Jessica & Mike’s Chic-and-Geeky Science Museum Wedding

So earlier today I showed you an e-session that centered around Mathematics. Now we have a pair of Science whizzes who had a fun, creative, and meaningful wedding in the presence of family, friends, and — yup — fossils in Minnesota’s Science Museum! Please meet Jessica and Mike…

I adore this nerd-tastic portrait of the beautiful-and-brainy couple, and we have Becca Dilley Photography to thank for the gorgeous photos on this page. I think what Becca wrote on her blog about the day sums it up perfectly:

Jessica & Mike are scientists. Having their wedding in the Science Museum of Minnesota was kind of a no-brainer for them. But their wedding was not about the periodic table (settings) or their science-themed quiz: it was about Jessica & Mike- sharing their families, and their passions, and their jokes. Congratulations on the beginning of something great.

Such a stunning bride! And Mike (below) agrees, just look at that expression… aww.  :)

How adorable are they? Let’s get to know the twosome a bit better so here’s Jessica to tell us all about Mike and herself:

Mike and I started dating at St. Olaf College — he was a Physics and Math major and I was Biology, so we’ve always been a geeky couple, really into science. We went to a “Social Science” event at the Science Museum shortly after we got engaged, and I just started picturing us taking fun pictures with the dinosaur fossils.

Again, the look on Mike’s face upon seeing Jessica in her gown is just precious!

I love how the venue allowed them to maintain a “classic” wedding fee while allowing the couple and their friends some room to play around. Jessica explains it further:

We wanted our wedding to be personal and unique, but we also wanted didn’t want to cross the line from “Wedding at the Science Museum” into “Science-themed wedding.” Having it at the museum let us run around and be silly for pictures, but then we had a fairly traditional Lutheran wedding ceremony. We felt like the party surrounding the wedding could be kind of nerdy and goofy, but we still wanted the ceremony to be meaningful.

That said, cute goofy pics coming up!

This wedding is also packed with personal touches including periodic table of elements themed table labels and so on. Jessica shares:

My dad helped us out in designing the seating/table cards as elements from the periodic table. We used a cool rubber stamp that looked like an atom to personalize our invitations and decorate the
cover of the ceremony program.

One of the personal touches that we had tons of fun thinking up was passing out science trivia questions for the reception — guests had to answer a question (correctly!) to get us to kiss. All the answers were facts that were either relevant to our interests (ie. questions about honeybees because I’m a hobby beekeeper) or that we knew specific guests would get a kick out of.

Don’t you just LOVE that idea?! So fun and unique-to-the-couple!

These last two shots are just magnificent!

Huge thanks to Becca for sharing her lovely images of this fun and unique wedding with us, and congratulations to Jessica and Mike! Thank you for letting us have a look inside your wonderful wedding day!

Photographer: Becca Dilley Photography
Dress: Wedding Shoppe
Hotel: St Paul Hotel
Ceremony & Reception: Science Museum of Minnesota
Hair: Candi Donaghue
Catering: Lancer Catering
Invitations: the couple used a kit from Office Max which they personalized it with their atom stamp
Flowers: bouquets and corsages made by Jessica’s aunt Christine Burtness
Music: They made their our own playlist. Sound equipment was provided by John Helgen who played the keyboard during the ceremony
Suits: Men’s Wearhouse

Tags: alternative wedding venues, DIY weddings, first look, geeky wedding themes, handmade weddings