Southern Weddings

Since one image board just wouldn’t suffice for this wedding, we’re back for more of Sarah + Josh’s country-inspired wedding.  We’re really in awe of the way Sarah’s vintage birdcage veil (handmade by Nichole Lim at the RSquared Salon) dresses up her down-home nuptials.  The mason jars hanging from the tree branches are an effortlessly Southern touch while the bowls of fresh cherries and tart lemons and vats of sweet lemonade really complete the laidback summer vibe of the couple’s tented reception.  We’re going to have to agree with Sarah that those fresh strawberry and cream cupcakes the couple served in lieu of a traditional groom’s cake look to-die-for delicious.  Kudos again to Skip Hopkins for ending our wedding on a truly great note with this Tennesseew edding!

Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I ended up buying the second dress I tried on, but I kept looking, and eventually came back to the one I knew was really mine! 
Describe your wedding flowers: The bridesmaids’ bouquets were made of bright red flowers that really complemented their navy blue dresses.  My bouquet had white roses with some garden roses and greenery.  (My floral knowledge is limited to colors, sadly) 
Describe your wedding cake: Our good friend made our cake for us.  Each layer was a different flavor, with butter cream icing and fondant flowers.  Another friend of ours made our “grooms’ cakes,” which were angel food cupcakes with strawberries and whipped cream frosting.  They looked amazing and they went faster than anything I’ve ever seen.
Were there any wedding traditions or new ideas you included in the wedding?  During the ceremony, we asked our wedding party to pray over us.  We kept the rest of the ceremony short, sweet and more traditional.  Also, the farm where we were married is situated right next to a train track, so I suppose we started the tradition of having a train go by during your wedding.  That certainly gave us some nice comic relief! 
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? The moment when Josh and I saw each other as I walked down the aisle will be my favorite moment for the rest of my life.
Did you write your own vows?  If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line? We used the vows that our pastor had written.  The only catch was that he wouldn’t let us know what they were until we actually were saying them on our wedding day!  It was kind of awesome to be speaking words to each other for the first time, and to know we really meant them.”
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future?  We’d like to launch our own creative collective for design and photography later this year, called Team Rhodes!  For right now, we’re just having fun together: riding bikes by the river, cooking (Josh makes some seriously good sushi!) and settling into being married.  I love it!

Congratulations, Sarah + Josh!  We wish you all the best with your new collaborative project!

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.