Kelly Plans a Wedding Archive

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious!

We are 4 DAYS AWAY from the big day — cannot believe it! Things are really falling into place and STARTING to feel real… it’s just taken this long to get to this point! I can’t believe we’re in wedding week. WOW!

While I’m rushing about getting everything last-minute done before all our family members come into town (YAY!!!!!), today I’m going to discuss with you the layout of our evening.

Prior to the day’s main activities [approximately 11AM], my bridesmaids are coming over in the late morning to get ready with hair and makeup. We’re taking over the upstairs of my parents’ house and master bathroom for all our prettying. Drew and his entourage of boys will be here in the early afternoon [~2:30PM] to put on their dress shirts and tie bowties (he’s giving a tutorial at the rehearsal dinner on Friday night –  Yippee!).

{From Pinterest}

Shortly after their arrival, our photographers and videographers will show up to take a few getting-ready shots of us [~3:15PM}. Then onto our first look!

I’m not completely positive where we’ll end up doing our first look (we have all of my family’s farm to go wherever we want), but I want it to be private and pretty. I don’t know if we’ll have him facing me or do the “turn and look,” but I imagine a good deal of tears will be in store. :)

{from Pinterest}

Then the two of us will traipse around the fields taking our pictures together (I’m hoping for some Gone With the Wind-esque candid shots), shortly to be joined by the rest of the bridal party [~4:15PM].

{From Love & Lavender)

Family shots will commence around 5PM, and then we’ll eat dinner over here before we head to the venue for any final preparations/pictures there (if we can squeeze them in), etc.

Prelude music will start at 6:30PM by our amazing friends on violin and piano. Guests will be greeted at the door with their escort cards (so excited for these!!!) and ushered to their assigned seats by groomsmen. This is the time I’ll hopefully be praying with my bridesmaids and gearing up to finally DO THIS THING!!!! {I’m giddy just thinking about it!!!!!}

{From Pinterest}

We’ll be lining up around 6:50, and then making our way downstairs for our processional to the song Drew wrote me a few years ago, “Finding Hope.”

Our ceremony should be fun and beautiful and emotional… anticipating it to last around 35 minutes(ish). Then we’ll take our extended family pictures, any last shots we want around the arbor, and then family and bridal party will go outside with everyone else for our mini cocktail hour out on the porch. Drew and I will be heading upstairs to have a moment to ourselves to freak out and jump up and down about being MARRIED!!!! (I imagine there’ll be a good deal of gawking at our new rings, too! I’m especially missing my engagement ring right now since it’s in the store right now getting rhodium-dipped and cleaned to perfection for the big day!)

{From Jerry Yoon}

Guests will come back in about thirty minutes later and make their way back to their seats for Drew and I to be announced down as husband and wife (EEEEEEE!!!!!). We’ll cut our cake, and then everyone will be free to grab as many sweets as their bellies can hold and fancy-lovely coffee drinks!!!

We’ve allotted for around 20-30 minutes for everyone to mingle with their desserts, let Drew and me make our rounds of seeing people, and getting settled in before we do toasts. My Matrons of Honor and Drew’s Best Man will be saying a few words, and then Drew and I will thank everyone for coming and making all my wedding dreams come true. :)

{From Snippet and Ink}

Then onto dancing!!! Drew and I will kick off our First Dance and get into all the formal things (with a few fun moments spattered in), and then the dance floor will be open for all!!!! We’re seriously hoping everyone will stay a long time and dance all night with us:  I am never one to turn down an all-night dance party, so you bet the second I get the chance, I will be out there like the best of them.

SO EXCITED!!! I can’t believe it’s wedding week and all of this is actually going to go down in just four short teeny tiny days. So excited for all the special details I’ve spent months (and sometimes years) creating and planning!!! There are so many different moments I’m just thrilled to death about… can’t wait to live it all in such a short amount of time!!!!!

Well, we are officially 11 days out from the big day. I can’t believe it’s already been {exactly!} eight months since Drew was on bended knee, asking a very shocked me to marry him. Both the proposal and the wedding seemed like they’d never come, and now here we are, eight months later, eleven days out from walking down the aisle. Oh. My. Goodness!!!!

One of the last things we decided to tackle (ironically) was the single most important task on our list:  composing our wedding ceremony!

Granted, one of the first things we did was arrange for our ceremony musicians. Drew and I met at Belmont, a highly esteemed music school in the South. Although neither of us are hardcore music people, we definitely have a host of phenomenally talented musician friends. Come to any sporting event at Belmont (or birthday party, for that matter) and you’ll experience some seriously mind-blowing harmonizing (yes, even to Happy Birthday!). Go to any Belmont musical and convince yourself you’re not in New York. {Side note:  the initial reason I decided to go to Belmont was to pursue my career in musical theatre. I never ended up even AUDITIONING for the program, but I certainly do still have one serious appreciation for the talent there!} And if you hit up the senior showcase circuit, be prepared to see some incredible up-and-comers.

There was never any question that we would be asking our musically inclined friends to play during our ceremony. So the night I said “YES!” to Drew, I also asked my dear friend and sorority sister, Julia, to sing during our ceremony. We also formally asked “the Daniels” (DP and DC) to be our violinist and pianist… and magic was made.

{Me and beautiful Julia the night Drew proposed!!!}

I can honestly say one of the things I’m looking forward to most will be our ceremony musicians. Music has so much emotional power and weight… I know I’m already going to be a basket case all that day, but once we get them performing, I will be genuinely surprised if there is a dry eye in the room.

And then there’s our officiants. Oh yes, we couldn’t bear to do to just have ONE — we are having TWO amazing wonderful people involved in the oh-so-important act of marrying us. We toiled over trying to figure out who would do us the honor for a few months, but when we started thinking outside of the traditional box, it became very clear what we were meant to do.

The man who will be conducting our entire ceremony, leading us in our vows, serving us communion, and blessing us in our new married life will be someone who has seen me grow up from BIRTH. He was my Sunday school teacher for years and has been close to my family FOREVER. His rendition of O Holy Night and I’ll Fly Away are practically renowned in the Methodist church circuit, and he unfailingly offers a smile and a “Well how are you, Miss Kelly?” every Sunday.

I knew that he would be an exceptional candidate to be our ceremony officiant from the get-go, but the only problem was that he’s not an ordained minister. The UMC recognizes him as a certified layspeaker, but unfortunately the State of Tennessee doesn’t consider that to be legal status to marry people.

When I found out my best friend, Laken, (who was married June 24 of this year) was in a similar conundrum (their minister of choice had an expired license), the solution presented itself to us clearly.  Laken discovered that her father, serving currently as our County Commissioner, could do all the legalizing! So she was married officially by her father, and since we’ve been best friends for 10+ years, it was only suiting that Drew and I would also be married officially by my best friend’s father!!!!

So three talented musicians, two amazing officiants, and a gorgeous aisle runner (Yay Hillary!) later… we planned out our ceremony!

Things we wanted to incorporate:

1. Tradition. We like traditional vows (so much value in the time-tested!), wordings, and heritage.
2. Loved ones. As you read earlier, we chose three amazing people to be our musicians — not only for their talent, but for the relationships we have with them.
3. Some good ideas. As you know, I’ve been a devout wedding blog reader for years. I read my first (A Delightful Day’s blog in 2007) when I was helping plan my senior prom and religiously followed new blogs as they emerged in the years to come. Before Pinterest, I bookmarked and Facebook-linked like a madwoman. Needless to say, I’ve had a list of things I NEEDED to do for my future wedding long before we were ever engaged. Now the fun part is getting to actually do them!!!!! :)
4. MEANING. Significance. Intentionality.
5. Faith. We have been brought together by our faith and we will stay together by our faith. Without it, we have nothing and we are nothing. We want the strongest foundation in our marriage, and it’s built by faith.

So one Sunday (a little over a week ago) I took every ceremony script I could get my hands on and compared, contrasted, analyzed, scrutinized, tweaked, and composed our very own. I had Drew read through it, make final decisions on some things I was iffy about, and together we tweaked it to our mutual satisfaction. This past Sunday, we met with our layspeaker and went through the whole thing, talking it out, planning out the flow, and cementing the details.

I designed and ordered our ceremony program today, so waiting for that to come in here soon! Keep on the lookout for a post-wedding blog post about the full ceremony script and what all we incorporated!!!!!

11 days!!!!!!!!

Today I’m taking a different approach to this whole Kelly-Plans-a-Wedding series. Instead of zeroing in on one of my vendors or large wedding categories, I’m going to spew out some advice and lessons I’ve learned through my experience of being a bride. Turns out even wedding planners don’t know everything about being a bride. (Who knew?)

So, with that in mind, here are some nuggets for you!

1. It’s hard to find one singular dress that looks flattering on all 6 of your dramatically-different-body-typed bridesmaids. This may be completely unsurprising to you, but it was actually quite jolting when I had my 6 buy dresses that ended up not being “The One” for all of them. (In fact, only one bridesmaid looked good in it!) Learning that lesson meant choosing different dresses for different girls (all within the same color scheme and fabric material, however). So, not to say there aren’t dresses out there that fit the mold for everybody — I’m just saying they’re a lot harder to find than you might anticipate going into things.
2. It’s really hard to not hurt people’s feelings when you plan a wedding. You really can’t please everyone — learn that upfront and take it to heart before you delve deeply into this thing. There will be friends who are hurt because they’re not in your bridal party. There will be friends who are hurt because you couldn’t invite them to the wedding. There will be family members who want more of a say in your planning than you’re comfortable allowing them. This is YOUR and YOUR FIANCE’S wedding. You two call the shots. You two matter. Keep that in mind.
3. I can’t stress enough how much PRIORITIES matter in wedding planning. In pretty much every area of life, you set up a value system and make decisions that go along with it. Same goes for planning your wedding. Sit down with your fiance when you get engaged and envision your future wedding. Think about what matters to both of you:  Is it the video you’ll have at the end of the day to relive every moment? Dancing all night long to the live band you adore? Having a stunning wedding dress your daughter will someday want to wear? Hosting the most fabulous dinner party of your life? Inviting only the 50 closest friends and family members who have seen your relationship from start to finish, and therefore having a relationship with every single person who attends your wedding? Regardless of whether your budget is massive or petite, you still have to make choices. Better to establish a value system that will allow you two to truly accomplish your goals and start your marriage in a way that is pleasing to both parties than to just willy-nilly choose things and regret them later.
4. Time is of the essence. The sad truth of life is that vendors get booked up. You definitely should NOT make decisions PURELY based on getting things done fast (unless your wedding’s in a week, and in that case — good luck!), but really think, ponder, and pray on at least the BIG decisions before you make them. Just do it in a timely manner. Know that there is a price tag that comes with waiting until the last minute. For me, the earrings I wanted for my bridesmaids got sold out before I could buy them. Several of the photographers I really wanted to use for our wedding were booked up on the dates we looked at. A lot of things had to be moved around because my mom’s strict work schedule wasn’t very accommodating. Realize the gravity of the event you’re planning, the incredible number of moving parts associated with it, and take that into consideration.
5. BE FLEXIBLE. It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to bend, to change, to move, and to alter your plans. Remember the only thing (person) you’re truly marrying on your wedding day is your HUSBAND. There are always vow renewals! ;)
6. If you can’t trust someone, don’t work with them on your wedding. This is not the appropriate time to take the benefit of the doubt and leave things up to chance. Unless you’re seriously in a bind and photography’s not a major priority for you, don’t get your budding new photographer off Craigslist. One of your vendors isn’t honest when you’re in the preliminary plan-making process? Don’t be surprised if they lie to you about something they’ll deliver on the day-of. VALUES!!!!! Make sure your vendors share your basic life VALUES!!!!

And some short-but-sweet words of wisdom (you’ll thank me later):

1. Wear sunscreen. Those horrible strap lines look dreadfully tacky above your strapless wedding gown. And it hurts so bad.
2. DO NOT GET YOUR TEETH LASER WHITENED THE DAY BEFORE YOUR WEDDING. Or the day before that. If you’re going to subject yourself to TORTURE (which it IS), do it WEEKS beforehand so your teeth’s nerve endings can recuperate in time. FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, I literally thought I was going to have to overdose on Advil or would pass out at the wheel — regardless I was going to DIE — the pain was so intense.
3. Be appreciative. Family members, bridesmaids, vendors, shop owners, etc will inevitably do nice things for you throughout your wedding planning. Even if it’s just lending a listening ear while you debate over the Shangri La champagne linens and the ivory satin linens, they deserve to be treated nicely and told the occasional “thank you.” You catch more flies with honey, after all.
4. Maybe don’t try a Brazilian wax for the first time the day before the wedding. You can, of course, but it might not be the best life experience…

Perhaps the most valuable piece of advice I can give you from personal experience is the following:

There are a million ways Drew and I could get married, and I’d honestly be happy with all of them. So much of our engagement I stressed over having to make so many final decisions (“This is my ONLY chance at getting THE perfect wedding dress!”) about the WAY we’d get married. I seriously debated for weeks (sometimes months) over decisions I’d already made, obsessing that every choice was THE BEST POSSIBLE OPTION EVER. However, the only ACTUALLY most-important, weigh-every-option decision was… picking the right groom.

Fortunately that’s the ONE decision I have never, ever had to question. :)

So, when you’re freaking out over a classic cake-and-punch plantation wedding versus a Charleston elopement versus an outdoor sunrise affair versus a glamorous evening ballroom gala… realize all of them are beautiful and lovely and wonderful events and really you can’t go wrong any way you choose. Ashley from ABG asked me the other day if I could go back and change anything if I would, and despite all the debating and stressing and trying to last-minute change EVERYTHING (Hillary can vouch), I couldn’t think of a single thing I really wished I’d altered. So sure, if next year Drew wanted to marry me all over again, this time at sunset on a beach (wearing Monique’s Candy, of course) in November (toasting with Veuve Cliquot), you bet I wouldn’t say no. {Although I might say, “Umm, honey, shouldn’t we be saving our money for a house or something?”} But really… the wedding doesn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things.

{Laken and her new husband, Matt! Photo by Alyssa Joy Photography}

My best friend got married on Sunday and had the most gorgeous, stunning, perfect lovely wedding imaginable. Her dress was perfect, her hair and makeup flawless, the weather amazing. Her flowers were beautiful, the lights twinkling, and the venue grand. But it wasn’t about the wedding. It’s not about the wedding. Weddings are fun! Weddings are lovely! Weddings are so so so nice and I wouldn’t wish them away or think they’re any less important or significant…. but the MARRIAGE. Oh, the marriage!!! My best friend married someone who makes her so happy, someone who is her perfect counterpart, someone who makes her laugh every day of her life. And she loves him so! That’s what I kept fixating on all day. As her maid of honor, I wanted nothing more than to make sure every second of her day was flawless and perfect and everything she dreamed of — and I knew the linens weren’t make-it-or-break-it. It just so happened that all of the little details that make up the event did go delightfully as planned, but even if they hadn’t… it was perfect because she promised her life to another person and I got to be there to witness it. It just puts so much into perspective.

SO! Plan the party. Make it lovely. Do what you want, toss what you don’t. Realize there’s a lot that goes into every detail and appreciate it for what it’s worth, but give it up at the end of the day. When you’re getting married, focus on the marriage. That’s what you’ll really keep afterwards. ‘Til death do you part. AMEN!

One aspect of weddings that I hadn’t TRULY appreciated {to the extent that I do now} prior to being engaged was paper goods. I definitely enjoyed gawking over pretties on Style Me Pretty and Southern Weddings blogs (as well as Pinterest), but they weren’t something I figured would be much of a priority for our own wedding. It pained me to think of putting in a ton of time, energy, thought, and money into something that people would open up, skim over, and toss out. {It still does, to a degree.}

You can now officially call me a convert. Once again my Wedding Fairy Godmother helped me transform my wedding priorities and helped me believe my most beyond-reach dreams could come true — I, too, could be a bride with gorgeous papers!

For our save-the-dates, we knew in advance what we wanted. We took engagement pictures with Brett Price specifically to include as our graphic for our save-the-dates.  Once we had those in hand, we got on OvernightPrints.com and did a little graphic designing (via simple software TextEdit and Preview) and created these STD postcards! It only cost about $60 to order and ship the postcards from Overnight (we got 200 – 100 high-quality and 100 lower quality, to cut costs), and we only had to pay for $0.32 stamps to mail them to our friends and family!

{Front of our STD postcards!}

{And the back — see the return address and wedding website written down the middle?}

Our invites were higher priority but still low-budget.. We originally looked at Etsy and online retailers (like Minted, Wedding Paper Divas, etc) and tried to see what pretty things we could get for a small budget. Our favorite was this Etsy invite, created by EdenWeddingStudio.

We liked a combination of calligraphy and classic serif typefaces, something gender-neutral, natural-esque, color-customizable, and a little barnsy or with a slight nod to equestrian style.

And then Hillary {from Brocade Designs} rocked my world. She took all the {stunningly gorgeous amazing perfect} stationery designs I adored and pinned and created the suite of my dreams. All of the incredible invitation sets and paper goods I’ve ever drooled over and felt would always be unrealistic and unattainable for me, and made a custom set that was perfectly, gorgeously OURS. I must say, the whole “gender neutral” goal we originally took got scrapped pretty early on {there is no denying our invites are most DEFINITELY feminine}, but GEEZ. Our end result is STUNNING.

She gave me several different options to choose from, initially {all going along with our color scheme of pink, green, and taupe}. We narrowed it down to our favorite; chose the swoon-worthy envelopes, backing papers, and inserts; tweaked the colors a bit… and magic happened. I got all the printed materials on a Saturday night and set up shop on Sunday to assemble everything with bridesmaids who were in town for my Lilly Pulitzer-themed shower. We ended up running out of glue dots, glue runners, and stamps pretty early-on {word of advice to brides:  BUY IN BULK!}, but a good chunk got done. I spent another several few days (and late nights) finishing up {frequently going BACK to Wal-Mart/Hobby Lobby/Michael’s/JoAnn’s to get more supplies} assembly and getting a little jazzy with my bindings. A few trips to the post office {or five!} later and they were printed, assembled, bound, stamped, sealed, hand-canceled by yours truly, and sent on their merry way to friends and family across the country!

{Invite assembly pic! Tried to make it small and B&W so there are no spoilers!!!! ;) }

I am so totally content with how they turned out from start to finish! I even have a little shadow-box at home with a full set on display {set against a green seersucker background – so appropriate!}. Dreamy!

~ Kelly

Looking for your own dreamy invitations? Besides Brocade Designs‘ full-scale event design offerings, two of our fabulous StudioWed stationers are Amber Housley and Buchanan Ink! Need the special touch of calligraphy on your invitation set? Call up Hardink Calligraphy and see her beautiful work! Send an email to me at kelly@studiowed.net to set up a meeting with any of the above at your convenience! :)