Summer Wedding at Crabtree’s Kittle House Inn

Elizabeth Greene
January 12, 2015
Categories: Real Weddings, Traditional Elegance

From college sweethearts to the crafty grandma, I was won over pretty quickly with this wedding. Married at the same chapel where they met years ago, this couple put that personal touch throughout their celebration. Kelsey Combe captured every perfect detail, many of them crafted by the bride’s grandmother, and I have a feeling they’ll be on our Pinterest pages for weeks to come.

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From The Bride… After Tommy and I got engaged we started the planning almost immediately. In fact, I sent an email to the head of the church that very same night! Getting married in our college chapel was really important to us, and once we secured that everything else fell into place. Now that I think about it, once we met there 8 years prior everything started falling into place.

They say when you plan a wedding you should deal with the big things first (venue, vendors, etc) and think about the details later. I was the exact opposite. After securing the chapel I came up with some details that I knew I couldn’t live without. Anyone who knows me knows that when I shop I get something in my head, and I search until I find exactly what I’m envisioning. I was the same with wedding planning.

I just wanted our wedding to feel like “us” and represent our taste. I dreamed that everyone would feel like they were at a dinner party in our home…even though there were almost 200 other people around.

I’m blessed to have a grandmother who is not only extremely crafty but also wanted to be involved in the process every step of the way. I would come up with an idea and show her a picture, and she would develop a few different prototypes by the next time I saw her. We DIY-ed as much as we could and our world became a sea of burlap, mason jars, lace, gold spray paint and flea market finds. Sometimes I would pick up something I saw, like a bird cage or old shutter box, without knowing what it would turn into. I just knew everything fit the “feel” of our wedding and helped bring my vision to life. I wanted everything to feel personal and have a story behind it. I loved the idea of reusing things that had been a part of someone’s life. I repurposed vintage finds, like an old typewriter, and even wrapped my bouquet in the silk belt from my great grandmother’s wedding dress. The most special touch was that my grandma handmade my veil and dyed it with tea to perfectly match the color of my Tara Keely dress.

We wanted our guests to be focused on having fun and a great summertime meal, so the food at our wedding played a huge role. We had a grill going all night and even a fire pit with s’mores for our late night snack. Crabtree’s Kittle House is an amazing indoor/outdoor venue, and we even lucked out by having a perfectly cool evening in the middle of July. Besides the staff helping us create our exact vision, the Kittle House was originally a barn built in 1790, so it definitely fit our rustic, vintage vibe. The best part was the all the details of the day that I poured over for months were perfectly captured by our amazing photographer, Kelsey Combe. She understood the feel of my day from the moment we met, and made sure that it would all be documented in gorgeous photographs.