By Madoline Markham Koonce
Little did Hannah Dean know when she attended mass each Sunday at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church growing up that her future husband was sitting just pews away from her each week–or that their wedding would take place in that very church.
Fast forward a decade or two to when Whitney Bygrave, a friend of Hannah’s sister, had an idea for a setup. Hannah was 27 and working in real estate. Whitney’s new brother-in-law, Matthew Bygrave, was 31 and working in construction. He had gone to Mountain Brook High School and she to Vestavia Hills High School. He had attended the University of Alabama and she Auburn University. In some ways, they were rivals, but Whitney saw a potential spark. “He’s calm and collected; I’m the more talkative one,” Hannah says. “Whitney thought our personalities were going to complement each other and that he’d melt into my family so well.”
And indeed they did. After a group date with their siblings at Collins Bar, Hannah and Matthew went on a second date at Carrigan’s and then a third at The Essential—the same place that Matthew would propose to her a little over a year later. “That’s where we both realized in our heads we were going to end up together,” Hannah recalls of their third date.
From the start of wedding planning, the couple knew the ceremony would be at St. Francis Xavier. For the reception, they’d both been to a lot of weddings at country clubs in Birmingham and wanted to do something different, so after they got engaged, they invited both of their families to brunch at the Grand Bohemian Mountain Brook and went to see the hotel’s ballroom. It didn’t take long for them to be sold on the space, especially since it is only a short drive from the church.
From there the couple landed on a date, April 26, 2025. Hannah started to pull ideas from weddings she’d been to over the years for what she wanted for their big day, recruiting Jenny Lee of Lauren Bailey Photography, AK Brides as her planner, and a whole vendor team with the calm presence she was looking for. Matthew’s only request was to transition from a black tux jacket for the ceremony to white tux jacket for the reception, and one of Hannah’s most adamant asks was to have calla lily bridesmaid bouquets, which her florist Lillie Jane brought to life.
The wedding day started off with Hannah’s bridesmaids arriving at her parents’ house in Vestavia Hills to find Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee truck parked out front so they could all order drinks. “It set the tone for the day,” Hannah recalls. “We wanted to make sure we were well fed.”
While Matthew and his groomsmen hung out at in the billiard room at the Grand Bohemian, Hannah’s bridesmaids wore striped pajamas by Piyame before putting on their butter yellow halter dresses from Bella Bridesmaids and getting their first look at Hannah’s dress, a drop waist lace gown from The White Magnolia Bridal Collection in Atlanta that she’d paired with a custom lace topper from Something You Couture in Birmingham. Hannah’s mom was the only person there who’d seen the dress before that day, making it an extra special reveal. With the dress, Hannah wore white Nike sneakers she ordered from Etsy that say “Mrs. Bygrave” and the wedding date.
Perhaps Hannah’s biggest surprise of the day came when she was getting her hair and makeup done by Danielle Ivy Chip, and Matthew’s sister Liz came up to her with a stack of envelopes. Matthew had handwritten a letter to each of her 18 bridesmaids. “I had no idea,” Hannah recalls. “I teared up.”
One of the most poignant moments of the day was at St. Francis Xavier. “Walking down the aisle was so much more emotional than I expected it to be,” Hannah says. “I was tearing up and overwhelmed with happiness. It was so cool that our families both grew up in this church.”
The whole evening was also a high point for the couple. “I felt like we never stopped crying or smiling that entire night,” Hannah recalls.
During a cocktail hour under string lights in the Grand Bohemian’s courtyard, guests could order a Toomer’s Lemonade Vodka or a Yellowhammer, each served in plastic cups by The Scribbler with designs that looked like the Toomer’s Drugs and Gallettes logos, respectively. It was the perfect weather for the time outdoors too, with a high of 75 degrees and a low of 63 degrees that day.
Hannah and Matthew’s first dance was to “At Last” by Etta James (“We felt like we were patient to find each other,” Hannah notes), and later in the reception after the BHM trucker hats and light-up leis had came out, the Tasteful Tea Band brought Hannah and her bridesmaids on stage as they played—“I don’t think I’d ever seen her that happy,” Matthew recalls.
All in all, it was a day, and night, the couple will never forget.
After honeymooning in Antigua, Hannah and Matthew did what any real estate-construction couple should do of course: They purchased a fixer upper home in Vestavia Hills to live in and are busy on their next project.
