Southern Weddings

For Britt and Travis’ friends and family, this wedding was fifteen years in the making. After growing up together, their decade and a half of friendship culminated with the most overwhelming (in a great way!) experience of their lives–their vows! Britt and Travis chose to devote their lives to each other through personal vows built from pieces of their favorite parts of friends’ ceremonies. Such a neat way to incorporate loved ones into a wedding day! We could not support Britt and Travis’ sentiments on their wedding more: while the details are nice, the most important thing was the people around them and the covenant that they made.

Big hugs to Sara & Rocky for sharing this sweet day with us!

Finding my wedding dress was a lot more challenging than I had expected. I wanted to feel like a bride, and for some reason, I just didn’t in anything I tried on. My youngest sister lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas and her roommate had suggested a store called Low’s in Brinkley. My mom and I decided to make a fun trip out of it and flew out to Little Rock one weekend. When we drove into Brinkley, I was a bit apprehensive, because it felt like we were in a ghost town. This three-story dress shop was just about the only thing still open, but it was well worth the drive! The Allure gown that I chose was exactly what I was looking for–I just felt like a bride in it. The combination of lace and tulle with some very subtle beaded accents fit my personality perfectly!

Did you decide to do a “first look”? Why or why not? This was a really hard decision for us. As someone who has photographed weddings, I understand how sweet and special a first look can be, but I wanted to experience all of the emotions and excitement that comes with not seeing your future husband until walking down the aisle. I also wanted the time before our ceremony to be spent with our individual families and wedding parties. I knew that if we had a first look, I would fill the time with pictures and tasks that I needed to let go of. I’m so grateful that we went that route, because it allowed us to enjoy sweet time with family and friends that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Over the past five years, I’ve been to and photographed a lot of weddings, and for some reason, I had decided to write down parts of the vows that I really loved and remembered. I went back and asked several of those friends if I could borrow parts of their vows, and we put them together to come up with our own version of vows. Our favorite phrase was the very end, and it said: “Letting nothing divide us for we are made new; all our days forward, you are my beloved and I am yours.” We intentionally chose the words “letting nothing divide us” because we believe that it’s our responsibility to fight for our marriage, and that it is a choice to let nothing divide the covenant that we have made both with the Lord and with each other.

What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Saying our vows to one another was pretty surreal. To think back on 15 years of friendship and see all that the Lord had done to get us to that exact moment was easily one of the most overwhelming experiences of our lives.

Long before we got engaged, a family friend purchased an organic pecan farm in our hometown that they invited us to come and see. They shared with us their vision of hosting gatherings of all types, providing education about organic farming to students, and creating community, with the ultimate goal of serving the Lord through this gift. Once Travis proposed, I didn’t even think twice about where I wanted our wedding to be. When we got engaged, Chandelier Grove was simply a farm house and the pecan grove, and that was more than I had ever dreamed of. Over the course of our 11 month engagement, they purchased two 200-year-old barns from an Amish family in Canada and had them resurrected on the property. One of my favorite parts of the property is the 2000 wood slats that Stacey hand stained for the barn and chapel. As she stained the ceiling, she prayed over the property. Each time a verse would come to mind, she would carve the verse into the wood, so if you look up, you can faintly see the carvings of scripture all over the barn and chapel. There are literally thousands of little details like this on the property–it’s incredible!

Describe your wedding flowers. My sweet friend, Stacey Crowe, who owns Cornelius in Tomball, Texas, went above and beyond to make sure that every little detail was beautiful! I knew that I wanted lots of beautiful earth tones and textures that would complement the property, so we used things like brunia nodiflora, curly willow, pampas grass, thistle, seeded eucalyptus, scabies, plumosa, lotus pods, privet berry, apricot stock, and tuberose, as well as some of the magnolia off of the property. I wanted the colors to be a mixture of soft and rich tones, so we went with blush tones in protea and garden roses, combined with the rich colors coming from blackberries, garden roses and dahlias. After our wedding, Stacey went to my parents’ house, picked all of the extra flowers up, rearranged all of them, and took them to local nursing homes. If that doesn’t speak volumes about her character and her heart for people, I don’t know what does!

Describe your wedding cake or dessert. I grew up going to The Whistle Stop in Tomball. They are known for their great desserts, so I decided to ask them if they might be up for attempting a dessert bar for our wedding. They made a three-tiered Italian cream wedding cake with cream cheese and pecan icing, a triple layered chocolate cake for the groom’s cake, samoa and heath bar pretzel rods, butter banana rum cupcakes with pecan penuche icing, pineapple carrot cake, key lime pie, and hummingbird cake. I don’t think there was a single thing left from the dessert bar at the end of the wedding. They did an amazing job!

Our engagement season came with a lot of trying life circumstances at home. If there was a challenge that could happen–job change, moving, terminal illness–you name it, it happened. But in all of that, there was this very real, very constant reminder of how fragile and special life is. It kept us grounded, and forced us to really consider what is important. Don’t get me wrong–I love the details and all of the pretty things, but at the end of the day, those things had absolutely no bearing on the purpose of our wedding day. Rather, it was the people around us and the covenant that we made that mattered most.

How did y’all meet? Tell us your love story. Travis and I met in 7th grade in Tomball, Texas. We became part of the same friend group fairly quickly and spent most of the last 15 years as really close friends. My parents and siblings have always loved Travis, and joked about how they were going to find a way to make him part of our family–my sisters even made him sign an “adoption contract” to ensure that he wasn’t going anywhere regardless of who he married! Clearly, we weren’t getting the hint! In the summer of 2012, I took a job in Missouri, which meant that we were 12 hours away from one another. About two weeks after I moved, I got a phone call from Travis asking if he could come visit me one weekend. I honestly didn’t think a thing about it! We spent the entire weekend hanging out with my sister, hiking the Ozarks, and catching up on life, and then he went home. I figured that I would see him again at Christmas or the following summer when I was home, but two weeks later, he came back to visit again, and this persisted every few weeks for months! A couple months into his visits, he sat me down and told me that when I was ready, he would like the chance to pursue me. It took me awhile to come around, but I finally agreed to go on one date. We dated for a year and got married in October 2013. I think that everyone we know had been asking when this would happen since we were 12!
Tell us all about the proposal! In October 2013, we had gone up to Austin, Texas to see Travis’ dad for the weekend. Travis told me before we left that his cousin was running a marathon in Austin and wanted to see us while we were in town. I had my suspicions that something was up because he told me that we had to get breakfast with them and would need to leave super early to get there. Last I checked, no one finishes a marathon before 7 a.m., but who was I to question what the athlete had deemed a reasonable time? I noticed pretty quickly that we were not headed to a restaurant when Travis pulled over on the side of the road by Zilker Park. He walked me through the woods and down a trail to Town Lake, where a canoe was waiting at the edge of the water. From there, we paddled down the lake to a dock that was lit up by candles, with breakfast and coffee waiting. One of our favorite times of the day is breakfast, so he knew that it would mean a lot to me to have a sunrise proposal. I only finished about half of my cup of coffee because I was so nervous, but Travis kept encouraging me to finish it. Finally, he got impatient and told me that if I wasn’t going to drink the coffee, I should just throw it into the lake. What I didn’t know was that at the bottom of the coffee cup, he had written “Marry me, Britt?” When I finally saw it, he got down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. Before I knew it, all of my siblings and parents came out of the woods where they had been videotaping and photographing that moment. I had always told Travis that I wanted my family to be there, so he flew all of my siblings in from California, Colorado, and Arkansas to make sure that they were part of the day. Then, to top it off, he had scheduled time for my mom and sisters to go look at wedding dresses with me, since we all lived in different states. It was a pretty incredible day that I will never, ever forget!
When did y’all get married? October 4, 2014
How many friends, family members, and loved ones attended your wedding? 230
What was one way you saved money or cut costs at your wedding? I’m a big believer in small business. Every business has to start somewhere, and that means that someone has to take a chance on them. I chose to work with a lot of creatives who had never actually executed a wedding because they didn’t have the demand that a lot of well-known vendors do, so they were more reasonably priced. It was exciting to work with people who were so eager to have the opportunity, and who paid such close attention to details. They all did a phenomenal job!
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you most looking forward to about married life? We just purchased a 1928 craftsman-style house in the heart of Fort Worth, Texas. We are so excited to make it a home and start hosting our own gatherings. We LOVE community, and we look forward to seeing what the Lord will do with this gift.

Photographer: Sara & Rocky Photography / Videographer: Brittan Pittman / Planner: Britt Latz Visuals / Ceremony and Venue: Chandelier Grove / Florist: Stacey Crowe / Dessert Baker: The Whistle Stop / Catering: Black Walnut / Rentals: Any Occasion Rental / DJ: Michael Green / Bride’s Gown: Allure Bridals / Bride’s Jewelry: Christine Elise / Bride’s Hair and Makeup: Sarah Roark / Bridal Party Hair and Makeup: Makeup Texas / Bride’s Shoes: Ann Taylor / Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Em and Lee / Menswear: Jos. A. Bank

Written with love by Marissa