Images: An Endless Pursuit
A gorgeous wedding from An Endless Pursuit today on the blog, as I continue to attempt to pack my days with beautiful distractions of love & happiness. At work some of my female coworkers and I agreed that it feels like we’re going through EVERY stage of grief … every day … twice. It’s exhausting and I just keep hoping for the day that I wake up and feel more like I did, circa pre-election. At any rate, we’ll be planning to get a blog post up tomorrow, but will likely be quiet for the rest of the week as we enjoy some R&R with family. I’ll try to be on my best behavior with our Thanksgiving location literally causing us to drive by Drumpf’s Golf Course in NJ where he’s currently been hiding out. Oh and don’t forget! Small Business Saturday is this week and we do hope you’ll keep us on your shopping list for your DC friends, family, & engaged people you know!
Our biggest focus from the very beginning was making sure that our wedding had the feel of a fun, laid-back, family party. Lee has so many wonderful memories of gatherings both big and small that happened in that backyard, and we wanted to plan a day that would fit in right beside them: a day that would feel comfortable, colorful, joyful, inclusive, and familiar. Above all, we wanted our guests to walk away feeling like they’d just been to the best summer party they’d ever been to. We could have gotten married just about anywhere and in front of pretty much anyone, but we really wanted to do it in a place and with people that mean the world to us.
Because our focus was on everyone having a great time, the things that were most important to us were delicious food (that we’d actually choose to eat for ourselves on any summer day, if given the chance), fun summer drinks, a playlist of summer jams that took many late-night negotiations over many months to carefully curate, and a beautiful scene. One thing we learned was that there’s a fine line between “laid back” and “thrown together.” We were very lucky to work with the fantastic Lauren Niles, who helped us find lots of little personal touches that truly made the wedding ours—not to mention how organized she kept us!
If there’s any advice we have to offer couples planning a wedding it’s this:
-Plan a wedding that feels like you. Like the most fun, beautiful day you and your partner can dream up. Fancy and formal can be fun, of course, but if you go that route, you still don’t want guests to walk into the wedding—or worse, walk into the wedding yourself—and think: whose wedding is THIS? It’s a crazy, overwhelming enough thing to be getting married, surrounded by so many more people that you love than you ever usually get to see at once. You don’t want to feel like you’re playing dress-up or like you’re uncomfortable at your own wedding on top of all your other emotions! It will be much harder to have a great time.
-Stop prepping the day before your wedding. Once you head to your rehearsal dinner, if at all possible, be done with your work. A few little last-minute things here or there, fine. But anything that doesn’t get done by then, leave undone—or hand over to someone else. If you work right up until the moment you put on your wedding dress or suit, you’re going to have a hard time taking everything in, remembering the small things you wanted to do or say, and switching from stressed to ridiculously ecstatic.
-Don’t be afraid to ask people for help and try to get as much done as you can in advance! All those little handwritten place cards that you think you’ll be able to crank out while you and your bridesmaids hang out and watch movies the night before your wedding: they take way longer than you’d expect… AND you’ll probably have other things you need or want to do that evening. Also: don’t forget to ask your groomsmen for help, too!
-Write things down that you want to remember to do on your wedding day, and ask a friend to help you remember them. You may not remember those cool movie scenes you wanted to reenact during photos when you’re running out the door to get married to your favorite person with all of your other favorite people around!
-If you have a medium-sized or larger wedding, realize you won’t get to spend nearly as much time with every guest as you’d like. It’s ok, people understand it’s a crazy day! But you may feel badly about it later, so knowing this, make sure you find the people you HAVE to hug, and do it.
Vendors –> Photographer: An Endless Pursuit | Lighting: 27 Studios | Bakery: Dangerously Delicious Pies | Event Planner: Lauren Niles Events | Hair Stylist: top knot studio | Bakery: Grassroots Gourmet | Caterer: Heirloom | DIY or Handmade Goods Designer: Neil Barnes Handcrafted Farmhouse Tables | Submitted via Two Bright Lights
