When Whitney Williams accepted Spencer Rowell’s proposal, her first thought was: Why wait?  “We’re both the personality where, if we want something, we just do it,” she says.

So they married in February 2015, just two months after getting engaged and a year after Spencer took a chance and kissed Whitney for the first time. They were living in Boca Raton, Florida, when their romance blossomed. Spencer, who hails from New York, was there studying psychology at Palm Beach State. Whitney, a Dallas native, was living out her beach fantasies before returning to her hometown to settle down. They met through mutual friends and became running buddies, which was initially as far as Whitney planned for it to go.

“I was like, ‘I’m not going to date this guy,’” she laughs. “He’s three years younger than me, and we were at different stages of our lives. So we just became best friends.”

But during those runs, they started to realize all they had in common: a love for travel, a sense of adventure, a creative side. So after five months of just-friendship, Spencer made his move. They never looked back.

When Whitney got the itch to return to Texas, Spencer didn’t give it a second thought. He agreed to move with her at the end of the semester. Though they weren’t engaged at that point, Spencer didn’t waste time making it official. The day after their first Christmas together, he presented Whitney with a ring bearing the stone from his mother’s original engagement ring. They took a night to celebrate with family and then got down to the business of planning.

Whitney had always envisioned a beach wedding, but having just moved back from Florida, they decided to keep it closer to home. Still, Whitney knew she didn’t want an over-the-top affair. “I wanted something really intimate with just the people I really truly love in my life,” she says.

They decided on a “bright and light and happy” morning ceremony and jazz brunch on February 21 at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, giving them just under eight weeks to plan. Such an accelerated timetable can make some aspects of wedding planning tricky—for one, finding a dress. Fortunately, Neiman Marcus had some sample dresses available, one of which was right on the mark.

“I just knew. It was so perfect for that morning—just simple and easy and beautiful,” she says. “And also, it fit.”

Whitney credits the team at DFW Events with pulling the details of the big day together so quickly and seamlessly. The Mansion’s sun-filled Promenade Room was the setting for the romantic ceremony, during which Spencer serenaded his bride with an improvised song. “There was not a dry eye in the room,” Whitney says.

From there, the 100 guests moved into the Pavilion Ballroom for brunch. The couple shared the only dance of the morning, to the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” Though the formal festivities wrapped around 1:45 in the afternoon, the newlyweds were feted that evening at a party thrown by one of the bride’s childhood friends.

Now settled in Dallas, the couple has put their honeymoon plans on hold while Spencer finishes up a degree at SMU. Some things, they’ve learned, are worth waiting for.

—Jessica Jones

They decided on a “bright and light and happy” morning ceremony and jazz brunch on February 21 at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, giving them just under eight weeks to plan.