Now that I have walked you through the planning process to the day of the wedding, I know what most of you are thinking: Can we get to the details already?!  I will start with the vendors who made it possible:

Flowers

Flowers: We used Eva from Tulip and we loved every minute of our communication with her and the work that she did.  I trusted her to take some vague feelings and make translate them into beautiful flowers, and she did!

Rings

Rings: We bought our rings at Shane Company and were very pleased.  Their service was quick and reliable.

Cake

Catering (Appetizers/Buffet/Cake): My parents chose Carole Parks Catering and I could not have been more pleased.  We worked with Karleen, and she is about the most positive and easy to get along with person alive!  They did a great job with the food, and the cake absolutely exceeded my expectations.

Music

Music/DJ: Our original plan was to hire a DJ for the entire evening, but when we found out our chosen DJ (Jeff from Event Performance) also played guitar we decided to have live music for the cocktail hour, followed by a DJ for the reception.  We worked for a long time to come up with music to please the older crowd that our friends would also love, and I heard nothing but great reviews.  Jeff was phenomenal!

In addition to the wonderful vendors, there were a few other details that made the day extremely special.  First, the ones I carried with me:

Bouquet

For my “Something Borrowed” (A tradition I didn’t finish – There was nothing Blue!) I wore my mother’s pearl bracelet.  As “Something Old” I had a handkerchief attached to my bouquet with our wedding date embroidered on it.  It was made out of my mom’s wedding gown after she determined the dress was too out of style for any of her daughters to wear it one day!  Last, there is a necklace hanging from my bouquet.  It was a joint high school graduation gift from my grandmother and my aunt, both of whom passed away during the fall of my senior year of college (when Ryan and I started dating).  I wanted to carry them with me throughout the day.

Last, there were two reception details that were important to me:

Wedding Cup

This “little silver girl” (as she was called by confused guests) is a legendary Nuremberg Wedding Cup.  Long story short, my parents were both in the Army and stationed in Germany when they met and got married.  They heard the legend of the cup and bought one of these to commemorate their time in Germany.  The day before our wedding, they gave us our own engraved with our names.

Mike

As a last detail to share, I included an engraved vase in honor of my older brother, who was not able to celebrate with us because he is overseas in Iraq.  We hoped when we set the date that he would still be in town, but unfortunately he left right before Christmas.  Although he could not make it to the wedding, I wanted him with us there in spirit!

So now you have experienced the planning process and seen some of the meaningful details – All that is left is lots of pictures!