Photography by Prints Charming
Jacquie Tylka & Glenn Thompson
The future Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Thompson began their courtship a long time ago, when Jacquie Tylka (a former WHIRL intern!) met Glenn during a shared seventh grade homeroom class at Seneca Valley Middle School. It remained a grade school crush situation until they grew closer during the summer before college. They remained unofficial for a few months — “It took us a semester to realize, this is stupid, we should be together,” says Tylka, who was being told by her girlfriends, “You are absolutely smitten with him!”
The couple soon embarked on a tradition, going out on a quintessential Pittsburgh date, each time they were both in town. In typical fashion, Glenn devised a Pittsburgh-themed plan, with dinner at the Hard Rock Café in Station Square and a ride on the Duquesne Incline, a treat usually reserved for Jacquie’s birthday. High atop the city, Glenn dropped to one knee, taking his soon-to-be fiancé by surprise. “What are you doing?!” she exclaimed in disbelief, before composing herself and saying yes to his proposal.
Glenn and Jacquie chose September 25 as their wedding day, only to later find out that Glenn’s grandparents had been married on that exact same day, 50 years earlier. The only way to describe their wedding, held at the Pittsburgh Marriott City Center, is that it was “absolutely perfect,” says the bride, who stayed calm all day, and even picked up her own flowers on the morning of the wedding. Friends and family were very involved in the ceremony, through readings and music, and 130 guests joined in the celebration in the hotel ballroom, adorned in eggplant, silver, and black decorations.
The Reception
Jacquie and her mom, Sue, took to the floor for a non-traditional mother-daughter dance to Carrie Underwood’s “Mama’s Song.” The newlyweds also shared the traditional first dance to Michael Bublé’s, “Hold On.” Says Jacquie, “I wouldn’t change a single thing about our day.”