The Details
After Daniel proposed we started discussing when we should get married. Daniel at first considered waiting a while, so planning could be slow and easier. I wanted to make our randomly chosen dating anniversary more concrete, and the last occurrence of a May 1st on a weekend was coming up in a few short months. We had to decide, did we want our anniversary or did we want to calmly plan a wedding?
I don’t think I’ve ever “calmly” planned anything, so we went for a whirlwind engagement with a May 1st wedding date. This gave me just over 5 months to plan the whole thing.
I’ve never really care about flowers, or particular flowers. I do however have a event and floral designer that I adore, Branches TN, who happens to live in our building. Immediately after the engagement I asked him if he would do our flowers and he agreed. When I chose the locations and colors, I contacted Mark and we discussed what I wanted. I knew how many table pieces, corsages, and bouquets I needed and not much else. He asked me to go online for inspiration so I had at least a direction to send him in. After days of research, the only flower related things that jumped out at me was the use of herbs; lavender for luck and devotion, rosemary for remembrance, sage for a long life, and thyme for courage. Mark worked each of the herbs into beautiful bouquets, boutonnieres, and table settings. The bride's bouquet included; tweedia, white hydrangea, white spray roses, veronica, lisianthus, and rosemary.
I had about 5 locations picked out around Nashville, most of them Nashville parks or outdoor location. My first choice was the walking bridge. I contacted the city and put in my application for the bridge and the park amphitheater by Titan’s stadium. Within a few days I found out neither of those locations were available because Nashville was having a marathon that day. I called about my next choices, Riverfront park and Centennial Park gardens (3 separate gardens). They were all booked; in fact almost every Nashville city park was booked. At the suggestion of the city parks people (who were so very nice), I called Bicentennial Park, which as a state park was an entirely different office than I had been talking to. Bicentennial was available. In fact, I had my choice between the bell towers and the amphitheater! We chose the amphitheater and paid our deposit.
After much consideration and figuring out what we would need to rent for a reception at the park, it was driving me crazy. Did you know you can’t set up an event tent yourself? You can’t. And on Sunday the price was outrageous to have it set up and torn down. While we were trying to decide what to do our wonderful friend Sheri offered us the use of her restaurant, Hermitage Cafe, for cake & snacks after the ceremony.
The cake flavor was chosen before Daniel ever looked at rings. I love the vanilla cake from Publix with Strawberries between the layers and buttercream icing. It is the perfect spring cake. We chose a square tiered cake with Endless Rose styled white buttercream. I wanted a custom keepsake cake topper, so again I searched Etsy to find some special; the Laser Art Studio in Alvaton, Kentucky (where the mother-of-the-bride grew up). Laser Art Studio made our cake topper and the centerpiece for our flowers. The anniversary layer of our cake awaits our one year anniversary in the bride's parents freezer (they have a generator for security). The cake topper and centerpiece will hold a special places in our home for many years to come.
There was only one choice for our wedding photos, the only downside of which was that she wouldn’t be able to be in the wedding party. Veronica Sparrow Photography took our wedding and engagement photos. Not only do I love the images Veronica captured, I appreciated having another one of my best friends by my side even if it was behind the lense.
Daniel and Ammi chose each others ring and kept them as surprises. Ammi chose Spexton Jewelry on Etsy to make Daniel a custom titanium ring with a curly maple inset. Daniel chose the Willow set from Brilliant Earth with ethically sourced diamond and sapphires in platinum.
I knew what I wanted my dress to look like; I wanted a recreation of Audrey Hepburn’s dress from Funny Face. I searched and searched until I found a dress maker on Etsy, the lovely Morningstar Pinup, who handmade my classic recreation. To make it my own, I had cerulean blue added as accents to the buttons and bows on the dress.
I found the bridesmaids dressed on Etsy also. Moonboot Studio made each of my bridesmaids custom dresses in which they looked amazing. I chose the color, and the skirt length and each of my wonderful ladies got to choose their bodice.
Dressing the gents was much more difficult. My mister and his friends are not fashion icons, but I wanted something that they could wear again and still match our vintage style. After much shopping and gnashing of teeth in stores, I settled on classic fit charcoal Stanford Travel pants, a white french cuff shirts (each gent chose his own brand), black suspenders, and checkered J Ferrer bowties. Daniel also wore a cerulean blue Stanford classic fit blazer.
Magnus got french cuffs and a cerulean bowtie and collar from Mia’s Closet on Esty for the big day.
When you live in Nashville you have lots of friends that are musicians, but you can only have one Ryan. That’s why I asked him to do our wedding music. Ryan played a 12 string guitar and arranged our songs for his instrument and style. I walked down the aisle to “Dream a Little Dream” and we walked out to “Heaven Knows”.
The People...
Daniel and Jason met in 7th grade and bonded immediately thanks to Mortal Kombat and Ace Ventura. Through the years they've been bandmates, roommates, and friends.
Ammi and Amy met right after Ammi was hired at iostudio. Amy had spotted Ammi during the interview and loved her pants. Ammi soon grew out of those pants, and now they live happily with Amy.
Daniel and Ben have worked together in some of the roughest conditions cushy office jobs can dish up. They've created a lot of great software and had a lot of good times in between.
Ammi and Siobhan met soon after Ammi started working at iostudio. Ammi had an upset belly and Siobhan offered apple sauce to help. It was the start of a wonderful friendship.
The Gifts
I think a wedding is not only a day to show how much you love your partner, but also to show appreciation for the people who are important to you both day-to-day. For this reason it was important to me to choose something personal for each of those people.
For Daniel and each of the groomsmen, we chose custom cufflinks. Daniel’s cufflinks have the wedding date & our initials from Vintage Stamp Jewels on Etsy. Ben and Daniel met working in IT, so for Ben we chose silicon computer chip cufflinks from Sir Cuffs on Etsy. Daniel and Jason met in seventh grade and bonded over Mortal Kombat, so for Jason we found Mortal Kombat cufflinks on Etsy from Mod Cufflinks.
For the bridesmaids we had custom shawls made by my wonderful friend Richard.
For our fathers we chose “father-of-the-” wooden pocket knives with their names carved from Everything Decorated on Etsy. For our mothers we chose lily necklaces with their birthstones and a pearl and “mother-of-the-” pendants from Diana D Jewelry on Etsy.
Daniel’s nieces Bekah & Felicia helped with the wedding. For them we chose silver necklaces with their names from Sincerely Me PJD on Etsy. My cousin Matthew also helped, for him we chose a money clip leather wallet with his initials from Millers Leather Shop on Etsy. For my wonderful grandparents I found lovely handkerchiefs with personal messages embroidered from Mister and Mrs on Etsy. For our officiant Bryan, I chose Dark Tower cufflinks and tie clip from Wearable Collectibles on Etsy.
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