Bio

About Us

We met in August of 2000 after I transferred my junior year of college to Pepperdine University from the University of Tennessee. We had our first class together and started dating a few months later!

About Us
Engagement Photos taken September 2006 and Bridal Portraits taken March 31, 2007--both at El Matador Beach in Malibu, California
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Engagement Photos taken September 2006 and Bridal Portraits taken March 31, 2007--both at El Matador Beach in Malibu, California
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***WEDDING PICTURES

Since we had so many out of town guests, we made bags for them which were waiting in their hotel rooms. They included itineraries for the weekend, and all of our southern favorites: a list of favorite restaurants and things to do in Nashville, Mello Yello (can't buy it in CA), Tennessee T-cakes and Goo Goo Clusters.

This is the bridal portrait that we framed to display outside the reception (a southern tradition)

A good shot of my e-ring before the wedding band

The front of our ceremony program. Our program was a 9x12 card made of 4 ply museum board (about the thickness of a nickel) that I letterpressed

Our menu with the recurring "W" created for us by Pendragon. Also letterpressed on 4 ply museum board

Our invitations were 7x7 square also letterpressed on 4 ply museum board

Our invitation inserts (reception card and reply card) were letterpressed on 2 ply museum board

I wasn't really into having traditional white bridal shoes. I'll definitely wear these again!

We saw each other before the ceremony for pictures. I cried!

The first moment we saw each other

My sister and MOH

Both sides of the family

DH eagerly waiting for the ceremony to start!

This was supposed to be a circular chair setting. We wanted the front row very close to us. The people setting up the chairs had no idea what I was talking about...

A wonderful picture of my grandmother

DH walking his mom down the aisle

I love this picture of my mother--and its a good shot of the antique pearl necklace I got her

My sweet nephews as ringbearers

DH's first glance of the bride!

I cried the whole way down the long aisle

One of my favorite shots

We traded spots with our minister halfway through the ceremony so our guests could see our faces and we could see them too!

I had our WP take care of our unity candle so i'm not sure how we ended up with five candles. We kept all the candles lit after we lit the unity candle--something our minister told us he had seen and liked how it represented that we were still individuals but were now united in marriage.

I love these shots...they feel so southern and patriotic...and I feel like Scarlett and Rhett!

I had my placecards done last minute by knottie married_eg

This was the entrance to the ballroom, we used a runner at the reception instead of the ceremony with our monogram

The centerpieces for our outside tables.

Our aisle runner

These lined the head table in varying heights

Our favors--a glass bottle of RC Cola and a moonpie. In the 50's they were marketed together as "a southern thing" or snack.

We included this card with the favors that said "It's a Southern Thing" and on the inside told the history of the Moonpie (they're made in TN) and RC Cola

We had 11 long tables. I decided to do this when I started to do table assignments for rounds of 10. It was much easier to assign tables (we did assigned tables not assigned seating) when there were anywhere from 18-22 people per table. I didn't realize how much more this was going to cost in linens though, so we ended up using the hotel linens (still charged us $500, but it would have been over $3000 had we rented). They weren't quite as long as the ones you'd rent but I didn't notice

These were on the inner tables.

I went into the ballroom on Saturday morning to see green chair covers. They clearly weren't the "maize gold" we'd ordered, but they actually didn't look bad despite the fact that we didn't have green anywhere else in our wedding. I called my wedding planner who then called the hotel and they figured out that BBJ had just sent us the wrong color. BBJ put our 225 maize gold chair covers on a plane in Chicago at 4:30pm, they arrived at the Nashville airport at about 6:30pm, my WP was waiting for them at the airport and she rushed them to the hotel where they put all 225 on in 1 hour. When DH and I arrived at the hotel at 7:45pm every single maize gold chair cover was on, tied and steamed. Pretty amazing!

Our first dance to Frank Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight"

My father and I during our dance

I love this picture of DH and his mother

DH dancing with his grandmother

He was like this all night!

The following pictures are during "Rocky Top", the University of Tennessee fight song!

Somehow a guy caught the bouquet

I was begging DH to keep it tame!

They were trying to do a move from "Dirty Dancing"

I asked the DJ for no cheesy "organized dances" but he did it anyway, but it wasn't actually that cheesy and everyone loved it! (hey, at least it wasn't the chicken dance!)

We had cheeseburger sliders passed out at about 11pm...they were a huge hit!

Last Dance-"Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye

My sister (and MOH) and her husband

I couldn't believe my parents stayed until 1am!

Love this picture--you can see the indentation from the letterpress

The beautiful detail of Pendragon's calligraphy

This is what our cake looked like before it collapsed. We had our "W" monogram on the front instead of this design

I made photo albums on Shutterfly asking each of my BM's to be in our wedding

I left the first page blank so I could write a personal letter to each BM

We took a "mini-moon" the Monday after our wedding to the Bacara in Santa Barbara. We felt like we had the whole place to ourselves--there was hardly anyone there. We're taking a big trip to Antarctica in December 2007--pictures to come!

We had breakfast on our balcony every morning-my favorite!

We went on a honeymoon to Italy for two weeks over Christmas --this is San Galgano, one of our favorites, in southern Tuscany

Sant'Antimo--our other favorite, an abbey in a pretty remote area of Tuscany.

The Colosseum on Christmas night

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Ceremony Location - Belle Meade Plantation

Grade: A+ They were great. Even refunded my deposit after we moved our reception away from there with less than 4 months to go.

Reception Location - Nashville Downtown Hilton

Grade: A I really enjoyed working with Peter Casey. He joined the hotel with about a month and half until our big day and really took charge. The only downside with hotels is that they have a service charge for EVERYTHING!

Caterers - Rehearsal Dinner-Sambuca Restaurant

We had our RD out on the patio-wonderful food and great service. Lori Lou Waddell was great to work with.

Cake Creator - Family friend

Florist - Ilex

Photographer - Michael Norwood

Grade: A+ Best vendor of the entire wedding. Michael is so nice and really made us feel comfortable in front of the camera. I recommend him hands down!

Videographer - Premier Video

Disc Jockey - Nashville Party Authority

Grade: A NPA was good, I gave them a playlist and he went off of it twice, but it was ok because the crowed liked what he played. We definitely did not have a Nashville crowd at our wedding and so I wanted to make sure we played songs our crowd liked.

Musicians - Blue Tone Music

Grade: A+ We had a piano, cello, violin and trumpet for our ceremony. They were great and even learned two new songs-one for me walking down the aisle and one for our unity candle at no additional charge.

Transportation - Matchless Limo

Grade: A Great, on time and very professional

Invitations - myself

I learned how to do letterpress myself and did all of the paper products for our wedding. I'm thinking about doing it on the side since it was so fun! I also letterpressed personalized stationery for my BM's as part of their gift.

Rental Company - BBJ Linen

Tuxedos - Mens Wearhouse

Grade: A+ No problems at all here

My Dress - The Wedding Day

Grade: A+ My dress was Lia by Melissa Sweet. They were great!

Bridesmaid Dresses - Netbride

Grade: A The dresses were $100 cheaper on Netbride than in the store so I couldn't pass up that savings. They were great except all the girls had trouble with the zippers.

Hair Stylist - Mary Elizabeth Long

Grade: A+ She did exactly what I wanted! I had originally booked Christy at Elan and when I called a week before the wedding to confirm my appointment they had no record of it. So I booked Mary Elizabeth at the last minute.

Makeup Artist - Beth Pilgreen

Friend of mine--she did a wonderful job!

Wedding Coordinator - Karen Kaforey

Honeymoon Destination - Bacara in Santa Barbara and Italy

We went on a "mini-moon" at the Bacara in Santa Barbara right after our wedding. It was wonderful! We went to Italy six months later.

Other Vendor - Colin Parker--lighting

Other Vendor - Carmela Mazzaruli-calligrapher for envelopes

Carmela's work was beautiful and the best prices I found for calligraphy. She did the work very fast as well. melsinkwell@comcast.net

Other Vendor - Pendragon

There is nothing like the work of Pendragon! I had Maria write out our invitations and inserts and used it to create the plate that I letterpressed from. I used the "Spencerian" script but she does several different scripts. It was expensive but one of the best investments I made.

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