May 19: The Details

Our wedding was everything I hoped for and more. I couldn't have been more pleased with how the food, venue, decorations and music turned out. Our guests seemed to enjoy the party, too.

I wanted to blog about some of our wedding details -- details I wanted to blog about along the way, but didn't want guests to see until May 19! I have to give my mom much of the credit. She has great taste!

Venue
I can't say enough good things about Chickasaw Country Club. In fact, my mom wrote a long letter to the event coordinator, Sarah, thanking her -- and her awesome staff -- for making our reception a truly great celebration.

The food was wonderful. We wanted to have "Southern" food -- for our true Southern family and friends and for my side of the family (who traveled from the Mid-West) to experience. Our Southern food stations included mac 'n cheese, fried pickles, sliders and BLTs to name a few. One of the best things we did was have the club pack a "to-go" bag of food for Brian and me to take with us after the reception. Nothing could have been more appreciated!!

We served wine and beer for those who wanted an alcoholic beverage. Beer was served with our custom wedding koozies, printed by Pruitt Promotions and designed by my dad's friend, Larry -- a graphic designer. The koozies fit with our overall "design." We wanted to carry the stem-like graphic from our invitation throughout the event.

I also found these cocktail napkins -- at Marshalls of all places. We weren't going to do custom napkins, but at last minute we found packages of napkins that coordinated perfectly with our color scheme.

Decor
I was equally pleased with our florist, Deedra Stone. The flowers she did -- in both the church and the reception site -- were more spectacular than I could have imagined. She carried out our vision perfectly.

The table vases -- blue pottery -- were something we found from Anthropologie. We didn't want the usual glass vases; we wanted something unique.

Our wedding party's bouquets and boutineers were wrapped with preppy navy and white ribbons I found online.

Guest Book
Instead of a usual guest book, we wanted something more personal. So we made a tree. Guests were encouraged to write a note on a leaf (designed again by dad's friend Larry) and hang it on a branch. The notes were so fun to read when we got back from our honeymoon, and they're now sitting in a bowl on our coffee table for others to enjoy.

This was the note we framed and left by the tree. I made it in Photoshop.

And on the same table as the tree, we had photos of our parents and grandparents on their wedding day. I don't know if guests felt the same, but I loved looking at them! We displayed this Mark Twain quote by the photos.

Programs
Our ceremony programs were also made by my dad's friend, Larry. Once again, you see our wedding graphic! (This is where working in marketing either comes in handy...or makes you even more of a perfectionist about coordinating details.)

Cake
Our cake was made by Diana Nichols with All American Sweets. I had a picture of what I wanted in mind, and she replicated it perfectly! And it tasted great, too. The topper was from this Etsy shop.

Photography
And last, but not least: our photographer, Jacob Slaton. He got some GREAT shots of our wedding (a few of which are in this post), and they're photographs we'll cherish forever.  Jacob is based in Little Rock, Ark. He was recommended to us by someone I worked with through Le Bonheur, and he couldn't have been better. He was so easy to work with and really helped our day go smoothly. He calmed my nerves (I didn't know what I was doing most of the day.) and was so professional. Here is his with our friend, Melanie.