The Perfect Wedding Day Bike Ride

There’s one thing my husband Nick and I have done together in every city we’ve ever visited around the world.

No, not that.

We ride bikes.From the rental bikes in Paris to lightning fast electric bikes in Copenhagen to mountain bikes in Chile and fat tire bikes in Milwaukee, we’ve covered a lot of ground on two tires.When we were planning our wedding we began joking that we could ride bikes to the reception. It would be a lot cheaper than a limo and a helluva lot more fun.

“Hell, everyone could ride bikes to the reception,” Nick said. By then he wasn’t joking. Once he gets an idea in his head he doesn’t let it go.

Planning a Wedding How to Be Married

Maybe the city would lend us their bike share bikes, I suggested, never believing it could be an actual possibility. Turns out Philadelphia’s new bike share program, Indego wasn’t just generous, they were also eager to help out a new bride. They agreed to lend us 30 bikes so that we could ride from the wedding ceremony at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to our reception at the Vesper Boat Club.

There was just the little problem of my wedding dress.The sales associate who was helping me try on gowns at BHLDN bridal shop in Chicago didn’t know what to say when I asked her, “Do you think I can ride a bike in this dress?” Planning a Wedding How to Be Married

To be fair, it isn’t something most people do at their weddings, but she maintained a poker face. “Absolutely,” she said.”I’ll take it then,” I responded.

There were massive thunderstorms on our wedding day so the ceremony was moved from the courtyard of the museum to the Sphinx gallery inside. That was better. Every hipster in Brooklyn gets married outdoors in a rustic barn wedding. Who gets married in front of a 3,000 year old Sphinx?

The rain abated to a sprinkle by the time the ceremony was over so we were able to able to hop on our bikes. The wedding party carried noisemakers, cowbells and mini tambourines.

Planning a Wedding How to Be Married

Cars of strangers stopped on the road to take pictures and congratulate us. Joggers along the bike path all did a double take. I got a lot of ‘Holy crap, is she in a wedding dress?

It wasn’t easy to ride in my dress or my four inch Badgley Mischka heels. I had the train it up over my Spanx to keep it from getting caught in the spokes, but I hardly noticed what I was wearing once we hit the pavement. It was the best two-mile bike ride of my life.

(video from Jeff Rueppel and Philadelphia Magazine)