Southern Weddings

This weeks Southern Wedding of the Week comes to us from Georgia.  Our friends Whitney and Jesse from {Our Labor of Love} captured this fun wedding.  This couple is adorable!  We love how JR proposed.  He surprised her on Christmas day!  Christmas Morning at 6 am, JR arrived at Jennifer’s home in a Santa hat, firefighter pants and with a special gift.  I love this ring shot with the whole pecans in the Mason jar… just perfect!

How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story… After church a large group of friends were heading downtown for lunch. As we all headed out to the cars people started separating in groups to carpool. I ended up hopping in the back seat of my friend Wayne’s truck and you know who was in the front seat. I asked Wayne, “Who’s this guy?” and he said “This is my friend JR”. We started chatting about jobs and realized we both worked in emergency medicine and started exchanging horror stories. Then the hobbies, we found that we both loved the outdoors – backpacking, kayaking, mountain biking, the basics. From that point on we struck up a friendship with texting! After two months, all his friends were telling me “he is so into you” and all it took was one day of white water rafting and I was in love (hook, line and sinker).
Describe the proposal: I was on a travel nursing assignment back home in Columbus, Georgia. It was over the holidays and JR was supposed to be visiting his parents and sister in Nashville. It was 6:30 a.m. on Christmas morning and I heard the bell for the door (we have to buzz visitors into the back). I hit the unlock and started toward the door to direct what I thought was a visitor and instead found my sweetheart in his bunker pants(that’s what firefighters wear) and Santa hat with a wrapped PRESENT in his hand. I was so stunned! At 7:00 a.m. we walked out to the car and as we walked JR was telling me all kinds of sweet things. I remember thinking “It is sweet enough you made the trip down here, you don’t have to go on like this.” Then standing in the cold crisp dark early morning he got down on bended knee and asked if I would be his wife.
What attracted me to my husband was: His never ending sense of adventure and love for experiencing life. No matter if it sounds fun or dangerous or just plain gross, JR will try it-just to experience it. For example, on our honeymoon in Peru, Rr ate “cuy al horno”… that is guinea pig. What some call pet, others call dinner.
Why do you love your husband? I love JR because he is his own. Growing up with three older sisters, JR is very good at most things men are usually bad at… like communication. JR loves to communicate. He is concerned with my happiness and well-being, genuinely he cares and wants me to talk to him about all of my worries and problems. He is there to share my successes and encourage me through the failures. Also, he makes me laugh and that is something that will always get us through a hard time.
What attracted me to my wife was: Her sense of adventure and how she’s almost always laid back. On our first trip together, we were backpacking up a mountain and by the time we got to the top it was dark, snowing and about 30 degrees. (How many girls would do that and go again?) She also has a passion to learn, which I think is essential in life.
A date we went on that we’ll always remember: It was last October and about midnight. I was wide awake and bored. I called JR and we decided to carve pumpkins. He got up out of bed, came over and we headed to Wal-Mart. We picked out our pumpkins and spent the next couple hours on the front porch drawling and carving and building a stronger friendship.

Check back later for more from Jennifer + JR.

Beth + Robert’s interview reveals how they infused family into their celebration and how the bridesmaids dealt with a rip in a dress! Check out all the shots on W. Scott Chester Photography’s {Blog}. Happy Black Friday ya’ll!

The weather on our wedding day was: More than perfect. Georgia in August is not known for pleasant temperatures but the temps dropped a few degrees just for our special day.
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? Nature
Favorite design element of your big day: The vineyard itself created the best backdrop you could ever produce.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I wanted something that looked as natural as the surroundings; I didn’t want the glitz of the dress to distract from the beauty of the mountains and trees around. The English netting was a perfect fabric that moved so nicely in the breeze.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: The vineyard, which was not really a detail but defined everything else in the wedding.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? There weren’t any huge hurdles. Robert is in law school and didn’t have a lot of time to plan. That got frustrating at times but in the end it all worked out.
Funniest moment? One of my bridesmaid’s dresses split right up the side. Luckily another maid is handy with a needle and thread, fixed it up perfectly and they hid it from me until the reception. At that point I couldn’t have cared less if she were wearing a trash bag.
What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Don’t stress out about any details, in the end you will just be happy to be married.
Best advice or most memorable comment someone made to you during the wedding celebration. “There wasn’t an ugly one up there.” – family friend when talking about my beautiful bridesmaids.
What’s next for you as a couple? Robert will finish law school and we will be off to a location TBD.
What are you looking forward to in the future? Everything. We have so many dreams and plans its going to be exciting to see what comes next.

Congratulations to Beth + Robert!  We wish you a lifetime of happiness wherever life takes you!

Scott and Cristen from {W. Scott Chester Photography} bring us this gorgeous wedding today… two weeks in a row as the SW of the Week for the Chesters! We were immediately in love with the wedding as soon as we saw the bridal portraits. Beth looks absolutely stunning and so happy. In addition, Robert is so handsome in his tuxedo and fun green mum boutonniere. This wedding took place in the North Georgia mountains at the {Wolf Mountains Vineyards}. Read on to hear about how these two beautiful people met and about some very special elements in Beth’s bouquet…

How did the two of you meet? We met our freshman year at University of Georgia and began dating our sophomore year. My roommate, who had gone on a few dates with Robert, introduced us. Coincidentally she is now engaged to Robert’s college roommate.
What attracted me to my husband was: Robert has a contagious sense of adventure. He was always looking for new places to go and he was willing to do just about anything. He pushed me to set new goals and explore myself. Plus he’s really good looking.
What do you love most about your wife? Because she, more than anyone I know, has the courage and drive to make her and our dreams reality, and because she inspires me to never be content with life as it is, to relentlessly experiment with all of life’s opportunity.
A date we went on that we’ll always remember: On one of our first dates Robert took me out to an old rail road bridge to watch a meteor shower. The entire scene was perfect. Water below us and stars falling above. We had our first kiss that night.
Were there any special family traditions you included in the wedding? My mother passed when I was 16, before she died she gave me a cameo pendant that my father made. She asked me to wear it on my wedding day. I put it in the stem of my bouquet.
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Robert: I’ll never forget you turning the corner and starting down the isle. Beth: It would be too hard to pick a favorite intimate moment between Robert and me. I think one of my favorite moments was dancing to the song Wagon Wheel with all of our friends.

Check back later for more from Beth + Robert…