Wedding Planning: Everything You Want To Know

9/2/2019

I'm so PUMPED to share about wedding planning with you! I've had a number of people ask questions about how we did it so fast, what vendors we used and how we incorporated unique, special moments throughout our day that kept our wedding God-centered.

Here we go! Here are the questions I'll answer:

How do you feel about "first looks"?
Did you write your own vows?
What did you do for a unity ceremony?
What were your favors?
I can't decide how big I want my wedding party to be. How did you narrow it down to only 3 girls?
How did you choose a venue?
How did you handle your wedding budget?
Where are some places where you were able to save money?
What creative elements did you include to make your wedding unique?
Last but not least: what vendors did you use?

My opinion on first looks.

This one is a little controversial, I know. It's a huge decision and, for us, it was a no-brainer. We wanted to see each other before I walked down the aisle for many reasons:

1. It's a special moment that we both will never forget. We read each other the vows we had written to the other for the first time during that moment as well.
2. It makes the day less stressful not having to "hide". It makes your photographer's job A LOT easier!
3. It gives you more time together on your big day and, believe me, it goes by SO FAST!

Writing Our Own Vows

Dustin and I both have a deep love of words. We decided pretty quickly that we wanted to write our own vows instead of saying traditional ones. We didn't read them to one another until a few hours before the wedding at our first look. We wrote them in vow books I got on Amazon. As an example, here were my vows to Dustin:

I choose you, Dustin, to be the husband of my days, my partner in sanctification, my companion in ministry and the best friend of my life. I vow to love you unconditionally, without hesitation, like Jesus loves me. I will honor the man that you are and cheer on the man that you are becoming. I promise to encourage, listen to and learn from you as you become more of who God created you to be. I promise to show up every day and try, no matter what. I will celebrate your triumphs and mourn your losses as if they were my own. I will treasure you as the greatest gift of grace I have ever been given from God outside of salvation. I will do whatever necessary to help you become more like Jesus tomorrow than you were yesterday.

Our Unity Ceremony

I wanted us to do something really creative for this element of our ceremony. I love all the different ways people choose to express the union of two families and I found this idea on Pinterest. You place a canvas on an easel and jars filled with paint the colors of your wedding. Then, one at a time, you have both sets of parents and then the couple come forward and drip the paint across the canvas. The rest of the ceremony, it drips down the canvas and makes a beautiful painting to hang in your home!

Wedding Favors

Let me just say it...wedding favors can be EXPENSIVE. When I thought about what we might do for a favor, I wanted it to be memorable but not totally break our budget. Favors are cute but it's rare that they're very memorable (to anyone other than the bride and groom) so I wanted to do something unique!

We made an old-fashioned candy bar full of our favorite candies like soft peppermints, Runts, orange slices, candy sticks, etc. We ordered small brown paper bags and used a cute stamp handmade on Easy to stamp them with our names and wedding date. Our guests came by on the way out of our reception and made their own bag! It was a hit and we ordered all our candies off Amazon!

Wedding Party Size

Here's the deal: choosing your wedding party is one of the hardest decisions you'll make. I thought so much about different women in my life that I would love to have standing beside me and worried about their feelings getting hurt and wondering how many was too many.

For me, I didn't want a huge wedding party (and not because I didn't have enough best, best friends to accommodate a large party). I didn't want my wedding photos to feel cluttered with SO many people that even my ceremony looked "busy".

So instead of asking as many people to be bridesmaids, we incorporated many other people into a special time of prayer during our ceremony (talked about later in this post). It's definitely possible to recognize everyone who has played a critical role in your life + relationship, not just solely based off if they're in your wedding party or not!

Wedding Ceremony VEndors

This is one of the larger (and often most pricey) decisions you'll make when planning your wedding! Here are a few things to consider:

Do you want to get married inside or outside?
What are your hobbies? If you're an outdoor person, like we are, a more rustic venue might make sense for you.
What is your expected budget for your venue? A lot of times you will have to call around to actually get the prices for the venues you're looking at online. Typically getting married in a larger city will come with a heftier price tag for all vendors (ceremony site, food, flowers, etc.) too keep that in mind in terms of where you're looking.

We got married at the Waterstone Venue in Gray, Tennessee. Check out their social media feeds to see more venue specific photos. It's set in an old rock quarry they've converted into a venue. It's absolutely GORGEOUS!

WEDDING BUDGET TIPS

Here are some things to think about in terms of a wedding budget:

Create a separate bank account for your wedding. That makes it very easy to see exactly where your money is going!
Have some idea of what you're hoping to spend for major items (venue, photographer, dress, cake, food, etc.). That will help you as you begin calling vendors and getting quotes.
Know what is THE most important to you! Love flowers? Budget more for that cost. Are you into photography? Your wedding photos are really going to be sacred to you! Want that cute "wedding trailer" so you can post it on the 'gram each year on your anniversary? You're going to need to invest in a videographer (and they are not cheap!).
DIY where you can! I designed our invitations. We put together our candy bar for favors. I painted wooden signs for our venue that we hung on easels. It's very easy to spend a lot of money in a hurry if you're having someone else custom design/make some of these "special touches for you". But if you're crafty, get to it and do it yourself!

Tips to save $$$

Vendor Tip: If you are getting hitched in a smaller town, like I said earlier, you will notice a difference in pricing for vendors in a smaller, rural area vs. a city.
Groom's Cake vs. Flavored Cakes: Instead of doing an expensive groom's cake, we had a separate table full of smaller cakes of all different flavors (strawberry, chocolate, coconut, caramel, German chocolate, etc.). We also had a well-known bakery, Patsy's Bakery, in a small town not too far from where we got married do all our cakes. Someone recommended them to us and they were AMAZING to work with and much, much cheaper than other options we had seen.
Wooden Signs: See a wooden sign on Etsy you can't quit thinking about but you just don't want to spend $50 on it? Go to the plywood section at Home Depot/Lowes and buy some wood + stain. After staining the wood, use a paint pen to draw the outline of your sign onto the wood and then fill it in "calligraphy style". All in all, I think I paid around $100 for the supplies to make 6 signs for our big day!
Plates + Cutlery: Instead of building this into the cost of the food for our wedding, we ordered these products on Amazon. We were able to pick out something that would match well with our theme while still saving money. We did BBQ at our reception for reference!
Dress: I fully realize this option will not be best for everyone but I bought my dress from a consignment sale in Knoxville. There were dresses that had been worn before and dresses that still had the tags on them. For reference, my dress still had tags on it and the original price was $1,499 and I paid $500 for it. Can I get an amen?
Bridesmaid Dresses: We looked and looked and looked for the perfect dress for all 3 of my girls. It's hard, people. And we also didn't want a dress that totally broke the bank. We ordered ours from KF Bridal after trying on an almost exact replica of their dress at David's Bridal that was $80 more expensive. I love David's, but we found that the quality was great at KF Bridal and the price point was much better!
Venue: If possible, it will save you money to get married + have your reception at the same site. This might not be possible in certain circumstances but keep that in mind when looking. Paying for two venues can really up your cost.
Programs: Anyone who knows me knows I love Vistaprint! I designed and printed our invitations, return cards and envelopes from Vistaprint. They run great specials almost all the time as well so watch out for those while you're getting ready to order!
Favors: I talked about this earlier in the post but for our favors we did an old-fashioned candy bar. I think whatever you to for this piece, it's much cheaper to DIY where you can!
Flowers: I would definitely recommend going into a meeting with your florist having a budget in mind. It's easy to get carried away with flowers and having a budget will allow your florist to work within a certain amount and still make your big day absolutely beautiful!

Prayer: I mentioned above in the section about choosing your wedding party about us recognizing special people in our lives in many different ways throughout our ceremony. One of these ways was through a special time of prayer over Dustin and I in our ceremony. When I look back, this is one of my favorite memories of our whole ceremony!
Corporate Worship: After our unity painting (see section earlier in the post), we had everyone sing How Great Thou Art together. It was the sweetest time of worship and a memory I will never forget.
Unity Painting: See section earlier in this post for more details but we chose to do a unity painting instead of candles, cross, etc. You can find more ideas on how to do this on Pinterest but we loved doing something different and unique to us and our hobbies for this element of our ceremony.

Last but definitely not least, here are some shoutouts to our amazing vendors!

Taylor Meo Photography

Taylor Meo, I just don't even have enough words to convey how amazing you did capturing our day!

Taylor did our engagement and wedding photos and we will treasure them for the rest of our lives. She planned out our day really well in terms of how to get the most out of our time with her. She's very efficient and good at rounding up people and staying on task. She cues really well when it's just you and your groom and has such an eye for amazing spots for photographs.

She even thought of things like waiting until after your first dance to have your guests form a food line - that way they are not eating in all of your photos. I would not have thought of that!

Also, she prayed over Dustin and I at our reception and that was a memory I will never forget. I loved that we were so like-minded and she was so encouraging throughout the entire day!

Wedding photography is such an investment but it is worth it. Often its the only and/or best documentation you have of your big day, so choose your photographer wisely!

Hannah Duncan - Makeup Artist

I went to high school with Hannah. We shared a love for acapella choir class and I've always just loved her! She was the first person I reached out to when we got engaged. I had seen her do another girl's makeup we went to high school with and she looked incredible.

I did a trial with her which really helped us talk about my skin and what I wanted on my wedding day in terms of coverage of foundation, lip color, false eyelashes/not (in case you're wondering, I did end up wearing them but we didn't go overboard - they looked very natural).

Again, makeup is an investment, but having someone who actually knows what they're doing do your makeup on your big day will make a big difference. She helped me:

know what to do when I cried and how to reapply powder
choose the right lip color and left me a trial size to reapply throughout the night
choose the right MAC foundation that would be similar to the coverage level I'm used to wearing
keep in mind what would look best in photographs later

Potter's Shed - FLorist

You guys. Our flowers were breathtaking! Like I said earlier, we went in with a budget and Potter's Shed did an amazing job staying within our guidelines. They did all of our bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres AND a beautiful arbor at our ceremony site.

I wanted neutrals and greens that would compliment the girls' dresses (and mine) and they did a fabulous job!

Braeden's BBQ - Caterer

Dustin and I are both huge BBQ fans so we decided that's what we wanted for our meal! They did a great job setting up + serving and the food was great (as always!).

I tried to capture as much as I could of our big day but please email me if you have specific questions I didn't cover. I'm happy to add to this post over time.

I hope this helps you along planning your big day! Keep in mind, you will never get married again. Enjoy the process and take the stress with a grain of salt. The day is really about you and your future spouse so make decisions about creative elements that most clearly reflect your personalities and desires.

For us, my main priority was that people leave our wedding having seen the Lord. I wanted Him to get the honor and the glory in each element of our day. My prayer is that to our guests, that was evident!

Cheering for you,
Rebecca Dotson George

0 Comments