A Southern Soiree with Monogrammed and Meaningful Details

Melissa Hammam
December 12, 2022
Categories: Real Weddings, Romantic, Seasonal Wedding Trend, Summer, The Blog, Traditional Elegance

If you love serene vibes, this blue and white wedding is the one for you. Ashley Nicole Affair planned the classicly romantic day and filled it with personalized details interwoven throughout the wedding. We can’t help but fall in love with the free-flowing blooms artfully designed by Lovelily Flowers. Each image elegantly captured by Caitlin Rose Photography is more captivating than the last. Be sure to see every single one inside the full gallery.

From Caitlin Rose Photography…Audra and Connor are a fun loving thoughtful couple that were so thrilled to host their closest friends and family to a classic church ceremony followed by an exciting ballroom reception in downtown Austin.

After taking a classic trolley from their ceremony at St. Mary’s to Hotel Ella, the couple started the reception off by cutting the cake in the center of the dance floor. They surprised guests by popping a custom painted bottle of champagne. This was one of many hand painted and illustrated goods designed by their stationery artist Papergarten.

You could tell Connor and Audra envisioned a timeless and detailed filled wedding full of personal touches. Each table had a custom illustration of locations special to the newlyweds. Their wedding included elegant design elements with blue pastorale linens, monogrammed bows and napkins, a painting of their historical southern venue, and an unexpected blue and leafy green color palette to match their beautiful florals by Lovelily Flowers.

The couple also envisioned a relaxed atmosphere and an epic dance party for their guests. Audra changed out of her beautiful oversized bow backless wedding dress into a fun short and sweet feathered dress for the end of the reception. Royal Dukes Band had the whole wedding singing and dancing all night. There was even an after party in the ballroom that went to 1am! Congrats to the happy couple!

From the bride… My husband and I started dating our senior year of college at The University of Arkansas. We met at a bar in Fayetteville, Arkansas and got pretty serious pretty quickly! After graduating, we both moved to Austin, Texas with our golden retriever and instantly felt at home. Austin is truly the place we started to grow with each other and knew it would be our home for the long haul.

In 2020, my husband Connor, surprised me with the most special proposal with both of our families in Rosemary Beach, Florida. After our trip, we immediately started the wedding planning process. Deciding to have our wedding in Austin was the best decision we could have made. Having our friends and family in the place we have gotten to call home for the past 5 years meant so much to us, and made the day feel even more like ours. We wanted the wedding to feel like what Austin feels to us – entertaining, unique, relaxed, and always a good time.

For florals, I wanted simplicity, with a twist. One of my favorite elements of the reception was having the cake table be the focal point of the room during dinner. The cake table had the most insane florals, and our cake could not have been more beautiful with the small details. I knew I wanted petite bouquets for myself and my bridesmaids. I did not want the florals to take away from the dresses. I wanted to lean into a different look with my bridesmaids dresses, and choosing the mixture of patterned and solids really caught the eye of guests, which I loved. We wanted to incorporate details of our relationship any chance we could get from the invitations to the table numbers. My stationery vendor Papergarten created the most beautiful invitation suite that really set the tone for what our guests could expect at the wedding from the artwork, colors and personalizations. My mom had the idea of instead of numbering each table, it would be a place that was part of our relationship- it made the room feel more personal and was an amazing way of including our love story.

Since this was a destination wedding for most, Hotel Ella was the perfect place for us. Majority of our guests stayed at the hotel. Our cocktail party was around the pool, and then moved to the ballroom to dance the night away. It is a small boutique hotel located in downtown Austin and it really captured the special characteristics of Austin.

This day would not have happened if it were not for our incredible vendor team in Austin. They were all so incredibly personable, and truly made this day perfection. Every element of the day ran so smoothly, and it truly made for the most magical weekend.

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From Ashley Nicole Affair… Everything about Audra and Connor’s wedding was personalized and had a unique touch to it. The entire color palette was based off of the Blue Willow design; from the stationery to the linens to the bridesmaids’ dresses. Audra had her Blue Willow theme present through her stationery, signage, place cards, napkins, and even had a unique bottle of Veuve Clicquot. They had a beautiful Catholic ceremony at St. Mary Catholic Church, used an Austin trolley as transportation, and finished off the night at Hotel Ella dancing away with the Royal Dukes Band. Audra’s second dress was just as impressionable as her first!