Recently Engaged? Planning your dream wedding? Not engaged yet, but know it's coming? Deciding what traditions to keep and what you want to leave behind can be incredibly tough. You want to make everyone happy but also for your wedding to represent who you are as a couple. Maybe you’re longing for tradition but also want to shake things up. Whatever your reason for being here, I’m SO glad you found our little corner of the web and that we get to hang out for the next few minutes! I hope you walk away feeling encouraged and inspired to figure out just what it is that you want!
So here's the deal: there are a million and five people that will have an opinion on how your day should go. But the one thing I really want you to take away after reading this is: it's your day. I know how overwhelming this all is probably feeling right now, but not to worry! We're here to help! Even if you think you already know what you want or you decide on something totally different for your wedding, it can be super helpful to know what other people did without having to feel obligated to take their advice, so here are 5 aspects of a "traditional” wedding we kept and 5 we left out. And if at the end of this, you hate everything we did, that’s totally fine because 1. it’s YOUR dang day. and 2. we’ll probably never know anyways. Here's to planning your dream day, and having it exactly how you want it!
Keep it: 1. Wedding Party
Tyler and I know just how sweet our community is, so when it came time to decide who we wanted standing with us, we knew it wasn't something we were willing to pass up on. My best advice in choosing who will stand with you is to 1. remember there's no "rule" that says you and your fiancé have to have the same number of people on each of your sides. 2. "nontraditional" members are welcome, too! (want your brother for your Man of Honor? Sister of the Groom as Best Maid? Dogs as flower girls/ Ring Bearers?) This is the 21st Century, friends, have at it. 3. Don't be afraid to pick exactly who you want and not the people you don't. You do not have to ask your childhood best friend, just because you always dreamed about it, and you shouldn't be afraid to ask people you've only known for a few years or months if they’re your closest friend. Pick who you want. Who's walked through life with you. Who speaks wisdom and truth into your very being. Who builds you up. And who you want to continue speaking life and truth into your marriage. You won't regret it, I promise.
Left it: 1. Huge Guest List
We had 48 guests at our wedding. Including our photographers, wedding party, family, everyone. Believe me, friend. You do not have to invite every person you or your parents have ever met, liked, loved, whatever to your wedding. Here's the thing: your wedding will be a blur. Even when you have a whole weekend to linger. It's still a blur. People will still leave earlier than you'd like. You still won't get to talk to everyone. So pick the people that you think, "my day wouldn't be the same unless they were there to witness it." and then know that it will still be a good day if all hell breaks loose and one of your very important people can't make it. Take it from me, sweet friend, your grandparents still love you even if they can't show up and squeeze you in person on your big day. So if you don't feel like you need your grandmother's second cousin or your mom's stepsister's ex-husband's new wife's son, that's okay. But if you do, that's okay, too! Set your budget and then get to work on the guest list. Don't be afraid to set a number cap. Look up the percentage of people likely to come to your wedding & go from there. Make an A list & a B list and wait for RSVPs. Compromise by having a larger "celebration" of your marriage at one of your family's churches. Whatever. Just make sure that you stick to your guns whatever you decide.
Kept it: 2. Flowers
I knew I wanted a ridiculously extravagant bouquet. I also knew that it would be insanely expensive to get it from a florist. So like a lot of things we kept that you'll read about later on, we still didn't go about it in a traditional way. We got our flowers in a bulk order from Sam's. No joke. Sam's club is 100% the way to go. I recommend it to my brides and grooms all. the. time. We got a bulk order of greenery and one of all white flowers, and we were set. They were delivered Thursday, then my parents packed them up and drove them all the way to the mountain. We unpacked them Friday afternoon and Saturday night after the rehearsal dinner (& our sweet, sweet time of worship & prayer with our wedding party and families--- also totally recommend carving out time to linger a little after the rehearsal dinner. It was so sweet), my girls and I sipped wine & built our bouquets together, and it was SO fun! There were so many flowers leftover, that we had bouquets covering every surface of the cabin and filling the pockets of our flower men to toss. They were full of eucalyptus and some extra greenery from my parents' backyard and beautiful blooms.
Left it: 2. Bouquet / Garter Toss
Could you imagine having that thing chucked at your face from over someone’s shoulder? I mean, look at how flexed my forearm is there! that joker was heavy. I’m not even coordinated enough to throw things well when I’m looking straight at you! Yeah, so that's not really a valid reason. Obviously, I could have tossed something much smaller. But how many times have you awkwardly felt obligated to try and snag a little luck at snagging a man + a ring by grabbing a bouquet awkwardly tossed over a shoulder to "Single Ladies". Or awkwardly blushed and tried to look away when a groom gets on his knees and ducks under his new bride's dress to remove her garter with his Grandparents 10 feet away? Yikes. Not a good time. Notice the number of times I said awkward? not on accident, friends. Since our guest list was so small and mostly consisted of family, we really didn’t have many single friends there. Nobody likes to be the single person at a wedding. And they especially don't love to have it rubbed in their face when they are. So we decided to leave it out. And you know what? Nobody noticed. Or if they did, they didn't mention it to us. One of the things we really wanted was to celebrate our community and how much they mean to us, and by skipping out on just a few things we didn’t care for anyways, we were able to do that without being distracted by a long list of things we "had to do."
Kept it: 3. Dress
Starting this one off with a fun fact for you: this photo wasn't actually taken before our wedding. peep the mud from our dreamy, foggy, rainy, mountain wedding at the bottom. I kinda like it better that way, if I'm being honest. Because I, too, was the little girl that dreamed of a fairy tale wedding. It just happened that my idea of a fairy tale wedding grew with me. So at some point, I stopped wanting to be Cinderella and started wanting something different. But I still knew I needed just the right dress. I found this one the first day I even tried on wedding dresses. It was a sale dress at David's Bridal. Not what I expected, or thought I wanted, but still exactly right for me and for our day. It passed all my hike up a mountain tests in the store and held up beautifully for our day. It's classic and elegant and about as timeless as a wedding dress ever is, and I’m so so glad I kept this tradition and got my dream dress. Even more glad that it didn’t cost a fortune to do so. You can find a dress for less than $500, friend. I promise you can.
Left it: 3. Wedding Cake
I'm a frosting snob. Not afraid to admit it. Not a big fan of bakery frosting. Plus, we were on a tight budget, and even if we weren’t, not many wedding cakes can survive that many miles up a gravel road, anyways. So that pretty much ruled out traditional cake. Instead, our moms made pound cakes, and we topped them with sugared peaches and strawberries, and they were delicious. We even took some with us to Mexico! No need for frosting that probably also would have melted in the middle of July.
Bonus Left it: Cake smashing
Here’s why: It took us a long time to find each other. the love of our lives. and then we spent 30 minutes promising forever to one another. And then we got to sit down and steal about 10 minutes to eat before slicing our cake. It’s just not quite our style to follow up such a sweet wedding by smashing cake into the other’s face. But maybe you and your fiancé are are more playful than we are, so hey! get to smashing! and then lick it off, too because it makes for some super adorable photos!
Kept it: 4. Dad Walked Me Down the Aisle
My dad is my hero. He always has been. So I never questioned whether he would walk me down the aisle. (p.s. Tyler also asked him for my hand in marriage before proposing) We walked down the stairs to Drew Holcomb's "I Want You to Live Forever," and when I met Tyler at the end, Daddy gave me a kiss on the cheek and Tyler a hug, and we left out the part about "Who gives this woman..." because I’m a strong and independent woman and I chose Tyler as my husband, not my parents or anyone else. Friend, please don’t hear me say that if you want to keep that line it doesn’t make you a strong and independent woman, too. That’s not at all what I mean. It just wasn’t for us.
Left it: 4. Married By a Minister
Nobody said you have to get married by the preacher in the church you grew up in. My brother married us. He designed our ceremony based on the transcript from my parents' wedding almost 30 years ago. It was sweet and funny and everything we wanted it to be. We’re based in Tennessee and “recently” the powers that be decided that anyone that isn’t officially ordained by the Church or a Justice of the Peace can’t legally officiate a wedding. But I’m going to let you in on a couple secrets: 1. It isn’t all that recent of a law. and 2. No one is going to question it unless you ask them to. So if you’re like us, and you believe that marriage is a covenant made between the two of you and the Lord and there’s no going back from that regardless of who signs your marriage license, then do what you want.
Kept it: 5. Photographer / Videographer
I know, I know. We're photographers, so obviously we're going to say that you should have someone there to capture your day (preferably us). But hear me out, getting to re-live our wedding day is so sweet. We watched the video again last night on our tv. I see something new that I'd forgotten about every time. Cannon Weddings did an incredible job capturing our day. They were wonderful and professional and it was so nice to be able to not worry at all about how our photos would turn out and be able to give them our complete trust in capturing our day. Even if we aren't what you're looking for in your photo / video team to capture your day, we want you to find exactly who that is, and will even help you do so!
Left it: 5. Venue / Vendors
You do not have to book a church or a barn or a reception hall or a country club or any of the places that your mother or grandmother or some random hobo off the street may try to convince you that you need to spend a few thousand dollars booking. Tyler and I had every intention of getting married on the bald where we met. So my parents booked a cabin to use as a base camp 2 miles from the top. And then it rained on our wedding morning. So we got married in the cabin. But we still said our vows on top of our mountain. No venue needed. No florist. No DJ. (just about 7 UE Boom Bluetooth speakers and a cellphone with a downloaded Spotify playlist) No caterers. No band. No wedding planner or coordinator. You do not need to pay anyone a ton of money to have a dreamy wedding. But that doesn’t mean that those things aren’t helpful in providing a good time for your guests! Hire them if you want to. Just do it because you want to and not because you think you have to.
That's the gist of what we want you to know. You can make your wedding how you want it. You can choose to have a 3.5 month engagement or a 2 year engagement. You can choose to throw a $25,000 party for all your friends or you can throw one for under $5,000. The bottom line is: It's up to you.
For what it’s worth, we would love to help you have your dream day in any way we can! So if you want to hear more about our wedding and our advice, we’re more than happy to share it. If you’re looking for recommendations, we probably have them. If you’re looking for someone to encourage you like crazy as you plan this thing and take care of you throughout your wedding day, we’re here for it. And even if the only thing we help you do is write this blog post to help you in your decision making process, we’re here for that, too!
*all photos taken and edited by the incredible Becca at Cannon Wedding Photography
-Anna + Tyler