My wedding day: 'My brother wore a bridal gown to calm my husband’s nerves'

When Heidi and Valentin Zherelyev decided to get married, they knew every detail had to be significant.

From their personalised vows, flowers flown in from the Netherlands, a Norwegian wedding cake and Russian music, every aspect meant something special to the couple.

But they didn't expect a funny moment involving the bride's brother to steal the show.

To help relax Valentin's nerves, Heidi asked her brother, Eric, to dress up in a wedding gown to take her place for the all-important 'first-look'.

"It was absolutely hilarious and it worked perfectly," Heidi, who lives in Arizona, tells 9Honey.

"My husband was a huge ball of anxiety leading up to the wedding, because he wanted everything to go well.

"[Before seeing my brother] he was so serious and stoic and then when that happened, it really made him calm down and excited and not so nervous for the day."

Heidi and her best friend, Chealsea, had devised the plan five months before, hoping it would calm Valentin's nerves.

It didn’t take much convincing to get Eric on board. She wanted both her brothers to have significant roles in the wedding - one officiated the ceremony, while the other was given the task of playing bride-to-be.

"He was actually really cool about it – a little apprehensive – but then, in the bridal suite while we were getting him dressed, and I was zipping him up in his dress, he started to really get into it.

"He was like, 'I need to use your deodorant and spray your perfume on me so that I smell like a girl when I'm walking up to him'.

"So we gave him lavender deodorant and he walked up really quietly.

The couple's photographer, Nichole Cline, says the scene playing out through her camera lens was "awesome".

"It was actually difficult to see because my eyes were watering from laughing," Nichole tells 9Honey.

"It was just incredible to see."

Heidi didn’t miss any of the special moment – she was watching from the bridal suite nearby.

"I remember as I was walking up, he had his back turned and as I was approaching he said, 'I'm so nervous your other brother is going to be in a dress next' and I started laughing so he knew it was me," Heidi tells 9Honey.

"And the best part was at the end of the night and our families were asking what our favourite parts of the wedding were – I said mine were the vows, and the dancing, and my husband said his was seeing my brother in the wedding dress."

They were high school sweethearts, having met in Spanish class.

But life got in the way, postponing their wedding plans.

"He proposed that we elope so that he could take me in, take me under his wing and make sure I was taken care of – pretty romantic!

"We had a small private ceremony on the beach in San Diego and we promised ourselves that day that on our five-year anniversary, when we were a little more established, we would re-do it and have the big wedding with all the families.

Following their elopement, Valentine was deployed to the Middle East and then Japan, before leaving the Navy in March last year.

They'd been planning their "dream wedding" ever since.

"Literally every detail of the wedding was sentimental in a significant way - even down to the flowers and food – it all represented something," Heidi says.

The ceremony and reception had nods to the groom's Russian heritage, and Norwegian touches for the bride's family – including a traditional Norwegian cake.

"It has a bunch of rings stacked in a pyramid and the husband and wife are to pull the rings off – you join hands and grab as many rings as you can and however many rings they pull off is how many children they're supposed to have and we got two, which is what we wanted."

Instead of a ring bearer, they asked Heidi's four-year-old nephew to carry "vow books" down the aisle.

"We wrote our own personal vows and exchanged our love story," Heidi says.

"There was a lot of crying from everyone in the audience – we had no idea it was going to reach everybody the way it did.

"It all just fell into place beautifully. It was a dream and there was so much love in the air."

But undoubtedly the highlight of the day was the bride's brother wearing a dress.

"When the photos came out we just thought they were too good not to share."

What happened on your wedding day? Share your story with me, Natalie, as I prepare to marry my fiancé, Jason, after 13 years together. Email noliveri@nine.com.au