At the end of the day, throwing a great wedding isn’t much different than planning the ultimate party. Take this whimsical Atlanta affair, for example that breaks all the wedding rules in the best way possible. It’s a celebration in the city where this love story first started, featuring the most fabulous decor and design by Amy Osaba. We’re tickled pink to have all the pretty photos from Kate Belle at our fingertips, and there’s even more waiting right here!
From the Bride…When Jason and I started planning our wedding, we had a few “must haves” in mind, a personal ceremony, great food, special people and fun! We wanted our day to be a reflection of us and of our journey together. While I am from Massachusetts and Jason is from Tennessee, we met and fell in love in Atlanta, and so we decided to have our wedding in the city that brought us together.
We wanted to show our guests, most of them meeting for the very first time, our take on southern hospitality! Guests were greeted at their hotel with a “welcome to Georgia” gift bag stamped with a heart on the state of Georgia and filled with Atlanta treats. We hired our favorite food truck, Yumbii, to cater our rehearsal dinner. It was a fun and unique way to welcome our guests and gave everyone a relaxed environment to meet and mingle before the big day. Who doesn’t love tacos?!
We had a nontraditional outdoor ceremony, officiated by Rev Dawn Smith. I walked down the aisle with my father to strings playing “here comes the sun” by the Beatles, a personal favorite! Rev Dawn helped us create a truly personal ceremony which brought in some traditional elements to ensure that all of our guests were comfortable. In lieu of the standard wedding vows, Jason and I wrote letters to each other and Rev Dawn read them to us for the first time during our vows. We then read our inside jokes or a quote from our favorite movie. I am not sure if there was a dry eye in the house! It was the most amazing and emotional part of our ceremony and we are thankful we decided to break the mold a little bit. We included our family in as many aspects of the ceremony as possible, we each selected our brothers as “men of honor” and my sisters did a reading of one of my favorite poems, “I Carry Your Heart” by EE Cummings.
The inspiration for our wedding really came from our love of all things southern and charming. We chose JCT Kitchen for our venue for many reasons, amazing food, hospitality, and the casual yet elegant décor. Our colors were soft, natural tones, even though we were married in November, we wanted our day and photographs to be timeless so we did not choose the typical fall color scheme. We chose blush, dusty miller, plum, pale green and blush. We used glass vessels of all shapes and sizes, vintage candle holders in plum and green tones and small wooden boxes to elevate the small arrangements down the longer tables. For flowers, we used a mix of peonies, ranunculus and succulents. Our table numbers were wooden chalkboards, with our nicknames serving as our table number for our table. We scattered heart shaped confetti on our cake and gift tables that I punched out of my favorite book pages. We hand stamped personal thank you notes to each of our guests at their place setting to welcome and appreciate them for coming. As guests left, we handed out handmade birdseed heart ornaments tied with twine as favors. Our guests loved the personal touches; they made the reception unique to us.
During cocktail hour and reception, guests were encouraged to use our photo booth and courtyard space to play lawn games while we were off having our photos taken. It was a big hit for adults and kids! We made our first entrance together as a couple to “hey ho” by the Lumineers, a fun song to kick off our reception, and life together. Being a day wedding, I wasn’t sure if many people would dance, but they did! And we made sure to have music to span the tastes (and ages!) of our guests.
For our send off, we handed out lace streamers with bells for our guests to wave and ring as Jason carried me off – what a great moment, it is one of our favorite photographs from the reception, all our family and friends looking as happy as we were!
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Wedding Photography: Kate Belle Photography | Assistant Photographer: Tiffany Lynn | Wedding Venue + Cake: JCT Kitchen & Bar | Floral Design + Décor: Maria Taylor of Amy Osaba | Officiant: Rev Dawn Smith | Wedding Dress + Veil: Paloma Blanca via La Raine’s Bridal | Ceremony Music: Piedmont Strings + AMPD Atlanta, DJ Mike Walsh | Stationery: Minted | Paper Cut Letters: Erica Loesing | Hair + Makeup: Kyle, Melrose & McQueen