I feel like I’ve covered so much wedding stuff already, but then I realize there’s still so much to go! If you’ve missed a few of my Wedding Wednesday posts you can find them all under the “Blog” tab and then under the “Wedding Wednesday” category.
Today’s topic- wedding vendors. Hopefully, you can learn a few lessons from my mistakes! If you read our 2018 Recap you have already seen some of our vendors. Bless everyone who is planning a destination wedding or planning apart from your fiancé. And those of you who are doing both… you’re crazy. But, that’s what Jett and I had to do so like I said, let’s dive into it and hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes!
Jett lives in Quantico, Virginia right now and while we were wedding planning for his Marine Corps training. I live in Buford, Georgia working at my dream job as the Social Media Coordinator of the Triple-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves baseball team. We chose to get married in Aubrey, Texas because all of Jett’s family lives in that area and my family is spread out in Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, and Wisconsin. It was honestly a pretty easy decision figuring out where we would get married.
There weren’t too many aspects of my wedding I had all planned out, but fall has always been my favorite season and I figured since our engagement was early February we could probably work out a fall wedding. We knew it was going to be in the Dallas- Fort Worth area in Texas, now it was time to scope out venues that had a Saturday in October available!
I used The Knot for everything wedding related. It was so easy to find everything with their search filters. For our venue, I searched for venues within 25 miles, a guest capacity of 101-150, affordable price range and a barn setting. We had quite a few venues pop up that fit what we were looking for but really only one venue had an open Saturday in October so that made the decision pretty easy! My mother-in-law went to tour the venue for us and sent us tons of pictures. We booked it sight unseen!
Honestly, that was pretty much the only thing we had booked for quite awhile. We had nailed down a date and venue and we felt pretty good for a few weeks. As soon as we found out Jett would be able to take a few days leave, we booked a trip to Texas. I wanted to see our venue in person and we wanted to be able to experience some of the traditional wedding planning things like cake tasting.
Once our trip to Texas was booked I began scouring The Knot for potential wedding photographers. Because I work in social media with professional photographers, I had pretty high and clear expectations of how I wanted my photos to look. The style that’s popular right now is super muted colors with lots of white, airy brightness and that’s just not me. If you’re one of those people who know about Lightroom/Instagram presets then you probably have a distinct style too. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I would use The Knot’s Photo & Video Styles filter to see what you like. Make sure to explore every photographer’s portfolio too.
If you’re able to take engagement photos with your potential wedding photographer I highly recommend it. I knew with my high standards and unique style that I wanted to have a test run before our big day which is why it was important for me to set an engagement shoot while Jett and I were in Texas. Everything that our photographer Natalie could control went perfectly for our engagement session. The things she couldn’t control that did not go so well were Jett not fitting into a pair of pants he had planned to wear, my dog Kahlua rolling in a dead fish on the beach, Texas being it’s typical excruciatingly hot self and the sun taking so dang long to set!
Anyway, here are a few of my favorite shots from our engagement shoot!
So, now we’re in Texas. We’ve got our engagement photos done. Up next, a venue visit at Red Barn Events. The venue was everything we imagined. It had an outdoor ceremony space with turf instead of grass, a beautiful big red barn with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side and a stunning chandelier on the inside. I loved how the barn had such a tall ceiling to make the space feel large, while the string lights hanging from the ceiling and wooden siding made it feel cozy and intimate.
It was perfect.
We had made an appointment with Candy Haven, a local bakery for a cake tasting. I didn’t technically find or book this vendor through The Knot; Jett’s mom had given us a few suggestions of great bakeries in the area and honestly, this place was between the venue and his parent’s house! Cake tasting was by far our favorite part of wedding planning. My only regret from our wedding day is not eating enough cake! We even had some cake set aside for us to enjoy that night but it just wasn’t enough for me.
We ended up going with a white cake on the top and bottom layer with a dulce de leche filling and a red velvet middle layer with a cream cheese filling. The cool thing about our middle layer was that we wanted this spatula style that showed the exposed cake and since we used red velvet as our mix, the red showed through and added some color to our cake.
Here is our beautiful Candy Haven wedding cake and of course the chocolate, chocolate, chocolate groom’s cake.
Venue
Photographer
Cake
Flowers! Jett’s favorite part! While we were on our way back to Jett’s parent’s house from cake tasting we passed a shopping center and saw in big, white letters, “FLORIST.” It was a literal sign. So, we stopped. I knew I didn’t want any huge floral pieces because I felt that our venue was already very naturally beautiful and let’s be real- budget. I basically wanted baby’s breath and greenery but was very specific about how I wanted the bouquets arranged. We just stopped in and started talking to the owner. She sat us down and showed us some of her work and I showed her a few things I had saved on Pinterest and that was it. We booked a florist! I ended up going back and getting her to add some wine carnations into my bouquet for a little more color.
Simple, yet beautiful and significant.
And that’s our trip to Texas and our success with vendors. Now, for the lessons to be learned! I knew it would be hard to find a venue with fall, Saturday availabilities. I didn’t even think about the other vendors. When it came time to book our DJ, hair, and makeup… we were so screwed. I reached out to at least 30 DJ’s on The Knot and everyone was booked. I ended up getting a recommendation from a friend to check out Thumbtack where I found our DJ. He was great. Hair and makeup was a similar story. I reached out to quite a few people before finding someone with availability.
After our trip to Texas, I sat back and relaxed. I thought I had it all under control. I didn’t. Book everything you can as soon as possible. There’s no sense in waiting. The longer you wait, the more booked up the best vendors get. Writing this now, it makes perfect sense…
So, to recap, if you are planning a destination wedding and can travel to the location before the wedding I highly recommend it. We were blessed to have Jett’s mom help us out so much. If I wasn’t able to go to Texas I would have felt comfortable proceeding with the planning because we had someone there to visit places on our behalf and who knew the lay of the land. If you are getting married during prime wedding season, book your vendors accordingly and don’t wait. And last but not least, communicate with your spouse. Jett and I had quite a few Facetime dates where all we did was plan. He visited me in Georgia to plan and we went to Texas.
What tips do you have for someone planning a destination wedding or planning a wedding while separated from their spouse?
