Southern Weddings

I love this wedding and this beautiful young couple.  I have to admit tearing up reading their amazing love story.  Tara of Asheville-based {Weddings wIth Tara} always produces beautiful celebrations.  Jill + Jared’s wedding at Lake Eden, shot by {Ryan Bumgarner}, is filled to the brim with sweet Southern organic details.  How amazing are these flowers!? Floral design by {The Bloom Room}. Check out {Tara’s BLOG} for more inspiration.  Thank you, Tara, for sharing this lovely wedding with us!  From Tara… “Jill was so wonderful to work with…down-to-earth, so in love, and excited about all the details going into her wedding day.  Lake Eden was the perfect setting for such a beautiful occasion, and I am so happy that the weather was gorgeous. Stacey, with The Bloom Room, did an impeccable job with the flowers…taking nature’s beauty and blending it with elegant design.   I loved every part of this wedding…especially having a dog as a groomsman!”  Enjoy Part I of Jill + Jared…

The weather on our wedding day was:  Wonderful.  It did rain a little that morning but the sun was shining when I walked down the aisle.
What was the design inspiration for your wedding?  Natural and antique.  I wanted the wedding set up to look like it had been waiting there for us since the day we met, so there were a lot of natural elements with antiques and antique colors.
Ceremony Site: Outside beside a lake as the sun was setting.  We didn’t want to overwhelm the beauty that was already there in nature, so we just tied some ribbons to the tree (so they could blow in the breeze) and placed sandalwood fans in guests seats.
Describe your wedding flowers:  My bouquet was filled with lady slipper orchids, ivory dendrobium orchids, fiddle head ferns, pitcher plants and forest ferns.  The bridesmaid bouquets matched the chocolate brown dresses with green hydrangea and a touch of chocolate brown- fiddleheads, swamp lilies and forest ferns. The bouquets were hand tied with double satin chocolate brown ribbon. We had two flower girls that carried “kissing balls” with chocolate brown ribbon. Jared’s boutonnière was ivory orchid with fiddlehead and forest fern.
Describe your wedding cake:  Our cake was ivory butter cream with chocolate “fern leaves” drawn on the sides with more icing.  There was a mix of 3 flavors including a vanilla, apple and pumpkin flavor to bring out the fall flavors.
How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story… We grew up together.  We first met in our 5th grade class where we like to joke that I accidentally hit Jared’s head on a desk making it bleed (and he still liked me, wow!).  But we were friends all through school and both of us had a mutual attraction to each other.  We were just too scared to come out and say it.  Finally, one of my best friends, Lindsay Stephens, “accidentally” dropped a note that just happened to contain information on how much I liked Jared.  I was right next Jared and of course he opened it.  I had no idea until later that month when we were dating.  All I knew was that all of a sudden I was getting lots of attention from Jared and I was extremely excited!  This all happened our junior year at North Buncombe High School.  We were an item from then on- even through college!
Describe the proposal:  Well, kind of a funny story again.  I was taking the trash out for my mom, and as I was opening the front door Jared was standing there with Gerbera Daisies.  I started to hand him a bag to help me, and my mom grabbed both the bags and ran back to the kitchen.  Jared took my hand and sat me on my dad’s favorite chair on the porch (my dad passed away a couple of months before Jared and I started dating, he died of Leukemia).  He dropped to one knee and I started crying and shaking!  Also, I should probably tell you about a very neat thing that happened before my dad passed away.  My dad had gone to the barber shop and met Jared about 3 months before he died.  When he came home he told me that he had met Jared and wished that I would date a nice guy like him!  He said that he seemed like the perfect person for me and would approve of him any day.  So, even though Dad wasn’t here to tell Jared that he could ask for my hand in marriage, he had approved of it years ago.
What attracted me to my husband was:  His personality is absolutely amazing!  It’s kind of funny, but everyone always says, “Everyone loves Jared!”
Why do you love your husband? Wow, I don’t think I could tell you all of the “why’s”. Cheesy, yes, but absolutely true!  He is so handsome, he is always there for me through all of the difficult times, he knows how to make me laugh even when I don’t want to, he has a wonderful smile, the most caring eyes that just seem to say I understand and I am here for you, he would do anything in his power to make me feel better, we always have fun and I just love him!
What attracted me to my wife was:  She is beautiful, fun, and caring.
A date we went on that we’ll always remember: The best was a dinner I made for Jared on his birthday- the first birthday that we were together. Since I wasn’t sure what exactly to buy him, I cooked instead.  It was candle-lit at my house. I grilled steaks and covered them with portobello mushrooms and provolone cheese.  We also had grape juice to drink. I was being “cute” since we couldn’t have wine.  We have tried to recreate this day every year on his birthday.  Sometimes it doesn’t work out that we have a chance to, but when we do it’s just like that first time!

Check back later for Part II of Jill + Jared…