peter & dianna

The following images was caught by James—I LOVE it.  I had to blog it.

My last wedding of 2009 has came and gone.  It was incredibly bittersweet, and one hell of a wedding to end with.  Peter and Dianna are just beautiful people, and I’m so fortunate that they chose me to photograph their big day. Their ceremony was held in Dianna’s parents’ backyard, located in Vonore.  Her BEAUTIFUL dress was completely custom made by the amazing Colleen Moore at White Orchid Bridal.  Um, wow!  It’s perfect! Bettina and Megan from Luxe Catering served a delicious spread and homemade ice cream for our bellies.  I love those girls too.  This wedding was perfect.  The only negative thing about their day was the high of 48 degrees.  My fingers were nearly frozen at the end of the night, but it was worth it

I wish I could write so much more about their fabulous wedding, but I’m so behind on packing!  I have to leave in about an hour to catch a plane to Nebraska to see my family.  For more on this wonderfully gorgeous event, click it on over to Style Me Pretty!

Here’s some more info about this awesome wedding, from the bride herself:

“As young architects Peter and I both have an eye for design and we viewed this as the most exciting project we had even gotten to work on!  And in the end I am so pleased that our personalities really do carry through down to the details.  The whole event was definitely DIY.  The wedding and reception were both held on my parents property and I wanted to make it as personable and as interactive as I could, from the advice cards, to the Polaroids, to the children sketchbooks.   We thought it was the responsible thing to do to keep the event as local and sustainable and ‘green’ as possible and that our vendors also shared this vision.  I had a blast spending the summer collecting old jars and bottles from local antique and junk stores and was thrilled when our florist was able to collect many of the flowers from their farm.  My parents always grow a big garden and were able to supply our caterers with potatoes, peppers, greens, and fresh herbs (doesn’t get any more local than that!).   We decided not to have a cake, but instead have ice cream.  Our caterers made 4 flavors of homemade ice cream: wedding cake, cinnamon, Guinness, and pumpkin.  I found 4 vintage ice cream scoops and it was a hit, even with the chilly temperatures!!

Peter is from Michigan and the majority of our guests were traveling from out of state.  I wanted to show some southern hospitality and have a little something in their hotel room to greet them, so with the help of my parents and fiancé we made little ‘love bird’ cookies and paired them with milk cartons in their fridge.  At each place setting there was a 1′ square piece of fabric, it was to serve as their napkin.  I bought fabric in 5 different patterns and ripped it into squares [we gave lots of them away, but the ones that are left we will use around our house].   Lavender was placed at each setting in memory of our grandparents and a tag that said “thank you for shaping us into loving partners.”   I adore graphic design and produced all the printed materials myself and am in the process of exploring a future in stationary design.  The invitations had a perforated RSVP postcard and the programs had a tear off advice card to be filled out and hung up.  Our favors were honey jars with fresh local honey- I located a gentlemen that raises bees and bought 5 gallons of honey in bulk to fill up the small glass jars, the extra scraps of fabric from the napkins were used on the top.  I stamped little bee tags and ta-da!  There were lots of children at the wedding and I didn’t want them to be left out, so they received their own personalized ‘Young Botanist Sketchbook’.  I scanned old drawings of some of the flowers we had as centerpieces and left several blank pages for the kids to practice their own sketches.  The book was designed with the intent that the kids could locate the flowers from the drawings and then hunt around for new plants to sketch themselves.  On the front cover a library card was meant to serve as log for the times and places they use the sketchbook.  A pencil was tied on the front to finish the gift.  We didn’t have a traditional guestbook and instead had a photo area.  Guests had their Polaroid photo taken on my great aunts antique sofa and then strung up along with the advice cards they filled out.  We had such a great time looking through the photos of all thr guests and reading their notes to us.  I gathered old mirrors and picture frames that I painted with chalkboard paint to use as signage, the frame by the photo area had been my grandparents and I was happy to incorporate vintage items that were already in the family.  I had also seen the ‘wedding tree’ project from August and After and loved it so much.  My Dad is an artist and he painted the tree, it made a nice contribution to have his artwork as part of our big day.  We used fall colors and plan to frame and display it in our home.

Since the wedding and reception was all at my parents we had the opportunity to shape the space into what we wanted plenty of time in advance.  Peter and strung up lots and lots of white lights in the pine trees above the dance floor.  It made a truly magical place to have our first dance and it was one of the most memorable moments of the night for me.  The weather didn’t quite behave as we would have liked, for this all outdoor event.  Luckily it didn’t rain, but with a high of 48 it was cold.  So to fight the chills and keep guests comfortable we had hot apple cider and a bonfire for roasting marshmallows.  I was so stressed about the potential for rain it was hard to relax but the ceremony dissolved all my worries: the setting was lovely and I was surrounded by people I love and standing  there with Peter. Near the beginning of the ceremony a squirrel ran across a limb right beside me and I saw a hawk circle in the sky, and at that point I knew everything was right and I felt at peace and so very happy.

My dress and the flower girl’s attire were custom made by the amazing Colleen Moore at White Orchid Bridal.  MadMen is our favorite show hands down and we were continuously thinking about incorporating the MadMen classic style in an up to date look.  Peter, his groomsmen, and ring bearer wore fedoras.  My ladies dresses were from Etsy and we hurried out to find rain boots 2 days before.  I started off wearing my little yellow flats but I ended up wearing my rain boots during the ceremony and reception, as the ground was really wet.

We pulled off the event for 150 people for $15,000 and I could not be more pleased with the way it turned out.  I loved all the planning and DIY projects I whipped up but there is no way I could have pulled off the day with out the help of our day of coordinators:  Shenna and Laura of Blush Bridal.  I am so glad there were able to take control of the set up and left me and my family at ease.  Thank you for your consideration for posting our wedding, I have enjoyed following along with SMP throughout the course of my engagement and will continue referring to it for lovely daily inspiration!  I would be thrilled to offer any additional info to you and your readers on my DIY projects if the opportunity arises.”