Southern Weddings

I think the bride said it best herself: Sarah + Josh’s Tennessee wedding was sweet, vintage and wonderfully folky!  We’re a little bit in love with Skip Hopkins right now for sending us this down-home country affair, complete with a real-life barn, a three-man folk band and rustic wheatfield.  The bride’s classic v-neck gown from Bridal Warehouse is effortlessly dramatic against her fiery red hair and porcelain skin (gorgeous!) and we just love the classic red and blue color palate she chose for her bridesmaids.  I really don’t think I’ve ever seen such beautiful shades of navy, most likely due to the rich red bouquets from The East Garden.  But let’s be honest: the portraits in front of the ivy-covered barn are almost too perfectly Southern for a real life wedding… a-mazing!  If you like the wedding pictures, you’re going to L.O.V.E. the reception shapshots.

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story.  Josh and I initially met one night when my friend, Julie, and I went to his house to watch a movie. He didn’t say much at all that night, but a few months later he started asking Julie questions about me, and they planned double date without ever telling me!  The night of the dinner date, Josh found out I couldn’t drink alcoholic beverages due to an allergy, and asked what I drank instead of alcohol.  “Root beer,” I said.  The next night, I was working at a show at our church, and Josh walked up to me and pulled an ice-cold IBC root beer out of his pocket. That night he asked me for my phone number and we’ve been hanging out ever since!
Describe the proposal. We have this secret spot down by the river that we found last July 4^th when we were trying to see the fireworks.  It’s this old metal staircase that leads right down into the Cumberland River.  In the winter, we took hot chocolates and blankets there and in the summer we grabbed Italian sodas and hung out at our secret spot.  On February 19, Josh brought me there, and the whole staircase was lit with candles.  He asked me to marry him, and, of course, I said yes!  We laughed and I cried, and we sat on the stairs watching the sunset over the river.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Sweet, folky and vintage.
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? I’m a wedding photographer and, after shooting so many weddings, I had a pretty good idea of what I liked and didn’t like.  The main design element was our RSVP card, which Josh made from a postcard we found in an antique shop postmarked in 1911.  We took the poem out of the banner on the card and put our initials in it.  Everything sort of centered around that card.  We both like classic style combined with modern elements, and we both like the country and the city, so we tried to mesh everything into one Southern party at our friends’ farm. 
What was your favorite design element of your big day?  We tried to make sure the wedding would be visually fun for our photographer to shoot.  We got married at our friends’ farm house, so many of the background settings were just happy chances: the vines on the barn, the trees, the bluegrass band playing on the front porch – all perfect and unplanned!  I also loved getting to choose all the different table centerpieces.  We bought things we could use after the wedding.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: We love that none of our wedding party’s outfits were matching.  I’ve been a bridesmaid nine times, and I have at least 7 dresses I haven’t worn since.  We just picked a color and the bridesmaids got to decide on their own style and budget for the dresses.  I have one bridesmaid that found a pretty dress for $20 and one that decided to pay $110 for a cute dress.