Abbie and Andrew’s Wedding at West Baden Springs Resort
Two years ago, we started looking at venues with Abbie and Andrew. They’re from Cincinnati. Most of the options on the list were in Indianapolis. So we threw out one more idea, a place about two hours from Indy and two hours from Cincinnati, and we said what we always say about it: two hours away and two worlds away.
We drove down to West Baden first that day. You go through miles of rolling southern Indiana hills, and then the hotel appears on the top of one like a mirage. Big and yellow and impossible to miss. You turn up the cobblestone drive and pass under an archway that reads the Eighth Wonder of the World, and honestly, we were already done. We had the rest of the day’s site visits scheduled up in Indy and we asked them, half joking, whether we even needed to go. (We went. They picked West Baden anyway.)
That decision shaped everything that came after. A wedding at West Baden Springs Resort is a weekend, not an evening. Abbie and Andrew had 89 guests, and most of them stayed two nights and made a real trip out of it.
A Quick Hello Before We Get Into The Day
We’re Mon Amie Events, an Indianapolis wedding and event planning team. We plan and design weddings across Indiana, and West Baden is the place we pitch hardest when a couple is open to it. If you’re starting to think through your own day, we’d love to hear from you.
Saturday Morning
It rained. All morning.
We watched the radar the way you watch a pot that refuses to boil. There was a running joke about whose weather app was the glass half empty one. (Ours said 40 percent chance of rain. Abbie’s family kept telling us it was fine.) We think the remote location confused everything. There wasn’t much nearby for the forecast to pull from.
Meanwhile, upstairs, none of that mattered. Abbie and her girls got ready together in pink and green block print pajama sets, with Abbie in a white robe and pink bow slippers. Alyssa Does Updos and The Glam Lab Indy handled hair and makeup.
Her gown deserves its own sentence. Long sleeves, a scalloped neckline, a deep scalloped open back, and an oversized bow at the waist above a full skirt and a long train. It came from Marie Gabriel Bridal. She paired it with pink patent slingbacks with a red and gold heart at the toe. Scallops turned up everywhere in this wedding once you start looking.
Her bridesmaids got dressed in long black strapless satin gowns, and Abbie had them all in white opera gloves, which felt right for a building of this era.
Three First Looks
Abbie did a first look with her dad, her brother, and then a first look with Andrew in the marble hallway with the gold scrolled walls. Andrew stood facing away with his hands behind his back until she was ready. That was three o’clock.
Portraits happened in the atrium, the full wedding party lined up in front of the mineral bath mosaic with the balconies rising up behind them. The hotel had its patriotic bunting out for July, which we didn’t plan and wouldn’t change. Stacy Able photographed the day.
Five O’clock Ceremony in the Formal Gardens
By five, the rain had stopped.
Abbie and her dad arrived at the gardens by horse and carriage, and the ceremony took place on the lawn with the hotel rising up behind everyone through the trees. Rev. Bob Turner officiated. The French Lick Resort floral team built two large arrangements on white pedestals, all cream and blush roses, white hydrangea, and greenery.
Here’s the part we still think about. Because it had rained all morning, everything was soaked and lush and awake. The flowers had perked up. Deer had been wandering through when we walked the space for the rehearsal, and they were out again. And the birds would not stop singing.
One of their guests asked us if we had cued the birds.
We hadn’t. But we love that the guests were present enough to notice.
Cocktail Hour in the Gardens
Guests stayed outside afterward for drinks in the gardens, under a pink and white striped umbrella with cream fringe, with two dispensers of punch and striped straws.
Then there’s the bar. Abbie’s mom wanted a bar that looked like it belonged to this wedding, and she got one. The front was wrapped in a custom print of pink and chartreuse ribbon scrollwork with two cherubs at the center.
The cherubs weren’t decorative. When West Baden stopped being a hotel, the Jesuits bought it and used it as a mission, and at some point the priests climbed up into the dome and painted angels into the medallion at the very top. Abbie and Andrew put cherubs into their wedding branding because of that dome. Her mom asked us to make sure the welcome letter explained why, so guests would know they were looking at the building.
That’s the kind of detail we chase on every wedding we design. It has to come from somewhere.
Dinner, Pattern on Pattern on Pattern
Abbie and Andrew love pattern. Not one pattern. All of them, layered.
Her colors were raspberry and kelly green with a little emerald, and she mentioned early on that she liked strawberries. It was July. We told her to have at it.
So: strawberries in the bridesmaids’ bouquets, tucked into the centerpieces, ringed around both tiers of the cake. The guest tables wore a small raspberry and white geometric block print, with green and white botanical napkins tied in pink gingham ribbon on top. Two patterns per place setting, and they worked. Scalloped white chargers with a green scalloped edge (she likes a scallop, so we gave her one to eat off of). Pink pressed glass goblets, pink coupes, scalloped menu cards, and clear ghost chairs to keep all of it from getting heavy. Rentals came from Ace Party Rental and BBJ La Tavola.
Abbie didn’t know we’d put the cake table in the green botanical print, the same one as her napkins. The cake was white buttercream with piped swags, tiny cherubs and hearts worked into the icing, and strawberries all the way around.
The paper carried the whole thing. La Papeterie Design built a suite of scalloped borders, black and white stripes, black satin ribbon, hot pink tassels, a chartreuse welcome card, and a green monogram crest, with pink cherubs scattered through. The escort cards picked the same language back up on the way into dinner.
Abbie’s dance with her dad was “Piano Man,” which meant that at nine o’clock on a Saturday, her guests had their phone flashlights up and swaying. Jim Cerone ran the night.
The Bowling Alley
Here’s what made this weekend different from other weddings we’ve planned here.
When Abbie and Andrew did their site visit, the hotel was finishing a restoration of the original bowling alley, now the Billiard and Bowling Pavilion. It reopened this January, a hundred years after it had last been a bowling alley. They booked it.
The wedding ended at ten. The afterparty ran ten to midnight, about 200 yards from the main building, and Kara surprised them with a saxophonist to walk everybody over. Six lanes, brick oven pizza, and baskets of socks (nobody packs socks for a black-tie wedding). Abbie and Andrew came out in sweatsuits and sneakers, which their guests had no idea was coming. A lot of their guests changed clothes too and went bowling.
Why We Keep Pitching This Place
We’ll say it plainly to couples who tell us they want Indianapolis: this one is an outlier, but look at it anyway. Once they give it a real look, it’s hard to talk them back out of it.
A wedding at West Baden Springs Resort gives your guests golf, a spa, a casino, shooting, fishing, and a hotel with a story, all before your ceremony starts. We met a guest at the wedding who told us they live two hours away and had never heard of it. He told us three days wasn’t enough and he would definitely be back. The building has been standing for over a century and it isn’t going anywhere, which means Abbie and Andrew can bring their kids back to the place where they got married.
Abbie and Andrew, thank you for saying yes to the outlier. We hope Barbados was every bit as good as that weekend was.
Thinking about a wedding at West Baden Springs Resort, or anywhere else in Indiana? Let’s talk.
Professional Team
Planner and Designer: Mon Amie Events
Venue, Catering, Floral, and Cake: French Lick Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel
Photography: Stacy Able Photography
Officiant: Rev. Bob Turner
Entertainment: Jim Cerone The Perfect Host
Rentals: Ace Party Rental and BBJ La Tavola
Hair and Makeup: Alyssa Does Updos and The Glam Lab Indy
Branding: La Papeterie Design
Abbie’s Gown: Marie Gabriel Bridal and Rosa Clará
Menswear: Jos. A. Bank
Bridesmaids: Donna Karan
