Intimate Ballroom Wedding
Ultra glamorous sans the fuss, ballroom wedding with a cozy feel. That’s how Emma and Craig’s wedding shot by Apryl Ann Photography could be described in a nutshell. The different shades of blue with sparkly gold touches set the tone for the day, which included Toms shoes in glittery blue for the bridesmaids for the reception!
From the bride, Emma: As soon as Craig and I got engaged, we started planning the wedding. Actually, let’s be honest, we started talking about the aesthetic of the wedding before we got engaged. We did not want the typical ballroom wedding, which is why we chose the Aldredge House. We love the vintage feel of the house, and we loved that it felt much more personable and cozy than a typical ballroom wedding. Once we chose the venue, everything else fell in to place.
Including the venue, my four most important wedding components were my dress, the invitations, and the photographer. First, my dress was love at first sight. The minute I tried it on, I knew it was for me. I checked that off my list early in the process. Then I started researching invitations, save the dates, wedding programs, and was shocked to see how expensive paper goods can be. I talked to some people at Paper Source and read some DIY blogs and decided to tackle the invitations – letterpress and screenprinting – myself. I am now obsessed with making invitations and cards and anything involving paper. The invitations set the tone for the wedding. A lot of brides overlook invitations, but I think that they deserve a lot of thought, because they really do set the tone. We received so many compliments on our invitations with several people telling us that they were the most beautiful invitations that they have ever seen and they could not wait to see more at the wedding.
Now comes our photographer – Apryl Ann. I found her featured on Ruffled and fell in love with her vintage, whimsical, personal style. We knew she was perfect once we met her. Our photographs will last forever, and we did not want to skimp on the photographer and regret it later. We are only doing this once, and we want the photos to be perfect, and Apryl delivered. We could not be happier with Apryl and her beautiful photos of the most important time of our lives to date.
My advice to other brides is to slow down and enjoy every moment of the day. I had put a year of my life planning the wedding and was so anxious the day of that I feel like I missed out on some moments. I never saw the food display (we are separately upstairs at the reception site before being announced, which was awesome). I never saw family photos that were placed around the house for guests to view. There are guests that I have seen in photos from the wedding that I did not get to see. The night was a blur and over before we knew it, but it was the most perfect night of our lives. Enjoy every minute.
Oh, and our DJ suggested doing a last dance for the evening, and I highly recommend it! It was such a sweet moment and some of my favorite photos from the entire day are of Craig’s tux loosened and me in my Tom’s and we are in such bliss, spinning around the room.
Wedding Songs:
First dance: Mushaboom by Feist
Father and bride dance: Teach Your Children by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
Mother and groom dance: I Hope You Dance by Leanne Womack
Bride and groom last dance: Home by Edward Sharpe
Wedding Vendors (Dallas, Texas):
Photographer: Apryl Ann Photography / Ceremony: Greenland Hills United Methodist Church / Reception: Aldredge House / Cake: Frosted Art Bakery / Caterer: Food Glorious Food / Dress: Lazaro from Stardust Celebrations in Plano/ Invitations and Paper Goods: Designed by Alaina Cherup of CheerupCherup on Etsy; printed by bride / Out of Town Guest Bags: Purchased from Enviro-tote and made by bride / Bridesmaid and Groomsmen shoes: Toms / Transportation: 360 Limos / DJ: Mathias Carthen of Randal Stout Entertainment / Wedding Planner: Factor 110 from Oklahoma City / Bride Earrings: Kenneth Jay Lane
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Historic Ballroom Wedding
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Kelowna Ballroom Wedding
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Ballroom Rhode Island Wedding
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Whimsical Ballroom Wedding Ideas
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Sweet Ranch Texas Wedding
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Weekly Wrap Up
We’re finally getting some great weather this week here in NY, which has us dreaming of spending our afternoons at a French bistro, dining and chatting the night away. That’s this week’s color card, inspired by moody palettes of a quaint sidewalk bistro. Chalkboard menu sign, off white blooms and bakery treats…hmmm hmmm hmmm!
Colors: sugar, cocoa and chalkboard
In case you missed any features from this week…
A homemade ranch wedding in California
Wedding inspiration with stunning floral arrangements
This double wedding by a lake
Our Pennsylvania Local Wedding Guide
A chic Brooklyn affair
An assortment of our favorite hanging centerpieces
A handmade wedding from Amber Springs
This DIY Tennessee wedding
A rustic chic Santa Barbara wedding
And finally, a few gems from our Recycle Your Wedding classifieds…
A vintage typewriter from the early 1900s
Amber bottles with chalkboard tape
BHLDN Yarrow-in-Flower dress, size 2
Collection of 12 mason jars
4 vintage cigar boxes
Happy weekend, everyone!
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Weekly Wrap-Up
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Weekly Wrap-Up + Giveaway Winners!
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Weekly Wrap Up
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Weekly Wrap Up + A Winner!
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Weekly Wrap-Up + Coastal Inspiration
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Rustic Santa Barbara Wedding
This wedding sent to us by Jen Rodriguez is a true labor of love by the bride, her husband, and their friends. Nearly every detail was executed as a DIY project. We were beaming with glee to learn that Camryn and Brian took lots of inspiration from Ruffled, right down to the DIY string chandeliers we posted a while back. The bridal party used an actual school bus as their transportation, in a fitting nod to the couple’s respective careers as schoolteachers!
From the bride, Camryn: I really loved the romantic, rustic, with a touch of vintage thrown in look. I guess the best way to describe the look was romantic elegance. Brian and I are not super fancy people, so we wanted it to look and feel simple, yet beautiful. Our venue was Spanish-looking, so we had to incorporate the look with the natural look of the venue. Good thing the look I loved fit naturally with the look of the venue. I loved the natural color palette. The hardest question to answer was, “What are your colors?” I didn’t have any specific colors, but I loved the natural colors: ivory, light browns, earthy greens, etc. I also loved the natural fabrics: burlap, lace, and linen, all of which were incorporated into our wedding.
Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? I have tons of advice! I always read to “not sweat the small things.” For someone who is detailed oriented, that is a very hard thing to do. However, in the end, it really is about you and the person you are marrying. The only person that notices those details is you! My best advice I can give is that it is your wedding day. If you really want something, go for it. You can make a lot of it, or use your creative friends! A wedding really doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to be beautiful.
View all images from this wedding in the gallery
From the photographer, Jen Rodriguez: Camryn and Brian are both teachers so when they decided to tie the knot it only seemed fitting that they not only included her love for all things soft, vintage and beautiful but that there was also a nod to their teaching backgrounds. Camryn and her buddies turned their garage into wedding central creating every last detail of the wedding (with the only exception being the wooden numbers for the centerpieces) by hand. Even the wooden boxes were hand made by the bride! From the gorgeous signage, again lettered by hand, to the amazing cookie and milk dessert bar that included some of the families favorite cookie recipes, to the hand made string balls that hung from the tree above the ceremony location they did not overlook any details and it truly felt like them. But I would have to say that a highlight for me was that they hired a school bus to transport the bridal party which was so fitting since the bride and groom are both teachers!
Wedding Vendors (Santa Barbara, CA):
Venue: Rockwood Women’s Club / Wedding Photographer: Jen Rodriguez / Event Design: Adored Wedding Design / Day-of Coordination: Joy de Vivre / Wedding Flowers: Acton Country Flowers / Wedding Caterer: Command Performance Catering / Wedding Cake: MJB Cakes / Wedding Hair and Makeup: Janelle Lewis of N’Style Salon / DJ: SOS Entertainment
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Chic Santa Barbara Wedding
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Woodsy Santa Cruz Wedding
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Rustic Romantic California Wedding
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Green and Yellow Rustic Wedding
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Ontario Rustic Wedding
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DIY Tennessee Wedding
When we say this next wedding is handmade, we mean every.single.bit. Bride Rachel made her own wedding gown from lace curtains, made the bouquets and boutonnieres, and her sister made all the food for the day. Josh and Amber of Ulmer Studios captured the day magnificently, including a stroll to see some nearby baby horses! Keep an eye out for the getaway where the guests soared paper airplanes towards the newlyweds as they made their exit.
From the bride, Rachel: I wanted our wedding to be different from the traditional wedding because traditional just does not represent my husband and me. Both of us are pretty laid back and we wanted a wedding that allowed us to be ourselves and our guests to be themselves. In order to do this, we incorporated many things that would represent who we are. We knew that we wanted our venue to be somewhere that people would feel comfortable, so we chose a barn in which the owner allowed us to decorate and setup how we wanted. One of the other ways we incorporated a laid back feel was in our and our wedding party’s attire. I chose to design my own dress so that it would fit my style better than a dress from a bridal boutique. I’m not a seamstress by any means, so with the help of my wonderful mother, who can sew, we were able to take a plain sweet heart dress, I purchased online, and turn it into a dress that I loved. We altered the dress so that it would be more form fitting and purchased lace to create the look that I wanted.
The most unique part of my dress is that the lace is actually a curtain I purchased from K-Mart! We looked at several fabric stores, but were unable to find the pattern I wanted, so my mom began looking at lace curtains and found the exact pattern that I had in mind for my dress. I knew that I wanted to incorporate something of my grandmother’s, so I used one of her brooches and pinned it to a braided belt. For my shoes, I knew that I wanted something a little vintage-ish, so I had purchased a pair of cream oxford type heels from Modcloth which went perfectly with my dress. We also wanted my husband’s attire to match his personality, so in order to do that we actually just went through his closet and chose pieces that would match with the colors I had chosen for the wedding and to go along with a newly purchased pair of skinny jeans and tie.
As for the wedding party’s attire, I wanted a combination of the style of the wedding and each member’s style. In order to do this, we shopped for outfits that each member would want to wear after the wedding, but were in the color scheme of the wedding. As far as the decor goes, I wanted both a natural and a vintage feel. In order to do this, we interspersed lace and wood decor throughout the ceremony and reception.
For the ceremony, I made the bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages from lace, burlap, sticks, and wheat tops. I gathered sticks from my yard, and purchased the other items needed from Joann’s. My inspiration for this was wanting to be original. After looking at a lot of wedding websites, I knew that I wanted to create something that I hadn’t seen before. For the reception, in order to incorporate both the vintage and natural look, I used lace table cloths, a mixture of vintage serving platters along with vintage coffee mugs for our coffee/hot tea/hot chocolate bar and then slabs of wood that my dad cut and made into tiers for the display of the pies and our wedding cake. Our wedding cake was just a small cake since we served pies, cake pops, lemons bars, salted caramel chocolate bars, pumpkin donut holes, fruit, and trail mix to the guests. The cake topper was an estate sale find. My sister baked our cake, but we hadn’t been able to decide on a cake topper until my dad found these two little owls at an estate sale and I knew they had to be on top of our cake to represent my obsession of owl figurines, which just so happens to be a family obsession on both sides.
Other things that we did to create a wedding that represented us was to make portions of the ceremony and reception that portrayed what was important to us,and what we liked. For the ceremony, we knew that we wanted God to be represented in it. He is everything to my husband and I and we wanted to represent that to our guests. In order to do this, we wanted the unity portion of our ceremony to show that He brought us together. At first, we had a hard time deciding how to do this until Alex researched unity ceremonies and found the unity braid. The braid has three strands representing God, Alex, and me. While we braided strips of lace, burlap and yarn we had one of Alex’s favorite worship songs (Divine Romace by Phil Wickham) playing and then once we braided the belt we asked the guests to join us for a moment of worship until the song ended.
For the reception, we had family and friends perform songs for us to dance to. As a surprise to me, Alex, my brother-in-laws and sweet friend surprised me with a performance of “Kiss the Girl” from my favorite Disney movie “The Little Mermaid.” It was the best surprise ever and really made our reception represent us.
Wedding Vendors (Lebanon, TN):
Wedding Venue: Private Residence / Wedding Photographer: Ulmer Studios / Wedding Dress: Made by Bride / Bride’s Shoes: ModCloth / Lace Bouquets and Boutonnieres: made by bride / Wedding Caterer: Kendra Uhl, sister of the bride / Officiant: James Ulmer, father of the bride
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Tennessee Farm Wedding
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Homespun Tennessee Wedding
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Knoxville Tennessee Wedding
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Vintage Southern Wedding in Tennessee
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Handmade North Carolina Wedding
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