Southern Weddings

The shot of the bride’s Melissa Sweet gown hanging above a classic black-and-white tiled floor is what first caught my eye in this Texas wedding from the husband and wife team at The Nichols.  Of course, then I saw the other all-white details in Bethany + Joe’s wedding at AMOA Laguna Gloria, and I was totally sold!  Posey Floral and Event Design styled coordinating all-white bouquets for Bethany + her maids.  Like their neutral-toned mix-and-match frocks from J. Crew, each maid carried her own unique bouquet, and the final result couldn’t be more stunning.  (Mix-and-match done right really is one of my favorites!)  The bride wore sequined Kate Spade heels that matched the glamour of her bow-backed dress, while her groom opted for more casual kicks in his personalized Converse keds.  Love!

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story.  As an incoming freshman at The University of Texas at Austin, a new friend invited me to a party that her older cousin was having the week before classes started. Joe was at this party and we immediately hit it off.  We became very close friends and stayed so throughout the next 4 years – through cross country moves, new jobs, and other relationships.  As I was finishing up my senior year, the Texas Longhorns were set to play for the National Championship in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.  Joe was living in Los Angeles at the time, and being such a life-long Longhorn football fan, I planned a trip with some girlfriends to Pasadena even though they had tickets to the game and I did not. Once in LA, Joe invited us all over for dinner where he proceeded to give me my “belated Christmas present” – a card that held two tickets to the Rose Bowl the next day! Joe had won the tickets in a random drawing from a local realtor, and knew that taking me would be the beginning of the greatest adventure of our lives. So in the end, it was the Longhorn football team that really brought us together!
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Warm (literally and figuratively), vivacious, affectionate
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: It’s probably a tie between seeing all our favorite people in one place, and the delicious ice cream float station!
What Southern details or traditions did you include in your celebration?  What was Southern about your wedding? We are Austinites through and through, and wanted to incorporate the very essence of why we love this city so much – it’s quirky and weird, yet still very traditional in many senses.  From our table names (all Austin icons, historical places, and favorite restaurants), to our food and drink choices (local, organic food, and many local beers and wines), we always kept our love for where we live in mind.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I went shopping by myself the first trip so I could make some preliminary choices and I ended up falling in love with two completely different dresses. Enter bridesmaids. I took a few of my girlfriends to look at the two dresses and, without showing them “the two”, asked them to pick out some other options just for the sake of comparison.  The first dress I put on that day, which one of my bridesmaids picked out (and I hadn’t even glanced at before), ended up being “the one.” I fell in love with Melissa Sweet’s Heidi – the soft organza, the pleating and detail on the bodice, the fun asymmetrical bow in the back, and the gorgeous buttons that extended the length of the train.  Moral of the story? Even if you don’t think you’ll want it, it helps to have an outside opinion sometimes.
Describe your wedding flowers: Our florist, Madeleine Myers of Posey Floral and Event Design, was also a bridesmaid in our wedding so needless to say she knew our taste and style pretty well.  She created simple centerpieces with varying styles of white bud vases and different groupings of yellow and white flowers on half of the tables and red poppies, anemones, peonies and ranunculus on the other tables.  The bridesmaids carried clean and simple white, mono-floral bouquets, each holding a different type of flower, wrapped in varying yellow and ivory ribbon.  My favorite thing about my bouquet was that Madeleine surprised me with white anemones – my absolute favorite even though we thought we wouldn’t be able to get them in May in Texas!

Rumor has it you get a year of good luck for every paper crane you fold before your wedding.  Kayla + Newton folded 1,000 in preparation for their reception at the Foundry Park Inn & Spa.  That’s a lot of luck (and cranes) in one marriage.  We like that the newlyweds kept the décor clean and modern for their first celebration as husband and wife, and think the simple two-tier scroll cake from Cecilia Cakes is spot-on perfect.  For more, take a peek at Matt + Kate’s blog post.

Describe your wedding cake: I wanted a strawberry cake and Newton wanted a chocolate cake, but l didn’t want chocolate and he doesn’t like strawberries. So, we compromised with a Hummingbird cake with butter cream icing.  I’m so glad we did! The cake was delicious, and all of our guests absolutely loved it.  We got so many compliments.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? The bridesmaid dresses! I couldn’t find anything in the store that was even remotely close to what I wanted, so we decided to have them sewn by a local seamstress. The dresses seemed fine, from a distance, but they were ill-fitting and poorly sewn. It was too late to have them fixed, so we added yellow sashes the day of the wedding. Thankfully, my mom and another friend are great with a needle and thread and they made the dresses wearable. No one knew any different!
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? There are so many to choose from, but we would have to say our first dance. Newton is a great dancer and I can keep up most of the time, so we did a swing dance to “You’re my Best Friend” by Queen. That was the most fun moment of our wedding! Everyone thought we had choreographed the dance, but Newton made it up as he went.
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future? We plan to stay in Athens, GA for at least one more year. After that, we have no idea where our next adventure will be. We look forward to traveling in the future.

The rich orange + yellow accents in Kayla + Newton’s wedding at the Foundry Park Inn and Spa seem to be ushering in the transition from summer to fall.  While I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to my favorite season, I do love the colorful quirkiness of K + N’s Georgia celebration.  Matt + Kate Altmix of Altmix Photography photographed the celebration, and Gardenia Floral styled the sunny blooms.  Kayla looked sweet in a pleated Formally Yours gown and vintage birdcage veil.  We’ll give her a bonus point for her unique “something blue:” her aquamarine birthstone engagement ring.  The groom donned colorful patterned socks to complement his dapper wedding party, and the bridesmaids shimmered in custom green and yellow frocks.

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story. We met during college at the University of Georgia through our friends Mark and Heather. The first time we met, Newton made fun of my last name relentlessly. Thankfully, that first interaction led to a few weeks of getting to know each other better. After I rejected his pursuit a couple of times, I saw that he wasn’t giving up, and thought I would give him a chance. Newton far exceeded all of my expectations, and I fell in love faster than I thought possible.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: The 1000 cranes we folded as the backdrop for our ceremony. Newton loves origami, and we both love the promise of the 1,000 years of happiness and prosperity in marriage. The project turned out better than we imagined!
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I’m a pretty indecisive person.  Not surprisingly, I found myself loving every style I tried on. I wanted something simple, unique and breathtaking. I went to several dress shops, and it took me weeks to find my dress. The day we found it I was with my mom and brother, who is a great shopping partner. I had tried on over 20 dresses that day and narrowed it down to three that I loved. I put those three dresses back on, and the choice was so obvious from there. We all agreed that was the dress.
Describe your wedding flowers: I chose an elegant white bouquet of peonies with a few green orchids. My bridesmaids carried colorful bouquets of yellow dahlias, ivory spray roses, yellow billy balls and green hypericum berries.