I've sat down to write this, like, four times now and never know where to start, so I'm just going to talk and see where it goes. We got married on the last Sunday of July at Gideon Owen Wine Company on Catawba Island.

If you've never been, it's out by Port Clinton, close enough to the Lake Erie islands that some evenings you can catch the lake in the air. Their site is gideonowenwine.com if you want to actually see the place, because I will never describe it as well as the photos do.

I wasn't one of those girls who planned a wedding her whole life. No binder, no secret board, none of it. The one thing I did know was that I refused to be hot and miserable on the only day every person I love is in the same room.

Late July in Ohio is no joke, you guys. That single, very boring requirement basically picked our venue for us.

Why We Chose a Winery Wedding on Catawba Island

We looked at a handful of places. Mostly barns, because that's what everyone does now. They were sweet. They weren't us.

The second we walked into Gideon Owen I got why people cry on venue tours. The outside is pale, rough limestone with these ridiculous arched wooden doors, and downstairs there's a wine cellar that's been there since the building went up in 1872.

I looked all this up afterward because I'm a nerd like that. It started life as the Catawba Island Wine Company, basically a co-op where local grape farmers pooled their money for barrels and equipment none of them could swing alone.

The ground was originally farmed by a grower named Gideon Owen, which is where the name comes from now. For a long stretch the building was Mon Ami Champagne, and the family who owns it now brought actual winemaking back after renovating the whole thing.

Our guide said of the four big co-op wineries that used to ring the lake, this is the only one still operating. I don't know. Standing in a room where people have been barreling wine since the 1870s does something to you.

Our ceremony was down in that cellar, under the barrel-vaulted stone ceiling with the giant old barrels along the walls, and it was cool in there. Genuinely cool, no AC, in July. I rest my case.

Getting Ready With Four Blush Bridesmaids

The girls and I got ready while the morning light was still soft. Four bridesmaids in short blush dresses with these tiny rhinestone straps, and I let them each pick their own nude heel because I was not going to force four different feet into one shoe.

They were absolutely ridiculous about my veil. Outside under the pergola, the one that's covered over in grapevines, all four of them were right in my face fixing tulle and sniffling before I'd even had coffee.

My bouquet was white roses and ranunculus, blush, a hit of coral, lots of greens, loose enough to look like somebody grabbed it from a garden that morning. That's exactly what I asked for.

My husband wore a navy suit, white shirt open at the collar, no tie, brown leather shoes. He fights me on tucking in his shirt for every single family photo and I just let him have it on our wedding day. He looked like himself. That was the whole point.

A Candlelit Ceremony in the Old Wine Cellar

Ceremony was in the cellar with a guy playing guitar. Here's what nobody warns you about: I was completely calm, and HE was the nervous wreck, which flipped every movie I'd ever seen.

He was clutching his vows on a folded-up piece of printer paper like it might blow away. We stood under a whitewashed wooden arch with the same blush and coral flowers, on a white runner with tiny roses printed down it.

There's a black and white photo of us at the microphone where I am obviously cackling in the middle of a serious moment and I genuinely cannot remember what was funny. Obsessed with it anyway.

The second the officiant finished and sent us up the aisle, I threw my bouquet straight over my head like a trophy. Couldn't tell you why. Body just did it.

The Wedding Dress I Bought Online Before Trying One On

Okay. The dress. Let me tell you about the dress, because how this went is kind of embarrassing and I'm telling it anyway.

I bought mine before I ever tried a single gown on. Online. Late at night. On the couch, with a drink, the way nobody should make any decision.

A simple white crepe sheath: deep V in front, V in the back, wide straps, ruching draped across the left hip, a slit up the front, small train. Zero sparkle, zero lace.

It showed up, I put it on, it was great. And then, naturally, I completely lost my mind. What if this is the wrong one. What if THE dress is still out there. What if I'm the idiot who didn't even go to a salon like a normal human.

So I booked appointments. The whole thing, champagne, pedestal, the consultant clipping the back for me. I tried ten. Ten dresses, across multiple stores.

A ballgown that made me look like a nice lampshade. Strapless stuff I'd be hiking up all night. Heavy satin, long sleeves, backs that ended at my tailbone.

Genuinely pretty gowns, some of them. And every single time I'd look in the mirror and just compare it, silently, to the one already hanging in my closet.

By number ten I was standing in some very expensive situation and I started laughing, because I'd known for about nine dresses already. The first one was the one.

I went home and apologized to my dress out loud. I stand by that.

The original gown was a white V neck ruched wedding dress with slit featuring sleeves in its original design. For this wedding, the bride customized the gown by removing the sleeves and wearing it as a sleeveless style.

Why I Ordered a Little Larger and Altered It Down

I ordered it in white, size 12, which is one size over what I normally wear, on purpose.

My mom thought I'd lost it. But anyone who knows alterations says the same thing: taking a gown in is easy, letting one out is a nightmare.

It was big in exactly the spots I expected and my seamstress took it in so it skimmed instead of clung. She barely had to hem it.

The one fancy thing I allowed myself was a beaded appliqué on the left side, just a small hit of sparkle that caught the cellar candles whenever I turned.

She also added a loop and a pearl button for a bustle, so the train buttoned up and stayed out of my way at dinner. I keep bringing up that pearl button because I'm weirdly proud of it. Whatever. It's the little stuff.

Built In Cups Were a Bigger Deal Than the Beading

And here's maybe my actual selling point, for whoever's still reading: the dress has built-in cups. Real support. I didn't wear a single thing under it.

No strapless bra carving a line under my ribs, no shapewear I'd be peeling off in a bathroom stall at ten at night.

At a winery wedding in late July where I planned to sit down, eat an entire meal, and dance like nobody had a phone out (everybody had phones out), that mattered more than any amount of beading.

I kept calling it my Sunday Funday dress because that's really what it was. Elegant enough for a 150-year-old stone cellar full of candles and barrels, and between the slit and the neckline it had just enough going on that I felt good.

Sexy, even. I'll admit I was worried. I'm not 25, I didn't want to dress like I was chasing 25, and I also refused to wear something that made me feel ten years older.

This sat exactly in the middle. I felt like me, only dialed up.

A Candlelit Reception Full of Wine and Blush Flowers

Reception was upstairs. Long wooden farmhouse tables, bentwood chairs, what felt like a hundred candles, low blush and white flowers down every table, and wine already in the glasses when we walked in, which is the correct way to enter any room.

Toasts happened. People said lovely things and one person said an extremely long thing that we all loved anyway.

The dance floor stayed full until the light outside went gold. There's a group photo of us jammed in front of the arched doors where my husband is caught mid-laugh with his eyes shut. It's my lock screen now.

Twenty Quiet Minutes for Wedding Portraits

We stole about twenty minutes for pictures after, by the arched doors, the little stone archway, back under the vines.

Twenty minutes sounds like nothing. It was the only quiet we got all day, so if you're planning anything, fight for those twenty minutes. Be annoying about it.

What I Actually Learned From Buying My Wedding Dress Online

I don't actually have some big takeaway. I'm not going to tell you to trust your gut, because my gut ordered a wedding dress off the internet at midnight and the whole thing worked out basically by accident.

I guess, if anything: get the thing you can breathe and sit down in, don't panic about ordering with a little room to alter, and guard those twenty quiet minutes after the ceremony.

Oh, and if you're ever near Lake Erie and you like old stone and decent wine, go sit in the Gideon Owen cellar once. You don't even need a wedding as an excuse.

It's late and I could ramble another thousand words, so I'll stop here. Best Sunday of my entire life. I'd do the dumb midnight order, the ten extra dresses, and the little pearl button all over again in a heartbeat.