Things were certainly looking up the day that Heather and Brent Glad tied the knot.

The Bellingham couple said their vows Sept. 1, 2012, in a wedding inspired by the Disney Pixar movie, "Up," about an elderly widower who ties thousands of balloons to his home and sets off for an adventure in South America to complete a promise to his lifelong love.

"There were lots of balloons," Heather says of the wedding, held at Bellingham's Broadway Hall, which fortunately didn't float away.

After Brent surprised Heather with a proposal at Disneyland, the couple knew they wanted Disney to be in the picture at their wedding.

"'Up' is one of our favorite movies, so it fit," Heather says. "It wasn't too over the top. Just the idea of their love story was really cute, and their adventures. We go on a lot of trips so we kind of went with the adventure theme."

Heather went online to the website Pinterest to find pictures of "Up"-themed parties and translated them into something wedding appropriate.

"It was hard because I didn't want to make it look like a little kid's birthday party, so there had to be a balance of how to make it look classy but not over the top," she says.

They decorated Broadway Hall's fireplace to look like the one in the movie, made pinwheels for the tables instead of flowers and created a candy and bottled soda bar. They put flashing LED lights inside the balloons at the tables for some extra pizzazz.

"That became the hit," she says. "All the little kids wanted those balloons."

Her bridal shower made a nod to Disney as well, with a Mad Hatter tea party theme a la Alice in Wonderland. Everyone wore fancy, crazy hats, she says, with the most outrageous hat earning its wearer a tea set.

"They were very creative," she says.

Looking back on her big day, one of Heather's fondest memories didn't involve going upward as much as onward - in a very cool car.

"One of my favorite moments was getting out of the hall and seeing the Model A set up with balloons all around it and him waiting to pick me up," she says.

The 1930s Ford made appearances at Brent's parents' wedding and, more recently, at his sister's wedding. She didn't think that it would be in working order for their wedding, so she was surprised and thrilled to see it.

"It's a family tradition for everyone to drive off into the sunset in that car," she says.

Reach ZOE FRALEY at zoe.fraley@bellinghamherald.com or call 756-2803. Visit her School Days blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/schools or get updates on Twitter at twitter.com/BhamSchools.