With Fiancé in Louisville & Mom in Canada, Nashville Bride Plans Her Rustic Wedding for Under $10K
Friday, October 25, 2013
When I hosted my wedding planning boot camp for engaged couples/families in 2011, Jenn was all ears. She attended each workshop faithfully, sometimes bringing her then fiancé, Jermaine, or bringing her mom, all the way from Canada. She listened, took notes and used everything she learned to plan her wedding.
The boot camp covered everything from budgeting to styling to hiring vendors. But the key message I wanted each couple to take away was not to be afraid to make their day personal. Don't have a Pinterest-looking wedding just because it's trendy. Infuse yourself - elements of the groom, the bride and the two of you together.
Based on Jenn's wedding, she more than got the message. In fact, she now shares her wedding details and in-depth advice via her own blog, Officially Mrs. Dobbins.
Before you hop over to her blog, enjoy my interview with Jenn about her wedding, and see my hand-picked favorite photos from her wedding, all captured by Five by Five Photography and Design.
Jenn & Jermaine
Wedding Date ~ December 12, 2012
Ceremony & Reception Location ~ Camp Marymount, Fairview, TN
Budget ~ $5,000-8,000
Guests ~ 110
My Wedding Team
Planning | Bride, bride’s friend (Sara Hooper), Wedding 101
Photographer | Vidyuta Rangnekar with Five By Five Photography & Design
Gown | David’s Bridal
Bride’s accessories | Etsy, Afterglow
Men’s attire | Men’s Warehouse, Banana Republic, Etsy
Bridesmaids’ attire | David’s Bridal, Sophie’s Gown Shoppe
Hair | Angelica Stevens at Aveda
Makeup | Jen at one10 Makeup
Stationery | Bride, with invitation layouts by Jennifer Atcher from Studio 8 Design (Maid of Honor)
Caterer | Kitchen by House Blend
Cake artist | Abby Head/Creative Crumbs
Floral designer | Bride, family & friends with flowers from Costco
Ceremony Musicians | Kyle Bashour & Natalie Coughlin from Holy Family Life Teen
DJ | Scott Hutten
Rentals | Southern Events for tables, chairs & lounge furniture
Lighting | Camp Marymount, bride
Photo booth | Flashtastic Photo Booth
Bartending | Laura Stewart/Topshelf Bartending & Staffing
My Wedding Details
How would you describe your style as a couple?
Contemporary Rustic – we like clean lines with rustic, artistic details.
How did you incorporate that style into your wedding?
Our venue was a cool mixture of modern and pastoral. Our choice was a contemporary building that featured rustic elements, such as exposed beams and a gorgeous stone fireplace, coupled with modern lighting and concrete floors. As the décor was completely DIY, this allowed me to showcase details that truly personalized the occasion. We loved including photos that documented the growth of our relationship, creating a board with information on the charities we support and ‘registered’ with, and the cocktail hour’s fantastic popcorn bar, which was brought by my Mom from my favorite popcorn chain, Kernels, all the way from Canada, and included many of their signature flavors.
What was your favorite aspect of your wedding?
Our guests loved the venue, as the ceremony and reception were at the same site but in different buildings. We also received a lot of wonderful feedback about how much fun our friends and family had with the photo booth, how delicious the food tasted and how warm and personal the day felt by using so many of our own items in the décor.
Since Jermaine and I are bookworms, I loved the old books we collected to use with the centerpieces, and having the childhood rosary given to me by my Grandmum affixed to my bouquet was particularly special. The first time I visited Camp Marymount on a retreat years ago, my heart spoke to me about getting married there. Our wedding was everything I had ever dreamed of and I was there with the man of my prayers!
Where did you splurge? Where did you save/DIY?
After attending the ABG camp in the months before our engagement, we were able to learn how to budget wisely and prioritize our modest funds.
We definitely splurged on photography (including the photo booth) and the venue, although Marymount was fairly inexpensive when compared to similar Nashville venues.
I DIY’d the linens, dessert bar and all décor, using MANY 50 percent off coupons from JoAnn’s and Michael’s. We recruited lots of family members and friends to help us set up the day before and tear down after the wedding, which also allowed us to spend more time with our family who had come in from out of town (including many from Canada!).
We were able to have a great buffet dinner with three entrée options within our budget by pricing drinks separately and baking the desserts at home. We also were able to have a bar with wine stocked from Trader Joe’s and local beer from Yazoo Brewery, which cost less than $200 for our 110 guests over the four hour reception. The leftover Yazoo turned into a great way to reward the friends that helped us out!
Now that the wedding day is over, is there anything about your planning process you feel you could have done differently?
Planning on my own in Nashville, with a fiancé in Louisville and my Mom in Canada was definitely challenging, but our physical locations weren’t something we could change.
We met with an awesome planner about month-of services, and although her fees were very reasonable, especially for her exceptional talent, we were just not able to squeeze it into our budget. I ended up creating a 14 page document detailing our set up instructions – advantages of a type-A personality! I was able to finish many projects from start to finish early on in our engagement, and recruited several friends to help with repetitive tasks in the months leading up to the wedding. This meant that the week-of was dedicated to details that couldn’t be put together in advance, like floral arrangements and desserts, which certainly worked to my advantage – I even got a massage two days before the wedding!
While there were certain things I was very picky about, there were other items that weren’t at the top of our priorities, and I quickly cut those from the to-do list. I wasn’t afraid to remove traditions that didn’t make sense for us, like a bouquet/garter toss, and worked with Wedding 101 to reorganize the idea of a traditional receiving line to fit my physical needs, routing our guests past the head table at dinner so that we didn’t have to walk from table to table since I have limited mobility.
We are honestly so happy with how our wedding day turned out – a LOT of planning made for a day that went by with barely a hiccup! And best of all, now we’re happily married AND in the same state!
In one sentence, what words of advice do you have for couples in the midst of their planning?
Be sure to remember WHY you are having this wedding, and let your love, respect and friendship as a couple shine above all other things on this day.
About the Author:
Ashley King
Hey - I'm Ashley! I started AshleysBrideGuide.com to give Nashville brides, or folks planning a Nashville wedding, a local resource for inspiration and resources. Hope to see you at a bridal show soon! Until then, Find me on Google+.
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Posted on October 25, 2013 |
Filed under: Multicultural, African-American weddings, Real Nashville Weddings, Wedding Style - Rustic, Farm ,
