Attorneys at Love

Born-and-raised Minnesotans Nicole Miller and Woodie Dixon Jr. met as first-year attorneys at a Minneapolis law firm in 1999. A couple ever since, their careers brought them to Chicago and New York before Woodie accepted a position with the Kansas City Chiefs football franchise. The upside of the move to Kansas City? They achieved their goal of getting back to the Midwest. The downside? There went Nicole’s dream of having a fall wedding. “With football season, it just wasn’t going to happen,” she says with a laugh.

Instead, the couple opted for a spring wedding “back home” in Minnesota. “The Twin Cities is where we grew up,” Woodie explains. “It will always have a special place in our hearts.”

A place so special, in fact, that showing off their hometown to out-of-town guests was high on their list of priorities. To that end, they selected 317 on Rice Park in the heart of downtown St. Paul as the venue for both their ceremony and reception, which were held last May. “Our guests could walk to the river and go to museums and restaurants during their stay,” says Nicole. “Plus, 317 has a nice, old feel. We had the fireplace going, there’s a big wooden bar…it’s an old, classy place.”

Beyond the venue, the couple agrees that the tuneful melodies of a gospel choir made the day extra memorable. Woodie’s dad, a member of the Pilgrim Baptist Church gospel choir in St. Paul, joined the group in serenading guests prior to the ceremony as well as singing a joyful rendition of “Oh, Happy Day” as Nicole walked down the aisle. “The gospel choir really took the wedding over the edge,” Woodie says.

Another detail they wouldn’t have changed was enjoying their own table for two at the reception. “It was a little bit of private time for us right after the ceremony,” says Nicole. Individual wedding cakes on each table were a hit with the 125 guests, as was a real-time slide show of wedding photos that their photographers downloaded and played on a laptop near the bar throughout the evening.

“Overall we wanted to keep things elegant,” Woodie says. “We’re not twenty-year-olds getting married. We didn’t do a dollar dance, we didn’t make a big to-do about cutting the cake—we kept things as elegant and low-key as possible.”