Snapshots: 1st Wedding Anniversary

On August 1st, Dan and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary!  Since it was a fun trip down memory lane, I figured I would share a few personal snapshots here from our date night.

We started off with a quick visit to the park where we had our wedding ceremony, The Park at Harlinsdale Farm.  I put my wedding dress on initially, but it was rainy and super hot, so I decided not to wear it that night after all.  But it was still special!

Then we had an amazing meal at the restaurant that hosted our wedding dinner, Red Pony.  We saw our server from the wedding, received custom menus that wished us a happy anniversary, and really soaked up the place.

We finished the night with cupcake versions of our wedding cake, from The Sweet Stash.  (Our entire cake was devoured last year, so we didn't freeze anything!)  The bakery sells cupcakes at the Nashville Farmers Market, and they usually carry the almond vanilla "wedding cake" flavor that we had for our wedding.  I picked up a couple of them, added our Bear & Bourbon wedding toppers, and we enjoyed a literal taste of our wedding, a year later.

I don't think we'll necessarily do this as a tradition year after year, but it was really fun to kind of relive the sequence of our wedding.  I think that it helped us kind of soak it all in slowly over the course of an evening, and we were really focused on one another (no distractions!).  We noticed a lot of details, for example in the restaurant, that we hadn't noticed in the blur of the wedding day.  We talked really candidly and reminisced, and I think we both remarked on how special that day was for us, and how perfect.

Happy Anniversary, Dan!!!

I'm grateful to have you.

Wedding: Announcements and Thank You Notes

Last wedding post, you guys!  :)

Since we had such a small wedding, we wanted to send announcements out to folks who would want to know (you know, outside of it being Facebook official and stuff).  Basically we sent them to our Christmas card list, so we could make them a part of the celebration!  We used Shutterfly and I stacked discount codes to get a good deal.

I chose the Sparkling Union tri-fold card to share photos and a quick note about the ceremony.

For our Thank You cards, I used the Embellished Frames design and left the back side writeable for a custom note.  I tried to make them tie together with look/script fonts.  I really liked using photo cards to share our ceremony pictures.  The only downside to photo Thank You notes is that we received a bunch of gifts in advance of the ceremony, so it took us a few weeks to get photos and printed cards back.  That said, I was told that etiquette says I have a year after the wedding to write thank yous for the gifts (someone told me that, I swear!)...  so getting them out 4 weeks after the wedding isn't too bad, right?

Wedding: Dinner

We had our wedding dinner at Red Pony Restaurant, with course after course of food and drinks.

In my defense, it was really hot outside and I needed some water right quick.

My friend and wedding dinner assistant, Sonya, set the table decorations (flowers by my sister, calligraphy name cards a gift from her friend) and made sure everything was set up beautifully.

We also had a cake by The Sweet Stash with toppers from Etsy featuring our two cats, Bear & Bourbon.

We toasted with the same champagne that we drank the night we got engaged.  It was a really wonderful time, and our families were able to come together at one table for the first time!

All photos by Steve Cross Photography, Nashville

Wedding: Bride & Groom Portraits

I don't even think these photos need captions.  Basically, we were happy, married fools and asked Steve to take photos of us at the Park at Harlinsdale Farm and in downtown Franklin where our wedding dinner would be.  This is what happened.

Next Up...  Wedding Dinner!
All photos by Steve Cross Photography, Nashville

Wedding: Ceremony

Oh, hey there!  I know I've been MIA for a bit... trying to play catchup at work, school, and life in general post-wedding.  But then last night I got a wonderful little *ding* from my e-mail account via Steve Cross Photography, and I just couldn't wait to share the official pics of our big day with you!

My beautiful bouquet was made by my sister!!!

Our wedding was a small affair in the town in Franklin, Tennessee where we live.  We chose to have our ceremony at a local public park, the Park at Harlinsdale Farm.  I was very worried about the heat of the day, but it turned out to be a perfect, sunny afternoon for the ceremony.

Dress: Eliza J via Nordstrom
Earrings: Charming Charlie
Bracelet: Tiffany & Co. from my sister (similar)
Hair & Makeup: Artistry Salon & Spa's Lindsey King
Flowers: my sister!
Shoes: Franco Sarto via DSW

We were joined by our closest family and friends for the ceremony, and we had a local officiant, Sherrie Binkley, perform the ceremony.

Sherrie also read short excerpts from a favorite book for each of us...  Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl for Dan, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for me.

When I make that squishy smile face, it's legit, y'all.

We were pretty chill...  there's even a dog park in the background!

with Suzy and Sissy

Me & Sissy

Sissy arrived early and put together all of the wedding flowers (including that gorgeous), as well as gift bags for the guests.  I couldn't have done it without her, nor would it have looked so nice and put-together!  I had freakout moment earlier in the day that was quickly squashed after eating some chicken nuggets (hangry brides are irritable) but other than that it all came together perfect as could be.

with our wedding guests

Coming Soon:  Bride & Groom Portraits!

All photos by Steve Cross Photography, Nashville

Wedding: Invitations

As Dan and I prepped for our small, local wedding, we realized that an informative invitation would be helpful to our guests.  We (okay, I!) decided to use Minted, because we've done our last three years of Christmas cards with them and love their cardstock and quality.

We wanted to incorporate our brewery-themed engagement photos (by Steve Cross Photography) in the invitation, and the "minibook" invitations on Minted allowed us to include a ton of information in one card!  They were definitely a pricier option, but we were inviting less than a dozen people to attend so the cost wasn't bad with a small quantity.  Given the expense they'd incur to attend our wedding from out-of-state, we wanted guests to have both a guidebook and a keepsake.

We did a lot of customization using the given template, to make sure it suited our event.  The "wedding day" tab was the most informative, given timelines and addresses to ensure everyone made it to the right place at the right time!

We also wanted to provide some basic travel information, knowing we'd have both air and road trippers.  Franklin isn't really "Nashville" so we wanted to suggest some options.  We didn't have a big enough guest list to merit a hotel room block, so we suggested a few that we knew would be near the wedding site.

One thing we didn't anticipate when we made the invitations was that everyone would want to get together on Friday and Sunday in addition to the wedding... so we had an impromptu "young people's night out" in downtown Nashville at Acme, as well as a brunch at Kitchen Notes since Dan and I were spending our wedding night at the Omni Nashville.

So our last page of the invitation, minus Historic Main Street in Franklin, wasn't really used much by our guests...  They wanted to spend all of their time with the bride and groom, because we're spoiled.  If we'd had a bigger group of guests, who wanted to spend the weekend enjoying the sights, it would be different!

Overall, we love the look of our invitations, and the fact that we could use them to help all of our out-of-town guests to get to know this town we love.

We're married!

There will be plenty of photos in the coming weeks, but I'm sooooo happy!

Can't wait to share it all with you.