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I think I’ve saved the best for last. I know I’ve been posting some of Kelly’s gorgeous work throughout all of my posts as I’ve described the events, details, and ideas of our wedding. These photos, though, are my absolute favorites from the day. Some are posed and some are just really sweet moments from the ceremony. We feel so fortunate to have such great images of our wedding. That being said, my recommendation is to splurge on your photographer. At the end of the day, you have each other and you have your pictures. I remember a lot about the day, but I hear brides say all the time that the entire day was a blur.  Ta-da! My favorite wedding photos…. Drumroll, please…

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Because our ballroom was so grand and elaborate, our reception didn’t require a lot of decoration. We chose a ballroom with a gorgeous damask fabric wall covering in gold after we determined that our colors were pink and gold. The room had gorgeous chandeliers and beautiful gold drapes. The room is actually called the Gold Room at the Westin Poinsett Hotel.

Our biggest issue with the hotel was the linen choice. We didn’t have any choice. If we used their linens, we would have white polyester linens. I’m not a linen snob or anything, but I knew we could do better. We went to BBJ Linen in Dallas and ordered beautiful sheer pink and gold linens. We ended up having 9 round tables to seat 10 each because we wanted people to have the option to sit down if they wanted to. We also had 4 high top tables and a giant round buffet table in addition to the 3 food stations. The linens turned out to be gorgeous and I’m so glad we splurged there.

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Todd and I arranged for every single posed picture to be taken before the ceremony started. We saw each other before the ceremony and took all of our wedding party and family photos before. We were really looking forward to leaving the ceremony and getting to the reception as soon as possible so we could party with our friends and family. We exited the chapel and the entire wedding party boarded a trolley. We waited about 20 minutes before we made our grand entrance to the ballroom and the dancing began!

We had our first dance to “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and my dad and I danced to “Your Song” by Elton John. Our friend, Rick, played the music and sang to us and that was a really sweet moment. After he was finished, our fabulous band, The Root Doctors, took the stage and we never looked back! The night could not have been any more fun.

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The chapel at Furman University was very simple and we knew that our ceremony wouldn’t need a ton of decoration. We did, however, want it to be very warm and inviting. With the ceilings as high as they are, we knew that we would need to bring in some height with some plants.

My vision was to have very light and airy flowers. I love cherry blossom trees and curly willow. I wanted little buds and blooms and lots and lots of candlelight. Our biggest issue with flowers was that we didn’t want to put a lot of money into it. It may be a wedding planning faux pas to say this, but we understood the importance of flowers, but felt like it was the worst way to spend our money. A lot of brides will disagree. I spent more on my dress than we ended up spending on flowers and I don’t regret it for a second. I won’t wear my dress again, but at least I can gaze at it in my closet. The flowers were gone after two days. So sad. We also put a lot of our budget toward our fabulous band, The Root Doctors, and I don’t regret that for a second, either. We decided to get creative to get a big look for a lower price.

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I am all about the little details; not when it comes to decorating or anything that anyone will notice, but with the things that mean something to Todd and to me.  Kelly is such an amazing photographer and she really was able to capture all of the little things that I knew I’d want to see later. Some of the details were surprises from me to Todd.

My bouquet and the little locket (something borrowed from my mom) with my parents’ picture and my brother’s picture inside. The three hankies that I carried down the aisle are also attached to the bouquet.

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I just realized recently that not every bride takes bridal portraits before her wedding day. I’ve always liked the idea because I love to see the bride’s large portrait on display when you walk into the reception. I flew to Louisiana in March to meet Kelly Moore for my bridal portrait session. I wanted a mix of contemporary and Southern photos and settings. Kelly likes to challenge her brides to be fearless and to really let go during the portrait sessions.

We ended up in a very swampy area with lots of low hanging moss. As I stood there, barefoot in my dress, standing on a moving blanket and a sheet, my feet sinking, I could feel the mud and swampy water between my toes. Gotta love Louisiana! You probably can’t tell that when you look at this photo!

I like to call this photo “Swamp Bride.”

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The original “dinner and dancing” card from my inspiration board was the first piece of inspiration I had for our invitations. I also knew that I wanted to include the lace design again, but only have it as a border. I had always dreamed of having letterpress invitations, but I really wasn’t sure if our budget could accommodate the expense of letterpress. We consulted with our very helpful invitation designer, Lauren Robinson, and discovered that this was something we could do.

We ended up having the an inside envelope, outside envelope, the invitation, “dinner and dancing” card, reply card, and an accommodations and directions card. It was a pretty heavy invitation, but not nearly as heavy as the save the date.

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Once we decided that the lace handkerchief paisley design would be our inspiration, I knew that I wanted to put it on all of our print pieces. We started looking at different invitation vendors for a good Save the Date format. I knew that I wanted to include a photo of us, a guide to Greenville, and a schedule of wedding weekend events. We looked a tri-folds and other options, but I wanted to print the photo directly onto the paper instead of having to enclose a real photograph in the packet. We weren’t really able to find everything we needed and all of the vendors we’d found didn’t really understand my vision of including the lace design or wanting anything to do with my project. I was pretty discouraged in the beginning. The Save the Date had to be the attention-getter, the first piece that would really brand our event, and had to entice our guests to travel far and wide to the destination. A lot of people had never heard of Greenville before and we had to really sell it to them, so this piece needed to be huge!

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Choosing our venue was really a difficult decision for me. Choosing the city where we would get married was even harder. I am from Louisiana and lived most of my life there, but my parents live in Dallas now. My honey and I were both living in Columbia, South Carolina and he was originally from Columbia and his parents still live here. I didn’t want to have the wedding in Columbia because I wanted to keep the wedding to 150 guests and his family would not have been able to keep their numbers down if we’d had it in Columbia. I was really clear about not wanting to meet anyone for the first time at our wedding and wanted to find a location where our closest friends would travel. In fact, all but about 10 of my guests had to travel quite a ways to get to our wedding anyway. I knew that those that really wanted to be there would get there.

We decided right away to keep the wedding in South Carolina because it would be easier on me to plan it. I originally wanted to have a very rustic wedding and found a beautiful farm about 30 minutes away with a wonderful pavillion and tons of rolling hills and huge trees. I visited the location and fell in love. But because the farm was in the middle of nowhere, I began to get concerned about having tons of tables and chairs brought in, bringing in tents and generators, and those portable executive restrooms. I just wasn’t sure that our budget could handle it. I had wonderful dreams of having my favorite caterer do a lowcountry Southern supper and have gorgeous centerpieces in blue and white porcelain vases and pots. It wasn’t a great option for our budget and it wasn’t a great option for our guests. The farm was in the middle of nowhere, so there weren’t any hotels nearby and our guests would have had to drive a long way back to Columbia to the hotels or we would have had to rent some very large buses– another budget buster. I will look forward to planning someone else’s gorgeous rustic farm wedding!

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I don’t think it’s any secret that the most fun part about wedding planning for a newly engaged woman is shopping for the dress. Because my parents live in Dallas, I was so excited that I could spend time with my mom and search for gorgeous fashion in the South’s most fashionable city.

I made appointments at Patsy’s Bridal, Warren Barron Bridal, Saks Fifth Avenue, Stanley Korshak, and Neiman Marcus. We decided not to set a budget for the dress until we could shop around and see what I liked and what seemed to be reasonable. I’m not a label snob, but I really wanted to wear a dress that made a statement and one that I’ve always dreamed of wearing. I didn’t know if I wanted lace, beading, no lace or beading, ballgown, trumpet, or A-line because I just didn’t know what would like best on me. Even after I thought I’d found the dress I wanted to keep shopping because I knew I’d never get to do it again.

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