Southern Weddings

Oh, Kim Le!  I love the purple parasol photo shoot you staged for the newlyweds!  Yes, I love this shoot – almost as much as I love the couple’s bee-topped cupcake bar from the Knead Baking Company.  (Try not to hold it against me too much: I’m a self-confessed sugar addict currently in need of a seiour sugar fix.)  For more images from Megan + Nick’s outdoor reception, visit Kim Le’s blog post here!

Describe your wedding flowers: Oh, how I loved my flowers! Purples can be challenging to incorporate into a wedding, but I knew Chandra would make the bouquets and bouts just how I envisioned! I was crying when I first saw them. Peonies are one of my favorites, so we had to include those.  The flowers were perfect.
Describe your wedding cake: We decided to serve cupcakes instead of a traditional cake, and we had to serve them with mini milks. We discovered a wonderful mother-daughter team at Knead Baking Company in Ojai. They use all natural ingredients and make the best cupcakes. We chose our favorite flavors and our special bee topper, symbolizing our nickname for each other (“B”). The cupcakes & milk were a hit with the guests!
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? The biggest challenge was to stop worrying about how everything would turn out. I planned our wedding myself, so I had so many details and ideas running through my head. The day of, I wanted to have my hands on everything, but of course I couldn’t. I had to get my hair and makeup done, put my dress on and keep my nerves calm. So I entrusted my wonderful family and friends to finish up the last few things before the day began. And it couldn’t have gone any better!
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? The most memorable moment was walking down the aisle toward my husband, with all of our favorite people watching. It was an exhilarating moment. My heart was racing, my smile hurt it was so big, and I was so excited to stand up there and read my vows. It was an incredible feeling!
Did you write your own vows?  If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line? Yes, we both wrote our own vows. My favorite verse (from me to Nickolaus): I love that we laugh together every single day. I love that you love me for me. I love who I am when I am with you. I love that I am marrying my best friend. I love you, B.
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future? We are planning to start a family this year and buy our first home together! We have so much fun stuff coming up.

Purple (one of my all-time favorite wedding colors) can be a hard color to work with, but Megan + Nick, with the help of Chandra Abel Designs, really pulled it off!  The appropriately-named Lavender Inn provided the perfect purple backdrop for the bride, in a lace-trimmed gown from Jaclyn’s Bridal and Wee Gardens’ veil, to marry her high school sweetheart.  The maids wore cute frocks from H&M and J. Crew, while the groomsmen laced up their favorite pair of Chuck Taylors for the big day.  Check back soon for the reception pictures from Kim Le Photography!

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story. We are high school sweethearts. We met through mutual friends one night in the Del Taco parking lot, and something sparked! We did have our moments of “growing up” since we met so young, but in the end we couldn’t live without each other. 
Describe the proposal.  Nick is sneaky… He brought the ring on our Mediterranean cruise at the end of November 2008, and his parents held onto the ring so I wouldn’t find it. He planned to ask in Italy, but either it rained or was too crowded for the right moment. He was waiting until we went to see the Eiffel Tower on our short stay in Paris, but I was getting impatient. It was nearing the end of our wonderful trip, but still no proposal.  Nick sensed this and asked me to find something in his camera case. And there it was: the exact ring I told him I wanted.  It was very “us”… not super over-the-top romantic or cheesy. We ate dinner at our hotel, the Charles de Gaulle Hilton, then took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. It was perfect, and we will always remember Paris with love!
Three adjectives that describe the day are: To sum it up, we both feel that our wedding day was the best day of our lives!
Our favorite detail of the wedding was:  The location! It was a special place to our family, and there couldn’t have had a better bac drop for our fabulous photos. Ojai is a place I hold dear to my heart, so being married there only made the day more special.

What Southern details or traditions did you include in your celebration?  What was Southern about your wedding? The outdoor setting, the giant oak trees, the mason jars that held the flowers and candles, the twine and lavender on the ceremony chairs, the small guest count that made the wedding so intimate, and the BBQ food and lemonade put the final “Southern” touches on the day.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I tried on many dresses, but I kept coming back to dresses with touches of lace. I had some second thoughts the week before the wedding, but when my sister (and Maid of Honor) buttoned it on the big day, I knew it was perfect!

Oh Lisa, your wedding definitely did not look like a craft project (read on to see what I mean!).  Though I think Jonathan Canlas could make anything look magical, he likely didn’t have to work too hard to bring out the beauty in Lisa + Ben’s handmade celebration.  Kudos once more to Heritage Flowers, as well as to The Frosted Daisy (a cake that’s beautiful and looks delicious?  Yes, please!).  To see more from this lovely wedding, head over to Jon’s blog!

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? Everyone probably says this, but it was working within my budget. I prioritized what I wanted to spend the most money on, like the venue and photographer, and worked backwards from there. My wedding planner, Lauren, and I ended up making a lot of the décor ourselves to cut costs. My mother-in-law and I sewed all 29 flower girl skirts, my mom sewed all of the table runners, and I enlisted many friends to help me make all of the tissue paper pom poms that were hanging everywhere. I was a little bit worried the whole event would look like a craft project, because so much of it was homemade, but I think it all pulled together beautifully.  I am probably more than a little biased though.
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Besides the actual wedding ceremony, I loved the dancing at our wedding reception. I thought our first dance, (To Ingrid Michaelson’s cover of Can’t Help Falling in Love) was very romantic. Everyone was staring at us and taking photos, but I felt like Ben and I were the only people in the room. I also loved dancing with our friends and family after. It felt like a giant party with all of the people I love. It was perfect.
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future?  Ben and I just moved from Utah to South Orange County, California. We are looking forward to getting settled in our new home, and spending Saturdays at the beach. So far married life is a dream, and we can wait to see what our new life has in store for us.

Congratulations, Lisa + Ben!  Enjoy your new home and life together!