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Category: SW Weddings

Jessica’s Southern Wedding: Choosing a Wedding Photographer

by Emily in SW Weddings on July 20, 2015

Hi belles! Our friend and former Southern Weddings intern Jessica Clinch is the newest gal to take you through her wedding process here on the blog! Jessica will be blogging for us once a month until her wedding next May. In case you missed her introductory post, be sure to check it out here! — Emily

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There are about a million and one things to decide when planning a wedding. There are details and vendors that will enhance our wedding day, from music to food to flowers. And, there are vendors who will absolutely enhance our wedding day, but will also provide us with something to cherish days and years after our wedding, including our videographer and photographer.

Choosing a wedding photographer is a challenging task! There are so many incredibly talented photographers in the wedding industry, especially here in the South. Zack and I had to think long and hard about the qualities we want in our photographer. Hopefully the questions we considered below will be helpful to you if you are deciding between photographers, as well!

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What style are we most drawn to, and what details stand out to us? The detail in a photographer that helped us narrow down our search dramatically was their photography style. There are a variety of photography styles, including classic portraiture style, documentary style, fine art photography style, and more. I have always been most drawn to the fine art style, and photographers who are able to capture all of the important and beautiful details of a wedding, but told from their unique creative eye. I adore the beauty and the process of film photography, and knew that was something special I wanted for our big day.

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While looking through pictures from some of our favorite photographers, there were certain details that we looked for style-wise. One of the factors that was extremely important to us was the photographer’s ability to capture the details in white items clearly and crisply. I absolutely adore my wedding gown, and we wanted to know that our photographer would be able to truly showcase all of the gorgeous and intricate parts of the dress. We also knew we were more drawn to photography that has a light and airy quality, while still capturing the crisp details — a fine balance. And, we knew we preferred photos that have more of a blue undertone to them as opposed to really golden-toned photography. All of these style factors really helped us to narrow down our photographer options!

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How comfortable will we be with our photographer? This question was a big one for us! We couldn’t determine this until actually meeting with a few photographers in person or over the phone, but feeling comfortable with our photographer is crucial! They will be the person who is with us during the most intimate moments of the best day of our lives. Being photographed can be awkward, so having someone who is really able to make us relax and enjoy ourselves will be very important!

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How do they interact with our other vendors and guests? In the same sense, we really want a photographer who will be a joy to the other vendors on our wedding day: someone who will be respectful of our venue, who will work side-by-side with our planners, and who will get along wonderfully with our videographers. And, a photographer who will also know how to manage our bridal party and family members in a professional yet fun way!

So, which photographer did we choose? We are over the moon excited to say that we are working with the lovely Perry Vaile!! Perry fits all of the stylistic and personal details we desired. Her ability to capture images in a truly creative, artistic, unique manner is breathtaking. Each time she shares a new photo, I get so giddy to know that she will be bringing that same beauty to our wedding day! Her incredibly fun and bubbly personality was the icing on top of the cake. When we had our initial phone call with her, it felt like talking to a new best friend. You can tell how much she really values each of her clients, which is oh so special.

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The funniest thing? I had seen Perry’s work previously, but hadn’t considered her originally as an option for our photographer since she lives in North Carolina. When Becca reached out to us recommending her, and saying that she would love to work with us, we were overjoyed! I would highly recommend not only looking in your city for a photographer, but also surrounding cities and possibly even surrounding states. We couldn’t be happier, and can’t wait for our engagement session with her that we are currently planning!

In case you missed a post…
The proposal
Choosing a wedding planner

Written with love by Emily

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Jessica’s Southern Wedding: Choosing a Wedding Planner

by Emily in SW Weddings on June 17, 2015

Hi belles! Our friend and former Southern Weddings intern Jessica Clinch is the newest gal to take you through her wedding process here on the blog! Jessica will be blogging for us once a month until her wedding next May. In case you missed her first post, be sure to check it out here! — Emily

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After Zack and I took a bit of time off to simply enjoy being newly engaged, the first thing we agreed to do was to choose our wedding planner! Although we both have experience in the wedding industry, we knew we wanted to hire someone to take care all of the logistics, vendor relations, and to help me organize the million and one creative ideas I have into a cohesive wedding design!

I have had the pleasure of working with a handful of talented wedding planners over the past few years with my various internships and jobs, and thought it would be so special to have one of them plan our wedding! I thought it was going to be a hard decision selecting the perfect planner, but we immediately agreed on which team would be best for us, especially after thinking through the questions below. Hopefully reading through our thought process will help you if you’re trying to find the perfect planner for your wedding!

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How involved do we want our planner to be? There are so many options for what types of planner you can hire for your wedding. Many offer services ranging from month-of coordination to partial planning and full planning and design. We sort of fell in a happy medium between partial planning and full planning and design. Zack has a lot of vendor friends in Knoxville who we knew we wanted to work with, so we didn’t think we needed quite as much help finding vendors for our wedding. However, we did want our planner to handle all the details with our vendors once they were selected, and to help us work with them to bring our design vision to life.

Do they have ample experience in the wedding industry? Although I’m such a cheerleader for budding entrepreneurs and boss ladies who are just getting into the industry, Zack and I knew we wanted to hire a seasoned professional – someone who will know how to handle a situation that goes awry on our wedding day with grace, and without worrying us. Someone who has an understanding of the industry, including standard pricing details for vendors to help us create a budget, timeline creation, and a connection with other vendors in the industry. Someone we can trust.

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Are they fun to work with? This might be a silly or obvious question, but we knew we wanted to work with a fun planner! Our planning team will be the people we communicate with most throughout our engagement, and will be with our bridal party and us throughout our entire wedding day. So, we knew they had to be professional, yet fun people to be around!

Does their design aesthetic align with ours? This was a very important question, especially for me. We’ve both seen a lot of weddings over the years, and a lot of different design aesthetics. I feel as though I have a strong sense of my personal design style, but I’m not quite sure how to translate the story of Zack and I into the little details of our wedding. Finding a planner who has a strong sense of style and appreciates the same stylistic details as we do was key. It is important to me that the planner we hired will be able to help us design a meaningful wedding, one that our friends and family will be able to identify as “us” through the details.

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Jessica’s Southern Weddings Planner flipped to the vendor section – one of the ones we’re most proud of!

So, which planner did we choose? We are so thrilled to say that we are working with the wonderful Rebecca Rose Events team!! These ladies are beyond amazing. They were the perfect mix of everything we were looking for above, and they made us comfortable and excited during our initial consultation.

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We love their design aesthetic, their passion and work ethic, and their personalities! We really appreciate the way their team is structured – Becca is in charge of all the design details and Betsy is in charge of logistics and vendor relations. We think it is a really smart approach to wedding planning, and have been so pleased working with them over the past few months! I interned with Becca in college, so it is also wonderful to have someone who knows me well working so closely with us! We have our first design planning meeting in August, and can’t wait to see all of the exciting, personal details they help us dream up for our big day!

All photos (except for Hot Dog! photo booth strip and Planner photo) by Blue Ribbon Vendor Nancy Ray. Rebecca Rose Events is also a delightful Blue Ribbon Vendor – what can we say, Jessica has great taste! :)

Written with love by Emily

Jessica’s Southern Wedding: The Proposal

by Emily in SW Weddings on May 14, 2015

Friends! I don’t know about you, but I’m in a bit of a withdrawal now that Lisa’s wedding planning series has drawn to a close. There’s just something about following a gal through the process, as she makes decisions in real time, that’s exciting, reassuring, and just plain fun! Happily for all of us, we’ve got a new engaged Southern Weddings lady in the pipeline for your reading pleasure. The darling Jessica Clinch interned for us a few years ago, and we’ve loved following along with her adventures via her blog ever since! When we heard she was engaged, we immediately reached out to her to about being our newest blogging bride. Happily she said yes! She’ll be joining us once a month until her wedding next year. I’m thrilled to introduce Jessica to you today! — Emily

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Ian Riley Photography

Hey y’all! Some of you might remember me as the Southern Weddings intern from a couple years ago. It is hard to believe that it has been that long since I have been working with these lovely ladies! It is even crazier that I am here today blogging about my wedding planning process and sharing the story of how I met and fell in love with Zack! It all still seems like a fairytale to me, but it is by far my favorite story to tell.

All my life, I’ve gone back and forth about whether I believe in fate and soul mates. I always thought it was a cute idea, but one that only existed in novels and romantic movies. But I have to say, I now believe in soul mates whole-heartedly. I know without the shadow of a doubt that Zack is the only man for me, and the person I will spend my entire life with!

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Zipporah Photography

So, how did we meet and why do I consider it fate? Grab a glass of your favorite sweet thing to drink, because our story is long but fun to read! It all starts one Friday evening last May. I was getting ready for a fun night out with my girlfriends, and as I was picking out my dress for the evening, I jokingly turned to my roommate and swore we were going to meet our boyfriends that night. She laughed, and we carried on getting ready.

Later that evening as we were about to head home, we stopped by one of our favorite places and I was happy to see my friend Sierra (a former SW employee!) who I hadn’t seen in months. I was even happier when I noticed that she was with a new group of friends, including a dapper boy wearing a sport coat. Something immediately drew me to him (he claims it was his sport coat!). So, I walked right up to him and introduced myself!

We talked and laughed for what felt like hours. He told me he had just come from working a wedding (Zack and his brother co-owned the videography company, Nicholas & Keaton) and that he was going to stay in Chattanooga that night, but his friends convinced him to come back to Nashville. You can imagine I was glad to hear that! We made plans to meet up the next night, and after another fun evening, planned our first date for that upcoming week. I knew that there was something extra special about him when he showed up at my doorstep with a single red rose!

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Fast-forward eight months full of fun trips, holidays spent with families, and more thoughtful and sweet date nights to January 24, 2015. Zack and I were both really excited about that day, but for different reasons. I was excited because Zack, his brother, and his sister-in-law gifted me a promo video for my business as a Christmas gift, and this was the big day that it was supposed to take place. Little did I know, it was the day Zack was going to propose!!

In November, while we were at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving, Zack had the opportunity to ask my dad for his blessing. After he received a warm welcome into the family, Zack began scheming. He told his brother and sister-in-law about his plans for the fake promo video, and asked both my family and my two best friends from college to book flights to Nashville for the 24th.

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The big morning came, and I got all dolled up for my “promo video.” Zack knew this was the perfect decoy, because I would be wearing a cute outfit, I would have my nails painted, my friends would be with me the whole day, and he would catch everything on both video and camera. After a morning full of girly activities with my friends, we quickly grabbed lunch as Zack, Casey and Kristin went back to my house to set up for my “interview.”

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As I walked into my house, I saw Zack standing in the hallway leading to my office. He wore the same sport coat that he was wearing when we first met. I hadn’t caught on to what was happening yet – I was still so focused on what I would be saying during my interview! After a moment, Zack led me into my office where he had a couple of collages set up displaying our favorite pictures together. On my desk, I saw a note that had my name on it sitting atop the journal that we keep together. As instructed by the note, I flipped to the bookmarked page of our journal, which said, “On December 17th, I bought an engagement ring.”

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At that moment, I was in SUCH shock! I remember standing frozen with the goofiest smile on my face and not knowing what to do! So, Zack led me to the middle of the room, took my hands, and said the sweetest things I have ever heard in my entire life – words that I had been so excited to hear since we first met!

Once I heard the words “will you marry me?” I immediately screamed “of course!!” and hugged Zack, without even taking a glance at my ring! After we started to settle down from the excitement, he told me that he promised my mom that she would be the first person we would call. The tears that started to well up upon hearing my mom’s voice turned into screams of joy as she walked around the corner and into my room!! My entire family, Zack’s mom, and my friends all followed her into the room, and I felt so surrounded by love. It was the perfect ending to the most wonderful surprise!

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Jessica’s talented future brother- and sister-in-law Casey & Kristin are responsible for all of the proposal photos and the darling video below!

Zack & Jessica – The Proposal from NICHOLAS & KEATON on Vimeo.

Zack and I could not be happier, and we are beyond excited to share our wedding planning adventure with y’all! We have some ideas about what we would like to share, but we would also love to hear from you! What topics are you hoping to hear about, or what questions do you have? We are getting married in exactly one year on May 14, 2016 (yay!!), so we will have 11 more blog posts to share with y’all! Thank you so much for sharing in our journey with us!

Written with love by Emily

Kirsti May 14, 2015 reply

This is such a sweet story! I just found Jessica’s Etsy shop and fell in love (and ordered way too many things for my own good) but I had no idea that she was a former SW intern!! Congrats on your engagement, con’t wait to follow along!
Carly May 14, 2015 reply

Jessica, this is epic. I am so, so excited for you! I absolutely loved watching your video, and I can’t wait to read along as you plan your wedding.
Stephanie Creekmur May 14, 2015 reply

Oh my gosh this is wonderful! I’m in tears reading y’all’s story and watching the video! I’m so happy for you, Jessica and can’t wait to follow along with your planning! :)
Mary May 14, 2015 reply

Well. This is just the most precious thing I’ve ever seen! Jessica is a doll and I’m so glad we get to see her journey down the aisle! Congratulations!
Kelly May 14, 2015 reply

Oh man, your mom walking out, Jessica, that got me. So sweet!!! So happy for you two!
Happy Weekend: 5 Links I Love May 15, 2015 reply

[…] Jessica’s Southern Wedding: The Proposal (Southern Weddings) I teared up watching their proposal video! Super sweet and the most wonderful surprise. […]