great seeing everyone off before they caught their flights that Monday afternoon.

What was the most difficult part about planning your wedding: Planning a domestic destination wedding was tough at first. We knew immediately that we needed a wedding coordinator on the ground in Chicago to help us, so we enrolled Karolina with Weddings and Events by Karolina early on in the game. She helped keep us on track and dealt with details that could have possibly fallen in between the cracks.

What was the easiest part about planning your wedding: Writing the vows :-) This was such an intimate and transparent moment for the both of us. We wanted to take our time so we both spent the week before the wedding in prayer about our vows. The resulting vows were truly Christ inspired, raw, and so poignantly beautiful.

Any words of wisdom to the couple planning their wedding: First and foremost, invite God to the wedding. We literally wrote our first invitation and wrote “To: God” on it. It might sound a bit dramatic, but it was a visual representation and reminder for us that we refused to do the whole “wedding thing” without Him. Putting Him in the center of everything makes it all that more important. Seeing that God is love, planning a wedding without putting Him in the center would be tough. I’m also a control freak and super type A so surrendering the planning to Him brought all that much more peace and joy in the process. When you get caught up in the details, take a breath and look up.

Remember this is His union, He brought you together, and He will take care of every detail. Also don’t forget to prepare for the marriage instead of just the wedding. Take a moment to identify what you pray your marriage would mean to God, to yourselves, and to the world around you. There is power in your union. Be intentional. Have fun!

*Some of the images provided were taken by wedding friends/family members, yuriandrellphotography /Nahom Rezene and not the work of the bride and groom's wedding photographer listed below.

Don't Miss The Wedding Highlight Video on our Facebook page!

Vendors:

Bride's attire: “Amelie” by Sottero and Midgely

Hair/Makeup: Crystal Eyez Beauty Lounge

Groom's attire: Suit Supply ( Groomsmen: theblacktux.com)

Photographer: Chasing Stills

Videographer: True Shot Studios

Wedding Planner: Weddings and Events by Karolina

Officiant: DeVon Franklin

Invitations: Best Man, Biruke Kebede

Florist: Details in Bloom

Cake: Bittersweet Pastry