Let me start by saying this is gonna be a LONG blog post longer than most because I want to be able to look back on this to reflect back years from now on my own wedding day.

Hey y’all! I recently got married on May 4th and I wanted to take a moment to reflect and write some tips about what we did for our wedding that made it fun and special for me and my now husband! I also want to tell you…. Something if not multiple things will go wrong on the day of your wedding and guess what? That’s totally okay! The reason it’s okay is because regardless the day will be absolutely beautiful and you get to marry the love of your life surrounded by your loved ones. My best advice is be prepared for things to happen and accept that you may have to make some changes.

Let’s dive right in! If you know us, you may know that we did reschedule our wedding from the original date and I’m here to say that I am honestly SO glad that we did! There were quite a few reasons as to why we did reschedule our wedding and of course our guests were totally understanding. A big part of why I’jm actually so glad that we decided to reschedule is because we ended up making a few changes to our original plans that I truly believe made our day so much more relaxed. Planning a wedding is a LOT and you of course want to do things for your wedding that reflect you and your future spouse so think about some of the little yet larger things you can do that may make your day unique to you all! Y ou don’t have to follow all the trends or traditions if you don’t want to! It’s your day, not everyone else’s and those that truly love you will be so happy to see how you made the day unique and fun for you!

Thankfully our photographer has already sent us quite a few previews of our day that I’m going to include here too. Sadly I don’t have the full gallery so there will be some things I mention but cannot add a photo for example so you’ll have to use your imagination for that part! :)

Our details - this was super important to me that anything we had for our photographer was a true reflection of us. I love to line dance and have always loved my cowboy boots so of course I saw these blue with white ones and KNEW they’d be my something blue for the day of, my husband is a mechanic by trade so he loves wearing his lace up work boots which is exactly what he did on our wedding day to be comfortable. When selecting flowers for bouquets and boutonnières I knew I wanted sunflowers and gardenias - a meaning behind both of them. Sunflowers are my absolute favorite flower and have been since I was a little girl and gardenias for my aunt who was like a second mother to me that passed away when I was in my early 20s to honor her. Not pictured here both of my matrons of honor had peonies mixed into their bouquet with the sunflowers and teal accent flowers to honor my now husband’s late father as he loved them. Also - I don’t know if you can tell on the boutonnière pictured here BUT there’s a Ford spark plug tied into the flower for my husband who loves anything Ford. I also created my own save the dates and wedding invitations via a lovely app called Canva.

Moving right along, I had a private moment with my mom in the bridal suite getting ready to hand her a gift which was a cute little bracelet that mentioned her being the mother of the bride. I had my mom come and hang out and get ready in the bridal suite with me and my two matrons of honor and of course we did some cute getting ready photos. Next, my mom helped me into my dress by zipping it up for me and helping me ensure I had all of my accessories, including her mother’s pearl necklace that was my something borrowed.

I am a daddy’s girl and have been since I was little… there’s just no denying it. Back when I started planning I originally wanted to do our father daughter dance to She’s Somebody’s Daughter by Drew Baldridge and I sent it to my dad to listen to it. Once he finally did he messaged me back saying I made him cry and that he must have a handkerchief for the wedding…. Came back quick to say only one with sunflowers will do. So instead of a traditional ‘gift’ for my dad I had a custom made handkerchief with a little message for him and gave it to him during our first look with him and my brother. I even made sure at the end that it was signed with my childhood nickname. Also, later on I share a photo of my father daughter dance which I actually ended up changing the song choice when we decided to reschedule the date. I heard Cody Johnson’s God Bless the Boy song and I KNEW that was the song that more accurately fit my relationship with my dad. If you haven’t heard that song and you’re close to your dad… go give it a listen. My husband did not want to do a first look but I knew I wanted my dad and brother to not see me while getting ready until I was completely ready to walk down the aisle and wanted it captured as my brother and I are also closer in age and have gotten close as we’ve gotten older.

Our Pastor arrived on site prior to our ceremony to meet with us individually and to pray with us prior to us completing our vows, this is something I told our photographer about so that she could photograph it for us. Brides/Grooms- If you do something special like this make sure to tell your photographer and they will do what they can to capture it for you! I absolutely loved this touch, not only that our bridal party and some of our family was there with us for it and was such a special moment to help calm us before walking down the aisle.

I had to walk down quite an aisle from the barn to the ceremony spot so my husband had his back turned until I got super close (his best man told him when to turn around) and I love seeing his reaction to seeing me for the first time since the night before.

During our ceremony we had previously been to a wedding of our close friends, Brooke & Cody where they did something called a ring warming ceremony which we loved. Never heard of a ring warming ceremony? Don’t worry neither had we! But once we saw it and what it was we knew that was what we wanted instead of writing our own vows. This is an older tradition where you hand your rings over to loved ones and have them either provide a blessing or pray over your marriage. Originally we had selected a couple that has been super near and dear to us since we began at our church, however when one of them fell ill the morning of and could not make it we had another idea in mind. Last minute we asked our premarital course facilitators to come up and pray over our rings. We knew that either couple would be perfect for the job when we originally were thinking of who to select for this. We had both couples incorporated in different ways throughout our day either way and just had to make a swift last minute change.

I mentioned earlier that my husband’s dad had passed away before our wedding, it was truly a few years prior however it was extremely important to my husband that we incorporate him in ways. So originally when we visited our venue they had a huge and beautiful wood cross for at the end of the alter that later on unfortunately we found out had been broken. My husband decided to build us one… that’s right he decided to build a new one just for us. When he was building it, he did so in our garage and instead of using his own tools that were capable of doing so he decided to use his father’s tools that he inherited after his passing. That meant in his own way, his dad was right there with us. We also had reserved seating for our closest family that had passed away at the very first pew of the aisle where his sister sat next to the memorial photo of their father. Another thing I DIY’ed was these memorial signs. I also purchased a few little acrylic signs to go with them.

I don’t have any pictures to share of this but it was so cute I just have to mention it here. Our ring bearer which is our nephew by my husband’s sister had recently turned one and was just beginning to walk. You know the wobbly stages of walking so instead of him walking down the aisle we let his sister, our flower girl drive him down the aisle in her adorable little power wheels Bronco! It was honestly such a cute touch and she apparently did really well and even honked the horn and played some music.

Moving right along to our reception, we decided to be welcomed and get straight to the first dance and father daughter dance before we ate dinner. And let me tell you, dinner was amazing. If you know me, you know I LOVE Tex-Mex so of course we had Tex-Mex! My husband jokingly said one day ‘hey what if we had a queso fountain and tacos at the wedding’. Little did he know that I would find a vendor with exactly that…. A queso fountain (Thanks, Chuy’s for making my dreams I didn’t know I had come true)! And let me tell you what….. it was a HIT everyone LOVED the uniqueness of tacos and how neat the queso fountain was. I’m not a huge fan of cakes so we opted to not do a traditional wedding cake, instead my fiancé and I cut into my favorite red velvet cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory for our ‘cake cutting photos’. For desserts for our guests we opted for some fun treats from some great friends of ours - red velvet cake pops, chocolate covered Rice Krispies, chocolate covered Oreo’s and of course brownies! I even found some cute little to go dessert bags so our guests could have a few for their drive home or later on if they wanted.

I promise, we’re getting to the end now. My husband LOVES Busch Light and refers to them as Latte’s so he wanted some funny awkward beer photos of him, his groomsmen and my dad and brother. He made sure to send some inspiration photos to our photographer of what he was talking about so she could bring his vision to life and if you look at the photo I included above, you can tell they all had fun participating! Towards the end of the evening they all decided they wanted to have another fun photo of them all shot gunning a beer. My dad surprised them all and jumped in on this action, when he did they were all so surprised and explaining to him how to do it like he had never heard of it before. Of course my dad being a jokester played along like he had no clue…. Till the end when they all realized he came in 2nd finishing his shot gun and told them ‘oh you thought the old guy couldn’t hang did ya?‘

All in all, there were definitely other hiccups in our day.. but I had NO CLUE. Why didn’t I know? Well because I had an amazing Coordinator - Angely with Love & Lace Event Co. as well as many other amazing vendors and friends who helped make it such a seamless and memorable day. I will add a list of our amazing vendor’s below! If you read this far, thank you! If this blog helped you in any way or you want to hear more… please feel free to reach out and ask me!

My awesome vendor team:

Venue: the Farmhouse on 44 in Eustis, FL

Coordination/Planning Assistance: Angely Trimble with Love & Lace Event Co.

Photographer: Dena Ray Photography

Catering: Chuy’s Orlando

Desserts/Sweets: Sugar Galore Baking

DJ: Brandon Roman - Roman Entertainment

Florals: all faux - bouquets by my own mom, boutonnières by my now husband

Chairs/Bartending: Premier Event Services

Hair/Makeup: Hair Art by Gabby