EXPRESS
A Dream Do-Over
Wedding planner Laurie Haag and her husband experience the wedding of their dreams
BY LAURIE HAAG | PHOTOS BY NATALIE SPAULDING PHOTOGRAPHY AND ASHLEY WALTS PHOTOGRAPHY
May 7, 1988, is one of my favorite days ever. It’s
the day I married my husband.
Fast-forward to May 2018, and I can’t believe 30
years have gone by so fast. When we got married,
we were very young. We lacked a lot of resources
and we had some unusual rules to follow at our
church because I already had a baby. So, our
wedding wasn’t exactly a “dream wedding,” and
from time to time, we have joked about and
discussed redoing it.
At our 10-year anniversary, it would have been
76 EXTOL : JUNE/JULY 2018
impossible to redo a wedding celebration as we
were in the throes of raising four young daughters
and were basically super poor at that time.
At our 25-year anniversary, our oldest daughter
was due to have her first baby any day during that
timeframe. We couldn’t risk mis sing the birth of
our granddaughter, or our daughter and son-in-
law not being at our party. were sitting beachside during a romantic dinner
while on vacation and it just seemed like it was
meant to be. He asked if it should be a full-fledged
vow renewal, and all I could think was that I just
didn’t want it to come off corny. But really, a lot
of the traditional ceremony things are what we
missed out on, so we felt like it was really important
and would be special.
So, this year, as we were anticipating 30 years and
reminiscing about our life, Bryan asked if I thought
we should go for it and re-do the “wedding.” We I had a mere six weeks to plan the whole thing,
but I do own three wedding businesses in town,
and I have all the experience, resources and friends