Our Wedding Day: The Details
We have officially been married for two months and honestly, this has been a more hectic two months being married than the two months were prior to the wedding. Between the honeymoon, getting our lives back in order afterwards, the holidays, home renovations, and birthdays, we’ve been non-stop! As I mentioned in our wedding post, I’ll be putting out a new post every month recapping everything about our wedding a little bit more in-depth. This post will be focusing on the vendors and all the little details that went into making our special day so absolutely perfect.
I’ll start out by introducing you to the people who made it all happen, The Dream Team. We had Ashlie and Ryan with Sowell Farms help us with so much! Besides providing the most beautiful venue ever, Ryan was our bartender for the evening and kept people happy with yummy drinks. Ashlie helped as our wedding day coordinator and kept everything running smoothly. She made it so I didn’t have to worry about literally anything!
I’ve mentioned Tim and Audrey Sewell quite a few times on my blog already. They are the owners of Phocus Photography and helped capture every moment in these beautiful pictures that I get to share with you. They’ve done so much for us since meeting them back in February. Having them there with me as I got ready that morning really felt like I was just there hanging out with great friends.
Tom Schwarz was the one who officially made us a married couple. Besides being our officiant, he also owns Tom Productions and was our DJ for the night. He was so easy to work with and really tried hard to make the ceremony and reception just the way we wanted. Plus, we also thought it made for a great story that he was both our DJ and officiant because you don’t hear of that very often. It was so much fun! If you’re in the Northwest Florida area, I cannot recommend this group enough. They seriously are the absolute best!!!
As you might have seen, if you kept up with my Setting the Wedding series, I found my dress less than a month after getting engaged. David’s Bridal just happened to be having a sale in early January, so we made an appointment and I ended up picking the third dress I tried on. It was a beautiful ivory A-Line dress with an illusion neckline and cap sleeves with lace and jewels all over it...and an abundance of buttons down the back! I kept a simple veil to match the neckline and had mostly white gold jewelry with a few pearl accents.
My shoes actually came from Naturalizer, which really surprised me. I’m not much of a high-heel type of girl and I knew I wanted a wedge that wasn’t very tall, but also something that was going to be comfortable. These were pretty comfortable throughout most of the night. It wasn’t until about halfway through the reception that I noticed the huge blisters I had gotten on my pinky toe and I realized I needed to change. My garter came from Etsy and I absolutely loved it. It fit perfectly and the design matched the dress so well!
We ordered all of our stationery from Vistaprint. We’ve used their services many times prior to the wedding and have always been happy with the results (and their prices), so we used them for the Save the Dates, the actual invitations, and the rsvps. This is one of the things we were able to save money on and I think they came out just as nice as something that would’ve been two, three times the price.
I’ve talked about my ring before and that Jacob ordered it from a company called SamNSue, and that’s also where I found Jacob’s ring. It was really hard to find a men’s yellow gold ring that was something a little bit fancier than just a plain band, and that wasn’t ridiculously priced. His skintone looked good with so many different metals, but we decided to go with 14K yellow gold to make them match. It’s a little bit of a brushed finish and he absolutely loves it!
My bouquet was everything I had ever dreamed of. Our florists, The Purple Tulip, did an absolutely amazing job. I know almost nothing about flowers and didn’t even know if my explanations of what I wanted made any sense, but they created exactly what I had envisioned. I have somewhat small hands, so we decided to go with a medium sized bouquet that included hydrangeas, white roses, white carnations, white astilbe, and eucalyptus leaves. That arrangement smelled so good the entire night and I couldn’t stop staring at it!
Our favors were also ordered off of Etsy. Would you even believe me if I told you I had never visited Etsy’s site until the wedding? Because it’s true! Personalizing everything and learning the layout was overwhelming at the time, but I loved the way it all turned out. We bought our own Tic-Tacs and ordered labels that said “Mint To Be” on the front, with a quick thank you on the back. We also had small gold matchbooks that said “The Perfect Match” on the front. Finding puns for the favors was so much fun!
Our food was definitely the star of the show that night. Everytime we see someone who was there, they always bring up how amazing the food was. Chef Bob with Olive Baptist Church Catering definitely knows his food and we’ll definitely be using him for any catering events in the future. During cocktail hour, we had cheese boards with sugared nuts and olives, along with an antipasti station that had spinach artichoke dip with crostini and crackers. There were also mini BLT sandwiches and mini chicken salad sandwiches that were passed hors d’oevres.
The main menu consisted of a classic garden salad with homemade dressings, a bread display, macaroni and cheese, green beans, fried okra, smashed red skin potatoes, beef short rib roast, and cuban pork loin with chimichurri sauce. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life! We kept the wedding cake with the traditional almond flavor and buttercream frosting. The top layer is in the freezer right now and I can’t wait to eat it in 10 months! The cake topper was another Etsy purchase. We kept the bar menu pretty simple with a few wine and beer options, along with water, and sweet and unsweet tea. The two signature drinks were Jack and Coke, and cranberry and vodka.
I know you wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t show you proof, but there were zebras at our wedding!! Along with many, many other animals including the horse that brought me to the ceremony. I told you, Sowell Farms is the best!! They weren’t really a big part of the wedding unless someone saw them, but the guests who did get to see these cuties definitely enjoyed it. I absolutely loveee animals and as silly as it might sound and is something you might not think about, but seeing the camel on the side and the horse that was walking my carriage really helped to calm my nerves before walking down the aisle.
Looking back through these memories and details of our wedding makes me cherish that day so much more. It really was everything we ever could have imagined and was truly magical. I am so grateful for The Dream Team and everyone else who was involved in making the day absolutely perfect. We couldn’t have asked for anything better! ♥
~Christina~
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