Wedding snippets

 In order to pass the time until I receive wedding pictures from our photographer, I thought I would share some small pieces of our wedding and parts of the planning process.

I knew right away the colors I wanted to use (doesn't every girl think of these things her entire life) but I was having a hard time explaining them to others. So being the visual person that I am, I took off to Home Depot to pick up paint samples that resembled the colors I was imagining. This turned out to be one of the smartest things I did during this whole process. Later on when we decided to hire a wedding planner and during meetings with the florist & caterer, as well when my friends who were giving me showers asked about my wedding colors, all I had to do was show them. I highly recommend this, especially if you are going with a color palette and want specific shades. It helped when choosing flowers, choosing the color for the bridesmaid dresses, and everything in between.

I also knew immediately that I wanted a vintage/antique style wedding and my wedding planner referred to my chosen style as "shabby chic". A friend of Andrew's mom had found these fabulous lanterns for use during her daughter's wedding and she so kindly allowed us to borrow them for ours. Aren't they lovely? We had tons of unique lanterns and I loved every one.

One of the things a girl dreams about her whole life is her wedding dress, and I was definitely not the exception. I had printed off tons of pictures of dresses I liked and the stylist was able to help me find my dream dress - it was only the third dress I tried on. My mom, Andrew's mom, & Shanna (my wedding planner) were the only ones I invited to come on this trip. I assumed it would be a somewhat stressful day and I wanted to limit the amount of opinions to be sure and get something I liked, instead of something everyone else liked. The first two dresses I tried on were fine, but I was constantly noting things I didn't like about them. I remember Shanna telling me that when I put on the dress, I wouldn't be finding things wrong, that I would be speechless. When I put on the third dress and yelled for everyone to come into the dressing room and that I didn't want to move, I knew it was my dress. Had Shanna not just told me I would be speechless? That was exactly the way it happened. I will be posting plenty of pictures of my dress later, but just for fun, here is a picture of our moms on the day we went dress shopping, which also happened to be the first time our moms had met. They immediately hit it off, so much so that everyone around us that day thought they must be sisters. How lucky am I to have these two amazing and beautiful moms?

Choosing bridesmaids' dresses was actually harder than finding my dress - I wanted to find something I thought everyone would like as well as a color that fit my color palette and would look good with the guys' khaki suits. After searching many different locations, I found myself back at Bridal Path in Jackson, MS, which is where I found my dress. I tried on several dresses and finally found this style that had a really good fit as well as a variety of colors available in my color scheme. The colors are a little distorted on the picture from my phone, but we got it in the "sable" found in the color chart below.

 Here I am with all of my lovely bridesmaids on the day of the wedding.

Wedding shoes. Now that's a tricky one. I knew I wanted my shoes to be a shade of peach (that I had in my head) - but I had never actually seen shoes this color. I finally did find a pair of shoes online that matched the image I had in my head, but they were apparently trying to phase them out because every company that carried them only had one size left, and it was not my size. It was also a gamble to order them online, because who knew what they would actually look like in person? So I bet you will never guess the one online store that had these shoes left in my size? Amazon. I have to laugh at this because I never would have imagined that I would buy my wedding shoes from Amazon. But they were perfect. And on sale. And it really doesn't get better than this.

They were actually very comfortable too - which was an added bonus of course. And fit perfectly. It was as if these shoes were made just for me.

Choosing save the dates was fun and I played around with various programs and layouts online and had found several that I liked. I was trying to decide between them all when I found this one that was peach! Have I mentioned that I love peach! Luckily, I - I mean Andrew - had picked out a perfect shade for him to wear in our engagement photos that just made all the colors work perfectly. The save the dates also came with natural brown envelopes. The back of the card told a brief version of our story - you can read our full story under the "Our Story" page link at the top of our homepage on this blog.

 

Two hundred and twenty five save the dates ready to be mailed. I addressed these all myself - I wanted to save the really good stuff for the invitations which turned out absolutely beautiful.

 

Shanna and her team did an excellent job. I showed her a picture of a design I loved and she created it perfectly. It was letterpress, although you may not can tell from the picture. The handwriting on the envelopes was the prettiest I had ever seen. I really can't take credit for any of it except choosing the design. It was a blessing to have Shanna take care of this since invitations were to go out during an absolutely crazy time in my life - when I had moved to a new town to live with Andrew's parents, started a new job, and was studying for my board exam. To make things interesting, Shanna also had a baby during this time. I know she has an amazing staff that works for her and I was so thankful for them, although I didn't get to meet but one of them personally.

When I decided that I wanted homemade jams as the favors at our wedding, I really had no idea who I would get to make them. I should have known that as talented as my mother is that she could do it, but I really hated to add that to the plate of everything else that was having to be done. But my mother loves a challenge, and not surprisingly, they turned out perfectly. We added vintage material lid covers, twine, and special tags made by Andrew's mother as well. These favors were the ideal - made with touches of love from both my mom and Andrew's mom.

Not only did my mom contribute her talent, but my dad also made several props to be used during the wedding. I had the idea to be married under a cross used as a central point at the altar and my dad created my vision. He also built a table to be used to hold heirlooms displayed at the reception. The table was covered in a lace tablecloth used at my grandmother's wedding as well as included items such as her wedding pearls, wedding gloves, both mine and Andrew's baby shoes and many other items.

We found several pieces of lace that belonged to my great grandmother and used them in various places. I had a piece tied around a bottle during our engagement shoot, one around my bouquet (with her handkerchief & cameo necklace), and some on baskets we used at the reception.

The baskets were also used to hold sparklers at our reception that were used during our exit - Andrew's mom also made sleeves for the sparklers.

The inspiration behind my fabulous bouquet by florist Chris Allums -

And some of our flowers on the wedding day before arrangements were made -

Finding peach ties for Andrew's groomsmen turned out to be easier than I thought, considering the time I had had trying to find peach shoes. This is the picture from when I found them online and they actually looked just like this.

 Any bride-to-be knows how priceless Etsy finds can be and I was absolutely pleased with all the things purchased from people way more talented than I. I found handmade lace garters, a burlap/lace guestbook, engraved vintage cake servers, and my "Here Comes the Bride" sign carried by my adorable Ring Bearer.

Our wedding day was everything we had dreamed of and we kept saying how we felt like we were living in a dream. It flew by in a whirlwind of precious friends and beautiful memories. We were honored to get to share the day with so many of our friends and loved ones. I was especially grateful for those of my friends and family who traveled so far to be with me on my wedding day since we decided to have the wedding in Andrew's hometown. You may ask why I went the non-traditional route and had the wedding at the groom's church versus the bride's church. If you have read "Our Story" on this blog then you will recall that Andrew and I met in Sunday school when I drew his name for prayer partner. All of that occurred in Andrew's hometown in his church and we wanted to be married at the place where it all began. We made some sacrifices along the way, but we don't regret the decision to have had our wedding in such a special place.

Finding a reception site wasn't easy though - I wanted to have the reception outdoors and there really was a lack of choices available. I had had the idea a long time ago that Andrew's parent's house would be a good reception location and in the end that is what we went with. His mom had just built a barn for her art studio and my wedding planner fell in love with the idea of using it as a backdrop. With the addition of some awesome pole lights, cafe lights, & other light design by Stephen Davaine it was transformed to my dream location.

I can't wait to share more pictures from our special day!