Ann Otto & Lucas Stritt 7.17.09

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Ann Otto knew her wedding day would not be perfect. She planned all the day's details with love and anticipation, and decided to accept with grace and humor anything that might go awry. A few things did. The reception music fell through five days before the event. The church's air conditioner broke, and strawberries disappeared from the wedding cake.

“Two imperfect people were coming together and no matter how much we planned it, it was not going to be perfect,” Ann says. “It kind of took the pressure off.”

Ann, 28, and Lucas Stritt, 26, had a lovely wedding day anyway, of course. Far-flung friends and relatives convened for a reunion of sorts and to see the University of Nebraska at Omaha campus where Lucas — formerly of western Nebraska and Minnesota — earned his pilot's license and his master's degree in business administration. He met Ann when they both worked at FirstComp Insurance.

The traditional style of their place of worship, Dundee Presbyterian Church, matched the couple's style. They decided to keep church decorating to a minimum. “Through the whole process, we wanted attention to stay focused on the marriage and not just the day,” says Ann, who grew up in Millard.
“It was wonderful to be able to wear a wedding dress,'' she says, “but I could have gone down the aisle in a simple cotton dress.”

The church's air conditioner broke but it wasn't an overly warm day.

Family and friends made the ceremony special by singing, reading and serving in the bridal party.
The reception was a short drive from the Thompson Center at UNO, a nod to Lucas' education. The bridal bouquets decorated the hall, with the pink and white flowers adding pop to the bridesmaids' black dresses.

A last-minute disc jockey saved the day after the couple's reception music fell through. DJ James Cloyd, the bride said, made the evening flow smoothly.

When the bride noticed that two strawberries fell — or were plucked — from the wedding cake, she laughed and moved on to the gelato bar, a nod to her love of dessert. “I'm really glad we added that,” she says. “I never have a meal without something sweet.”

Looking back, the bride has pleasant memories of all the things that went well and even those that did not. “This sounds so cliché, but it really was just the beginning,” she says. “I think it gets better and better every day.”