skWhitneyAmanda tells us about her traditional Southern wedding.

Posted Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:23 PM

Knot Name: skWhitneyAmanda
Wedding Date: May 16, 2009

Knot Annie: Tell me about the Knotties on your board that you post on. Have you ever joined them for a GTG?

skWhitneyAmanda: I mostly post on the May 09 board, and I love those ladies to death. I've never been big on Internet friendships, but over the past 14 months or so, I truly feel like some of those ladies have become very good friends. Due to the national nature of our board, I haven't gone to a GTG with any of them -- yet! A handful of May 09ers are coming to my neck of the woods for Disney vacations and I can't wait to meet up with them then!

I also post on my local Central Florida board. I had some issues many months ago and I shied away from them, but the dynamic has totally changed recently and the ladies there are awesome! I'm meeting up with them this month for my first GTG in nearly a year and I'm so excited!

KA: Describe your wedding.

skWhitneyAmanda: Tradition and formality are both extremely important to my fiance and me, and our day will exemplify both things. We’ll be married in an 86-year-old cathedral in a traditional Episcopal ceremony with a pipe organ and full communion. My engagement ring is as old as our church. My fiance and his groomsmen will be wearing tailcoats and I’ll be in a gorgeous ball gown; I expect it to be the single most formal wedding any of our friends have ever attended, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Our reception will be held in a ballroom at a golf course that was built in 1923, and we’ll waltz our first dance. There are hints of the South everywhere -- our tables are named after cities throughout the South, and we’ll have pictures taken with top hats and parasols. I want to look at my wedding decades down the road and know, even as times change, that because my wedding was so classic, I wouldn't do anything differently, and I think I'm well on my way.

KA: How have the Knotties on your board helped you plan?

skWhitneyAmanda: I don't even know how many ideas the May 09ers and I have bounced and continue to bounce off each other! This dress or that one? Which centerpiece idea do you like? I have no idea what to do about not inviting children -- what do you think I should say? We ask questions and we answer them honestly -- I love that about our board.

On the CFL side, my maid of honor was a CFL Knottie before I was, so at least one CFL Knottie has been indispensable to my planning process! Early in my planning, I asked a lot of advice from the CFL girls, and in the final stages, I find myself going to them even more. Like I said in the previous question, I can't wait for the GTG this month to finally put faces with the names of all of these helpful and supportive ladies!

KA: Favorite bio on The Knot?

skWhitneyAmanda: I absolutely love BabyGurlE's bio. She had such an elegant and classy affair and her photography was gorgeous! I also love RedShoeGirl's for her veil picture collection and pwallyholly for her venue and photography. She also had some great DIY projects!

KA: Best vendor that you’ve worked with and why?

skWhitneyAmanda: I've got two vendors that my day wouldn't be complete without. My coordinator at my reception venue, Cathie, is incredible. She worked with us on budget and any ideas that we had. She has assured me that the day will go off without a hitch -- and even better, if there’s a hitch, I won't find out about it! I truly trust that she’ll make my day beautiful and I'm so grateful to her for that. My photographer, Misty Miotto, is incredible. My fiance and I met through photography, so finding the perfect photographer was the most important task we took on as a couple. He wanted great equipment and superior black-and-whites; I wanted a great eye for composition and phenomenal color photographs. Only one online portfolio interested us both enough for a meeting, and that was Misty. We met her and signed her that night. She shot our engagement pictures on the beach in Southwest Florida and they were incredible. She's so much fun to work with and I trust she’ll go above and beyond the call of a shutterbug to make every minute of our day enjoyable. Her work is really the only thing we'll have to remember our day by and I truly believe that she’ll capture everything.

KA: What will make your wedding stand out to your guests, and where did you find the inspiration?

skWhitneyAmanda: Classy, classic, and formal is what will stand out to our guests, without a doubt. Every wedding we've been to in recent years has been casual and laid-back. I expect our wedding to be as fun as the casual soirees that we've attended, but I want the formality of the evening to kick everything up a notch. We found the inspiration for it in our own heritage. Joe was born in Charleston about a century too late -- he's a little old man trapped in a 26-year-old's body. I was born in Southwest Florida to a family that helped shape the identity of our little city at the turn of the twentieth century and it shows in my personality -- I wish ladies still wore hats and gloves and drank tea with their girlfriends instead of martinis. We're taking our guests back to a time of grace and chivalry for a night, and I really hope that they walk away a little more content in today's hustle-and-bustle world than they were when they entered our time warp earlier in the evening.

KA: What are you looking forward to most on your wedding day?

skWhitneyAmanda: I can't wait to hear the first chords of “Canon in D” as the doors to the sanctuary open for my walk down the aisle, and I absolutely can’t wait to hear Joe say his vows to me. I've been dreaming of my wedding day for 20 years now. I've always wanted the big poufy dress and the dancing and the people that I love surrounding me, but even as a little girl, I wanted nothing more than to say “I do” to a man that I knew would honor and cherish me for the rest of my life. Through all the planning and craziness, the day is ultimately about that one-hour ceremony where I become Joe's wife. If at the end of the day everything has fallen down around me, as long as I get that moment in the church with my fiance and the priest, I’ll be a married woman and that is what I’m most looking forward to.

Thank you so much for being our latest Spotlight Knottie. I love that you're doing "Southern" as a theme. Very cute!

Link to bio: http://gatorwhitz.googlepages.com