June 8, 2019 will forever be the best day of my life 💜 Everything about our wedding was perfect. Did everything go perfect? Nope, but it was a blast and I wouldn't change a single thing about it. It was a bit too warm, but it was sunny and there was a nice breeze that helped cool it down a lot. Everything from decorating, to getting ready, to the ceremony, to the reception was a blast. I wish I could go back and relive that day a zillion times over because it really was so much fun and beyond a doubt the best day of our lives 💜
I've gotten a lot of questions about what vendors I used, where I got decorations, and all that good stuff so I'm going to attempt to answer them all. From the time we got engaged to the time of our wedding I had about 7.5 months to plan everything. We didn't have a wedding planner, I did all of it myself and frankly I had a blast doing it. If anyone wants me to plan their wedding let me know 😊(I'm not even kidding about that)
Brent and I knew we were going to get married after our first day. We started looking at venues after 1.5 months of dating. We were called crazy and everything in between but we're married now so that's all that matters 😊
We looked at dozens of venues and couldn't find one we liked that could accommodate an outside ceremony and inside reception. When we toured the Ashland Golf Club we fell in love. We loved the lakeside ceremony site and there was so much natural light in the reception hall that we couldn't say yes fast enough. The staff was AMAZING, but I'll get into that later.
After booking our venue we booked our incredible photographer and videographer. Katie Hammond was our incredible photographer and we cannot recommend her enough. Our videographer Brian Fimbres was equally amazing and a blast to work with.
For our invites we used Minted. We worked with the designer to customize them a bit and we ended up getting our invites and RSVP cards through her. Also, they're printed in America which I'm a big proponent of.
My sister-in-law gifted me the hanger for my dress but I'm pretty sure she got it off Etsy. My dress is a Martina Liana which I had some customizations done on it. I went WAY over budget on it, but we still came in way under budget for our wedding so it was fine. I LOVED my dress and it was worth every dang penny.
I had two pairs of shoes for the wedding. Heels for the ceremony and first dances, then flats for the reception so I could dance in total comfort. I splurged on the Badgely Mischka shoes and my ceremony shoes which were heels from Nina were super comfortable. Both pairs are ivory to compliment my dress which was also ivory. Since the ceremony was by the lake I got heel protectors so my shoes wouldn't sink into the ground and be ruined.
All of our flowers were done by Oak Creek Plants and Flowers in Lincoln. I knew very clearly what I wanted for everything except the bridesmaids bouquets, which I just let them design. I did ask for a pink flower bouquet for my matron of honor so she would stand out from everyone else (pink also happens to be her favorite color). I worked with Crystal who was super nice and did a great job executing what I wanted. We paid extra to have her come set everything up and it was hands down the best money we spent. For us to not have to worry about getting everything there was such a relief. I'd highly recommend paying the florist to set up the day of the wedding because it's one less thing to worry about.
I had three charms in my bouquet, one for each of my grandparents that's no longer alive. Not having your grandparents at your wedding is HARD. I would have given anything for them to be alive and have been there, but having the charms was a way to have them with me even when they're no longer here.
After our wedding we donated all our flowers to a local nursing home. It was by far the best thing we could have done, you should have seen the look on the staffs faces. My heart grew a zillion times that day 💜 We were so glad someone else could enjoy them for awhile because otherwise they would have sat in our apartment and died while we were in Maui.
The table numbers I ordered off Amazon. I had ordered a few different ones that were returned because they didn't stand up or weren't big enough or came broken. But this set was great and you can't beat the price. I bought gold spray paint and gold glitter spray paint from Hobby Lobby and did all the painting myself.
Neither of us are big cake fans, in fact neither of us really like sweets, so we wanted to do more than just have cake. We worked with Cupcakes & More in Lincoln as we found them to be the most reasonable than other vendors and everything was pretty dang tasty. Each tier of our cake was a different flavor. We did classic white wedding cake, chocolate chip cookie dough with cookie dough frosting (that was a MASSIVE hit with everyone), and dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting. We also had chocolate covered strawberries, which were my favorite, and chocolate brownie shots.
Our cake topper was custom ordered from AtWoodvilleLNDesigns on Etsy. They were a dream to work with! They accommodated all our requests and we loved the final product, we couldn't recommend them enough!
Brent and I didn't see each other before the wedding, it's the longest we had been apart for over a year. I wanted a genuine reaction from him when he saw me walk down the aisle, so instead of a first look we wrote letters to one another and exchanged gifts. We our cards for one another off Zazzle. Our letters and gifts to one another made each other cry which both our photographer and videographer captured on camera 📸 I also wrote out cards to each of my bridesmaids, my mother-in-law and father-in-law, as well as one for my mom and dad.
We wanted to do something special for our wedding party so we got everyone gifts. For the guys we ordered them custom cuff links with their initials on them and for the girls I ordered robes in their favorite color that said bridesmaid/matron of honor.
My longtime hairstylist Marissa Winters did both my hair and makeup for the wedding as well as the bridesmaids hair and makeup. She's the nicest person on the planet and she could not have done a better job. Nebraska is HOT and HUMID in the summer but my makeup didn't budge all day or night. She used airbrush makeup and did my hair in loose curls with a few strands pulled back because I didn't want some fancy updo.
If you or anyone you know is getting married get your bridesmaid dresses from Azazie! I found them to be the most affordable, have the most options, and their customer service is the bomb. I picked the color and then let the girls pick the style of dress- I told them to pick one they'd be comfortable in. I loved the variety of dresses and our experience with Azazie was fantastic and totally stress free! I had one bridesman, my best friend/news photographer, and we had him in the same suits as the groomsmen. The grooms got their suits from TipTopTux. We custom ordered the ties to have the color match the bridesmaid dresses.
Finding a garter is hard and finding one that's comfortable was even harder. I looked at all the stores and finally turned to Etsy which did not disappoint. I LOVED all the intricate details on my garter, it also arrived in the cutest package with a hand written note from the business owner which I thought was super sweet.
When I found my dress there was a veil I loved that was just simple with crystals around the edge, but the bridal shop was asking $200 for it. Having gone WAY over budget on my dress I decided to hunt down the same veil for a lot less. Amazon had the exact same veil for almost $170 less, so needless to say I ordered that one and you couldn't even tell the difference between the two when I tried it on with my dress at the bridal salon.
There is a million ways to spend way too much money decorating but 99.9% of people are not going to remember what your decorations looked like. We kept ours simple and we still got a ton of compliments on them. Our Mr and Mrs sign for the head table was from Amazon, it's currently up in our apartment and I love it! We had a letter B sign for our last name that lite up, it's so cheesy but I love it! We got that from Amazon, the paint can the sparklers were in was from Home Depot for $4, and the sparklers were from Superior Celebrations- their shipping was crazy fast!
In the entry way of our venue we had two of our engagement photos displayed along with a wooden sign with our favorite bible verse on it. 1 Corinthians 13 is what our first dance song is based off of too! The sign we got from Hobby Lobby and now hangs in our guest bedroom.
The head table had garland with loose orchids and garden roses in it. We also sat every other (boy, girl, boy girl, etc.) and had vases in front of the girls to put their flowers in. It added a beautiful touch to our head table.
We had two guest books. We had a heart drop one from Hobby Lobby with hearts I spray painted red and we had a book from Shutterfly I made with our engagement photos. People loved looking at our engagement photos and we have tons of beautifully written notes from family and friends in there.
From the time I bought my dress up until our wedding day I refused to let my dad see my dress. I wanted to do a first look with him and get his reaction on camera. Let me just say his reaction did not disappoint and seeing him for the first time was one of the highlights of our wedding day. We both started crying because it was such a special moment.
Brent and I didn't do a first look, but we wanted to pray together before our ceremony. We held hands around a wall and prayed for the step we were about to take. We didn't plan on having it caught on camera as it was an intimate moment for us, but we are glad it was caught on camera. I highly recommend taking those few moments to pray together because it was a moment of calm and quiet for us in an otherwise chaotic day.
We had two absolutely adorable flower girls. At one and seven months they hadn't quite figured out what was going on, but everyone was fawning over them. Each flower girl had a basket with purple and white petals in them.
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