OUR WEDDING: THE DESIGN

All About the Details

Are y’all ready for this?! The design was my favorite part of planning our wedding, and I had to make sure every detail was absolutely perfect! I will try to condense my thought processes for each section of our wedding day, but no promises! So, here goes nothing!

For our wedding, I knew I wanted to capture both DJ and myself wholeheartedly in the design. The design portion of any wedding is really where the bride and groom can personalize their wedding to fit them, and that is exactly what DJ and I wanted to do. Knowing that my favorite color is a blush pink, I knew that would be the focus for the event. From there, I just added in tons of greenery (mostly to save on the budget, secondly because it is super romantic) and a nice ivory to bring in some class. We also decided how we wanted our guests to feel as they attended our event. First and foremost, we wanted them to feel loved and important. We wanted to show them true Southern Hospitality and have God radiate through our wedding day. One of my biggest concerns was that when we said “southern” several might translate that to “rustic” which we did NOT want, so I was extremely clear when telling our creatives that we wanted a “southern romantic” theme. We are so thankful and blessed that the design turned out exactly like we wanted!

The easiest way to go through the design is to just start from the beginning: getting ready! DJ and I each got ready in our own separate farmhouses that are SO stinking cute! I gifted my girls with a super cute satin robe that had florals and their names embroidered on them! Even the flower girls got these! I also had one that was just plain white and was embroidered with “Painter” – my new last name! I also got them each a lavender colored makeup bag that had their first initials on them, and they loved it! DJ’s groomsmen all got engraved mugs that had their names on them, the role they played in our wedding and our original (oops!) wedding date! They got to enjoy their morning refreshments (AKA beer!) out of these mugs! DJ also really wanted everyone to have matching socks too, so of course he went and bought everyone American flag socks to wear. LOL!

Our ceremony design was very simple, but super meaningful to us. DJ’s father, David, built our ceremony arbor for us that we decorated with beautiful florals. Then, at the end of the aisle we used Summerfield Farms wine barrel rentals again with floral toppers on them. We also had our programs in a galvanized bucket and wine crates for our “unplugged ceremony” and “pick a seat not a side” signs to sit on! That was pretty much it! Simple, classic, beautiful. We loved it!

For attire, I wore a beautiful and classic ballgown from Rebecca Ingram. It made me feel like a real-life princess and was so fun to spin in! My girls all wore David’s Bridal bridesmaid dresses. I went with the mix-matched theme, so we had three color variations of pink and three dresses. It turned out so pretty and wasn’t even that difficult to coordinate! For the boys, DJ wanted his own suit, so he wore a spring blue, and his guys all wore light grey. They had the same ties and pocket squares though. Everyone coordinated, but had their own flare! We thought it was a fun way to showcase everyone’s different styles and personalities into our bridal party.

To dive deeper into the details of our reception design, let’s start with the decor. Thankfully, Summerfield Farms makes decor SUPER easy since the Barn is so beautiful on its own. Then, they also offer several rentals on site that just up the elegance from there. To soften the Barn, we added their chiffon draping to the doors of the Barn. These just really made it feel like a wedding since they are a nice ivory color. Then, we added a farmhouse sweetheart table that we finished with more chiffon runners, Mr. and Mrs. white wooden signs from Hobby Lobby, greenery, and we had a vase set and ready to go to add my bouquet to when we sat down to eat. We also had a hanging ladder above the sweetheart table that was totally decked out in tons of draping greenery. It was STUNNING. A few other pieces we rented from Summerfield Farms were an easel for our welcome sign, lanterns for our centerpieces that we added greenery and florals around and a bike cart for our desserts.

Speaking of desserts, my husband doesn’t like cake! Because of this, we decided early on that we would only have a small cake from Publix (absolutely delicious – we chose strawberry with cream cheese icing) and an assortment of pies made my DJ’s family! We had pecan pie (his favorite), apple pie and cherry pie for our options, and everyone LOVED this! Since our wedding ended up being in September rather our original June plan, the fall inspired pies were perfect! This was such a fun way to really highlight something DJ loves and once they saw our dessert options they said “DJ chose these!”

Before I get ahead of myself, let’s move back to the cocktail hour space. Summerfield Farms has a beautiful upstairs terrace for cocktail hour that has a super cool silo bar. We knew that we wouldn’t need much of any design upstairs, so we opted for a fun memory table alternative here. As you may know, DJ and I have been together for over six years at the time of our wedding. We have attended three proms together, graduated four times, bought a house, got a puppy, and more! So, instead of a memory table, we created a “walk down memory lane” table where we highlighted major moments of our lives together. It was super special and now we have those photos hanging on our walls in our home! Also in the cocktail hour space was our seating chart. I may have gotten a little carried away with this one. I had a vision for the wire panel look with each clothespins holding on each table, so I had DJ go to Lowe’s Hardware and find some panels for me, we painted them a dusty rose color and zip-tied them together to make them sit like an open book. Then, we added a card for each table that had everyone’s names on them and finished it with some lush greenery! It looked really cool even if it was a crazy idea!

Moving on to the tablescape, we went with an ivory poly tablecloth, blush satin napkins, wooden X-back chairs, and just traditional white dinnerware with silver flatware. We also had three different types of centerpieces too! One was the lanterns mixed with florals and greenery at the base, and we placed floating candles in each of these. Another was a wooden box that we had florals and greenery in with votives around it. And the last one was actually our bridesmaid bouquets! Right before we did our grand entrance, our coordinator came out and grabbed all of the girls bouquets and placed them in vases on a few of the tables. We finished it with votives as well. I was totally obsessed with the classic and romantic tables that we had!

A few other design elements that we chose for our reception were our guest books (yes, plural) and card box. We decided for our guest book that we wanted something that we could use and something that was home decor. For our primary one, we chose an oversized matte surrounding one of our engagement photos. For our secondary one, we chose a bible that had large margins and asked guests to find their favorite verse, highlight it and leave us a note! Each of these are so cherished for us now! Our card box is a simple white treasure chest from Hobby Lobby that went with our overall design and we left all of our cards in it, and it’s now part of our home decor too! Can you see a trend here? Pro tip: Design your wedding with home decor in mind!

For our grand exit, we chose to use sparklers which turned out super cool in the night sky as it always does, and we gave our guests dog treats to take home to their fur babies as favors! The little bags were my favorite! We stamped them with a large paw print that underneath read “from our pup to yours.” It was a unique way to include Oakley in our design!

That was pretty much everything for our design! We loved how our wedding turned out so much! Everyone knew right away that it was us from the moment they stepped onto the property, which is exactly what we wanted! We have received so many complements about our design, florals and just our wedding in general, and we are so happy that everyone had such a great time. I have attached as many photos as I can to this blog post for now, but don’t worry if something I talked about isn’t pictured yet! The final photo roundup will have tons of photos of everything at the end of this wedding series! Stick around to see it all come together!