August- November were spent sending screenshot after screenshot back and for between my mom and sister. We created a secret board where we could all 3 pin wedding pictures and exchange ideas! I spent HOURS on Instagram/Facebook/Pinterest/Google deciding between photographers, dresses, cakes, flowers, and picking out invites. It was hard to even know where to begin with it all! I kept a book where i wrote down EVERYTHING and ANYTHING pertaining to the wedding. I'll break it all down for you-
THE DECOR
I based my wedding off of these gorgeous pictures. I took bits and pieces from each picture that I liked to get the look I wanted. I decided my colors were going to be gold, deep purples, and berry colors. I wanted wood textures, antler sheds, pine cones, glitter, berries, and vintage gold bowls/lamps/vases. On my next post i'll show you everything in detail!! Also, right when I saw this cake I didn't even look for any other ones cause I was obsessed with it! Yay for Pinterest.
THE INVITATIONS
I have this adorable friend Alex that had made wedding invites for a few people that I just LOVED. So I asked her if she would be willing to design them for me! I think I just searched "wedding invites" on Etsy and sent her a few of the styles I really liked. I told her my colors and in a short amount of time she made these. I WAS OBSESSED! They turned out literally PERFECT. (We used 2 invited to display the front and the back of the cards). She was super willing to help make them exactly like I wanted. I wanted our pictures to be separate, so we just tied them together to get the look I wanted before we sent them out. Also, we used postable.com to get all the addresses of friends and family that we had on Facebook- SUPER HELPFUL. Then we called, emailed, texted to get all the rest of the addresses and compiled it all onto an Excel sheet to make sure we didn't have duplicated and that we didn't forget anyone! I would HIGHLY recommend it! Then we took it to a print shop and they Printed everyones names addresses on the envelopes for us which made things so much easier!
THE DRESS
I honestly didn't go dress shopping or try on one single wedding dress! For some reason I feel like I didn't have this "wedding dress obsession" like most girls do. I didn't want to spend a ton of money on something that was just going to sit in my closet, and it was more important to me to get incredible pictures of our special day. I still wanted something that was unique and was "me", and I knew I wasn't going to find MY dress at your typical wedding dress shop. I wanted one that had long or 3/4 sleeves, was unique, and I would be comfortable in since I would be wearing it all day long. I obviously wanted a nice dress and to feel pretty in it, but I really just didn't love all the fancy smancy dresses. So I just looked online. I saw a girl on Instagram that had this first dress from Free People that I was in love with. We couldn't find it ANYWHERE because it was from a few years ago. I was so bummed. My wonderful mom found this gorgeous dress on BHLDN (Anthropologies wedding dresses). It ended up actually being considered a "reception dress" but I was in love with it! It was simple, had gorgeous detail, and we ordered it! It was less than $300 which blew my mind. It came in the mail and it fit! The only alterations I had to do was make it 2 inches shorter , bring in the arms a little bit, and I had to rent a slip to go under it because it was pretty thin fabric but that all cost me less than $75. For the shoes, I decided I wanted to get some cute ankle booties because 1) It was November 2) You can't really see my shoes because the dress was so long 3) I wanted something I would be able to wear again. I got my WEDDING shoes at Old Navy. Haha it sounds kind of funny but they were exactly what I wanted.
Photographer/Videographer
I love watching wedding videos just as much as seeing all the pictures and it was important to me that we had both!Having video footage of our wedding day meant getting to relive the best day of my life over in a different way! I wanted to see my wedding from that point of view as well! 2 Of my friends from Provo were starting up a little videography business and said they would do our wedding for free, so of course I took them up on that! When trying to find a photographer, all the photographers and locations I was obsessed with were from Utah, so I convinced Paxton to let us drive there to get engagements and bridals taken. I wanted the same photographer for engagements, bridals, and our wedding day. I booked Alixann Loosle Photography . She had a great package deal going on which included Engagements, Bridals, and our wedding day, all of the unedited pictures and a good amount of edited ones, plus her travel fee was only $100 which was a lot cheaper than a lot of other ones I contacted. I think it all ended up being around $2000. Ya we had to do a few hours of driving, but it was 100% worth it because they turned out PERFECTLY. We did engagements in October and Bridals in November.
Florist
Since we were doing pictures in Utah, my friend recommended one of her friends JaNae! They turned out exactly how I wanted, like they couldn't have been more perfect!!!Heart eyes x10000 I sent her the pictures I posted above and told her the bits and pieces I loved in each bouquet and she did a phenomenal job. For our actual wedding day we used someone local Blush Floral . I'll show you those pictures on my next post!
VENUE
I was stubborn and did not want to do it at a cultural hall. I knew my mom would still make it fabulous, but I just couldn't. We booked The Stone House & Co and it all turned out exactly how I wanted it. They catered the luncheon and the reception so it made food decisions 100 times easier. It was nice to have everything taken care of. They had chairs there and had some cute wreathes and greenery but we brought all the other decor which I will show you on our anniversary post!
EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
My cute mother in law planned a bridal shower for me so all of the people that grew up with me and Paxton could attend as well as my family in this area! My 2 best friends Whitney and Mckayla did one for me at my hometown as well! I had my bachelorette party in Utah with all my college BFFS the night before we took our bridal pictures. We did all the fun pre wedding stuff like registering at Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Macys. We found a cute little 2 bed apartment for a GREAT deal and we got our marriage license. I was a stress case during all this time, and I wish I could go back and tell myself to calm the heck down and to just live in the moment!
xoxo
Bailey
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