Melisande Loeppert & Charles Rosentel

Melisande Cariño Loeppert and Charles Robert Rosentel were married on August 7, 2010. The ceremony took place at the Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza in Santa Fe, N.M., with a reception immediately following at the same location.

The service was performed by the Reverend Wayne MacPherson of Evanston, Ill., a family friend and minister in the United Church of Christ. A mutual love of poetry led the couple to include works by ee cummings, Walt Whitman, and Pablo Nurada in their service. A nondenominational ceremony, it also included Christian prayers to celebrate Meli’s background, and a Kiddush prayer, as well as a 19th Century family heirloom, to honor Charles’s Jewish heritage.

The bride, who is keeping her name, wore a cream silk chiffon dress with orchids in her hair and carried a bouquet of flame calla lilies, while the bridesmaids and groomsmen wore coordinating flame calla lily corsages and boutonnières that accented their classic black attire.

The bride is the daughter of Alice and Ted Loeppert of Evanston. Her bridesman was Saad Kahn of Champaign, Ill., and her bridesmaids were sister of the groom Amy Rosentel of Sandy Hook, Maggie Coyne of Evanston, and Soni Khatri of Brooklyn, N.Y.

The groom is the son of Judy and Steve Rosentel of Sandy Hook. Julie Keller of Boston served as groomswoman. Groomsmen were Andrew Rote of Pleasantville, N.Y., Max Bulbin of Chicago, and Jeff Stone, also of Chicago. Ushers were Mark Huot of Philadelphia and Edwin Lee of Chicago.

Additional attendants included Riley Perez-Pranian of Skokie, Ill., as the flower girl, and nephew of the bride Griffin Loeppert-Zwirner of Evanston and Jake Perez-Pranian of Skokie as ring bearers.

Meli is a graduate of Northwestern University. She has been selected to be a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois School of Law, where she is also a student.

Charles is a graduate of Northwestern University and also of Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he received his EdM  in 2007. He is a teacher of eighth grade social studies at Franklin Middle School in Champaign.

A former high school teacher in Chicago, he was the recipient of a 2010 Leader of Excellence Award by The Academy for Urban School Leadership.

Meli and Charles, who live in Champaign, plan to celebrate their marriage with a trip to Argentina in December.