Pretty Vintage Southern Wedding
Vintage dress lovers, get ready to swoon. The southern bride in our next feature sourced vintage dresses not just for herself, but all of her bridesmaids as well. Vintage details, hard work and lots of love combined to create a charming Virginia wedding.
From the bride. Jacob and I have known each other since middle school. We navigated our early years of high school together as best of friends and we finally decided to fall in love junior year of high school.
The family barn in which we celebrated is very special because it is over 70 years old and was falling apart as of last year. I had always dreamed of having my wedding reception in the barn where as a child I swung from the rope swing into puffy piles of hay fresh from the fields! As soon as we got engaged, I ran out there to take a second look, contemplating the time frame we had before the wedding. I was disappointed to find the barn in worse condition than I had remembered. My dad reassured me that it was also his dream to fix it up and use it as an entertainment center for our big family get togethers. With the help of dozens and dozens of wonderful and amazing friends and family, chopping down trees from our own backyard to make lumber, Grandma’s southern cooking, and lots of mason jars filled with water for our laborers, the barn miraculously transformed into a beautiful, historic structure. It’s just so charming.
I knew I wanted a vintage dress but I had no idea where to start. On the first day of our search, we found the dress! It’s a 1950’s wedding dress in great condition. Bygones referred me to a local Richmonder who specializes in vintage wedding dress restoration where I got it restored and fitted.
For the bridesmaid dresses, we searched for hours for vintage dresses online and in vintage shops. We ended up finding all of them except for one on ebay and etsy. The last one we found at good ol’ Bygones, where I found my dress. The bridesmaids dresses are basically my favorite part of the wedding. I loved them all so much!
For the reception, my mom, my grandma and I all collected hundreds of jars and old soda bottles from antique shops, a local farm that sold mason jars in bulk, etc. My grandma even went to Cracker Barrel and asked if she could have the adorable, little syrup bottles they throw away after use. She got a whole box full! A few years back, my dad found about 30 glass soda bottles from what looks like the 1950’s underneath the old general store on our property. They were some of our best finds! I ordered wildflowers wholesale and we arranged them ourselves the day of the wedding! For the tables, we bought lots and lots of yards of yellow gingham fabric to use as runners. We bought hankies from antique shops and giftwagon.com and used them on each table as well.
View all images from this wedding in the gallery
Wedding Vendors (Fredericksburg, VA):
Ceremony: Hartwood Presbyterian Church/ Reception: Bride’s family barn / Photographer: Carissa Gallo/ Flowers: Jan Williams Florals for bouquets and ceremony, family arranged reception flowers/ Wedding dress: Bygones Vintage Clothing/ Bridesmaids dresses/ Etsy and eBay/ Bride’s shoes: Payless/ Groom and groomsmen suits: Jos. A Banks/ Cake: family friend/ Wedding Invitations: Bride’s sister, Rachel
oh my. my mouth just literally hung open when i saw her dress. i am so in love with it. it is perfect.
and this whole story is like a fairytale. exactly how weddings should be.
Carissa Gallo is amazing 🙂
I’m proud to call her my friend.
this wedding is beautiful 🙂
there is a wonderful sweetness about it.
love
-bree
absolutely love the vintage dresses!
I adore this! These photos are so beautiful. I’ve seen the photographers work before and have been in love with everything she does.
My sweet friend Hannah! This was such a beautiful, beautiful wedding to attend and assist with, one of the most unique and beautiful I have ever attended!
I had the absolute pleasure of making the bridesmaids’ hairpieces, though it’s not listed here!
https://themarimakes.blogspot.com/2010/11/glasgow-easter-wedding.html
Wow!! I absolutely am in love with these photos
Beautiful wedding! I live in the same area and have been collecting mason jars (and also stalking Bygone’s for dresses!) and I was wondering anyone knows which farm sells them in bulk?
This has got to be one of, if not my very favorite wedding featured on this website so far. All of those dresses are amazing!! I can’t believe they are all vintage. That just makes me love them about 100x more.
Unbelievable there are so beautiful vintage wedding dress!
Very whimsical. Looking at this wedding I just feel as though these people are so *lucky* – this is like straight out of the movies. Adorable.
Julia xxx
What a gorgeous wedding!! I read this blog every day and am constantly inspired by all of the vintage styles, so I was surprised to see that this wedding took place in the city that I live in! So awesome, my favorite part has to be the bride and bridesmaids dresses.
Jamie (Rivers), I’m in Harrisonburg, about 2 hours away from Fredericksburg, and if you’re serious about it, I would suggest going to local antique stores and seeing if they buy from dealers… if they know what you’re looking for they’re often willing to help out :). If you don’t have any luck, email me at [email protected] because there are multiple places here I could direct you to (they’ve offered to track things down for my wedding)!
Thanks Alice!