You know what I love? When a wedding is handcrafted by family. It always shines through in the photographs of the day. The year of planning my own wedding was filled with so many great Mother-daughter moments spent crafting, antiquing and the like. And when I read the description from the Bride, Danica, it brought me right back to that time. Sure weddings are all about the beautiful details but they are more importantly about the love, and family and all those memories so beautifully captured by Jackie O Photography. See even more right here.
From the Bride…We could not be more thrilled with how our day turned out, and it simply could not have happened without all of our awesome friends, family and of course, VENDORS! Matt and I got engaged over Memorial Day Weekend, so we were working with a limited timeframe, however, I will be the first to tell any bride that it IS possible to plan a wedding in under 6 months. In fact, in some ways it made it easier to make decisions!
Though we live in different states, my mom and I separately scoured flea markets, antique malls and ebay for vintage kitchen tins, tools and vegetable cans to hold our flower arrangements that would serve as centerpieces. I knew I wanted a rustic look for the dinner tables, and since the hubs is a seasoned gardner and I am an avid baker, I wanted to incorporate dried herbs and various kitchen tins. I took the idea to my mom, presented her with all the vintage tins, tools and cans, and she brought the vision to life. The result was, in my opinion, incredible! I spent months collecting vintage handkerchiefs that I wrapped around silverware to serve as dinner napkins at the reception. The splashes of color combined with the vintage centerpieces created a cozy, charming feel. In lieu of table numbers, I found vintage “cheeky” sheet music that we hung from small garden flag poles which sat in small rustic pots on each of the tables that were set up in long rows, for a family style dinner. Since I was a music major and both the hubs and I enjoy playing music, we thought this was a fun way to incorporate more of who we are into our day.
Our favors were one of my favorite parts of the reception. The hubs proposed to me out in his garden, and he had the ring in a seed packet. We wanted to incorporate this part of our story into our wedding day, so we purchased herb seeds for our guests and made garden markers out of vintage silver-plated butter knives to go with them. My mom and I searched high and low for all the knives, and my sweet dad hand stamped each letter into the knives to spell out the herb names. It took a village, but the end result was something special! We tried to find a balance between “sacred” and “fun.” Our service was very traditional, but once we were pronounced “man and wife” our guests erupted in sound with the various noisemakers we had passed out before the ceremony. My friends and I have never had a party where glow necklaces aren’t present, so when the dance floor was opened at our reception, all of the bridesmaids came around passing out necklaces for all our guests (who actually loved them)!
I wanted to honor the many family members who are no longer with us, or who were unable to attend the wedding. I did this in a few ways: My maternal grandmother and my paternal great Grandmother were two spitfire women with incredible love-stories whom I greatly admire. Along with my dad, I wanted to have strong women going with me down the aisle, so I had my florist attach pictures of both of them to my bouquet. I wanted to create family “trees” to sit on either side our guestbook. My mom found various old branches and secured them in small rustic pots. We collected old family wedding photos from both my and my husbands families, and hung them in frames from the branches.
From calligraphy, to a hand-bound wooden guestbook, we worked to involve as many local and/or independent artisans as possible. Our dinner was from one of our favorite local restaurants. Our programs were put together via a designer I found on etsy. The grooms cake and invitation suites were done by co-workers of my husband who both freelance in their respective fields in addition to their day jobs. In the end everything came together quite well! One last note… my bridesmaids came from 4 different states to be a part of our day. They all picked out their own dresses and I didn’t see them until the day of the ceremony. I had sent them paint chips of suggested shades of blue… but imagine all of our surprise when we found they had all chosen the exact same shades, and many the same styles! Just goes to show how well things can work out if you let go of control and trust your friends!
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Photography: Jackie O Photography | Floral Design: Katie Pollard | Event Planning + Design: Bride + Mother of the Bride + Front Porch Farms | Ceremony + Reception Location: Front Porch Farms | Invitations: April Maglothin | Cake: The Bake Shoppe | Groom’s Cake: Sweet Music Cakes | Catering: Calypso Cafe | Programs: Emily Weckesser | Guestbook: Michelle Skiba | Caligraphy: Esque Script Calligraphy by Molly Margaret | Dress: Pronovias Adela via The White Room | Shoes: 5/48 via Saks Off 5th