Southern Weddings

Happy Monday y’all! The quaint chapel, barns and open fields at {Oak Hill} stayed true to the couple’s theme of classy backyard BBQ. The event was catered by {Fried Green Tomatoes} and the cake was by Sweet Heart Bakery. The beautiful bouqets and centerpieces of daisies were arranged by {River Valley Designs}. Photography by Kristin Kasperek. Thanks to the planning of {Kreative Rentals} this wedding was picture perfect. To see more of Katie + Matthew check out photographer Kristin Kasperek’s {blog}.

How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story. We met in high school, the summer before my junior year. Matt’s best friend worked for my family and we meet through him. We spent the entire summer fishing, swimming, and having cook outs. It was so simple and innocent.
Describe the proposal:Matt had hung the ring from the Christmas tree. I had a feeling it was going to happen and I was almost getting annoyed. Apparently it had been hanging on the tree for a week. Everyday he moved it in hopes that I would find it. Finally after a long night of making Christmas cookies he asked me to look at my presents under the tree and then I saw it!
What attracted me to my husband was:I just thought he was the cutest thing!
Why do you love your husband? He has a great sense of humor, and his love for life.
What attracted me to my wife was: She was always smiling; and is naturally someone you want to be around.
The weather on our wedding day was: Cloudy and rainy in the morning. I have two older sisters and on their wedding days it was about the same weather, so I thought it was a good luck charm.
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? Classy casual summer BBQ with attention to detail.
Favorite design element of your big day: The wedding site was amazing. Our guests had to take long windy roads, and just when they thought they were lost you could see the church steeple from the road. Entering the site you had to go into a valley and across a very narrow bridge, you then drive up a hill and it all comes together. Beautiful red barns, Clydesdale horses, huge trees with perfect walking paths naturally between them, and of course the perfect wedding chapel with just enough seats for our guests. We used the entire site to stress our laid back feel. When service was done our guests lingered over to an old school house where our guest book was and to see pictures of us over the past nine years. They then went to our cocktail hour. We used one of the barns that has been renovated, and had a large tent set up outside. There our guests had served mango martinis, duck confeit, chicken curry, and assorted cheeses. We also used the tent as an opportunity for our guests to find out where they were seated. We had hung thick paper daisies with the guest’s name and table # on them. So they then took their daisies and walked to the reception tent. Each table had blue checkered table cloths, with beautiful bouquets of daisies in them. We had two served courses. The first was fried green tomatoes, and stuffed mushrooms. The second was a Caesar salad. Our entrée was a buffet of grilled chicken, rib eye steak, corn on the cob, roasted red potatoes from my family’s farm, and baked beans. We had chocolate and vanilla cake along with a late night dessert buffet of crème puffs, brownies, éclairs, mini cheese cakes, and cup cakes. We loved how everything seemed to flow together. We feel that our guests felt they were at a summer BBQ with a touch of class.
Describe your wedding flowers: Lots of daisies. We served a signature drink at our cocktail hour, it was a mango martini with a simple blue pansies. In the church our florist made beautiful daisy wreaths, and kissing balls were placed all over the site.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: We loved how everything came together. For so long we imagined how it would look, and to finally see it was amazing.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding?We got engaged in mid December, set our date in January and planned a 200+ person wedding in 5 months.
Scariest moment? My nose starting running terribly when I was coming down the aisle. I didn’t think it was going to stop; luckily my matron of honor had some tissues.
Funniest moment? We loved the speeches.
Hardest decision you made in planning? The invitations.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Classic, personal, fun
What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Things will happen that you don’t expect but just understand going into it that little surprises might pop up, but in the end it’s not a big deal. Also the day of your wedding try to take it all in. It goes by so fast. Get a good photographer to capture all the moments you can’t. I never really got to see my cake, but then I saw it on our pictures and couldn’t believe how beautiful it was
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future?We would like to build a house in the next few years so we are going over plans for that and saving money.
Any DIY items? My sisters and I made menu cards for the tables. Also in lieu, of gifts we made a donation to our local animal shelter, so we made little cards to put into each napkin. We also had dog cookies made and displayed on cute little table. They were yellow daisies individually wrapped, with a note from our dog Ruthie, saying thank you to our dog friends.