Sharing Their Joy - A Couple Weds + Brings Warmth To Those In Need
Thursday, February 17, 2011
We received an email from Kellie Bryson, owner of A Catered Affair about a bride and groom whose wedding she had catered and for whom her company, The Bake Shoppe, had designed a cake. The couple, Lydia and Jason Jolly had donated blankets to the less fortunate here in Nashville in lieu of wedding favors. In her email she told us, "Lydia had a unique sign in area for her wedding reception November 13 – a very thoughtful gesture on her wedding day. I have shared the notion many times since I learned of it – I have been so impressed by her generosity on her WEDDING day."
I so looked forward to chatting with Lydia to find out more about their idea and I hope it inspires you if you're also looking to have a charitable favor for your wedding instead of trinkets.
Bride & Groom ~ Lydia Fowler & Jason Jolly
November 13, 2010 at Owen Chapel
Reception at a friend's home in Brentwood
140 guests
Lydia: The guests thought it was a nice gesture
What inspired the blankets?
We considered the blankets as favors for everybody. When I first started planning the wedding I was thinking of what we were going to do. We didn’t have a lot of money to get little things for everybody and usually people don’t use them anyway, so I was looking at bridal magazines and favor ideas and they had “donate to charity” and all the charities I saw I wasn’t too connected to in any way.
How did you come up with this particular idea to attach wishes?
Because of the flood in May and things I had known about like the homeless in Nashville in Tent City and how they had to find somewhere else to live I knew they were going through some hard times and thought, well, people write wishes to the bride and groom, why not write warm wishes the homeless? I thought that they’d need some encouraging words and probably a huge need for something in the winter.
Lydia: At the reception we set up the table and put in a frame the instructions of what to do for the favors.
Where did you get the blankets?
I put in the rehearsal dinner invitation for people to bring warm clothes or blankets, glove, scarves, coats. Rather than every guest bringing things, we thought we’d ask people closest to us to donate a few things. We ended up getting six or 7 large trash bags full of stuff and whenever we got the wishes from the reception I found out that it’s harder to sew them into coats so I put them on to the blankets and donated them all at the same time.
We got enough and there were so many good wishes. Some were longer, some said “Keep at it,” “don’t give up” “warm wishes and prayers for you” were written, some longer and more eloquent than I can remember. It was just really sweet to see things like this written.
Who did you bring the blankets to?
One of my friends from Lipscomb worked with Tent City and he took it there for me.
Let's talk about your wedding for a second. What was your theme?
I was trying to go for a lavendar and chocolate brown mix. We used lavender hydrangeas and my girls wore chocolate brown.
What item was top on your priority list?
Photography was priority because that’s how you remember what happened and I wanted those to be good. Rory was great and at a great price so it was well worth it.
Given how cold this past winter was, I'm sure everyone who received the warm clothes and blankets were grateful and feeling extra warm seeing the notes everyday. Thank you to Lydia for sharing your story, we hope everything's going well for you and Jason. Thank you to Laurie Carpenter Photography for the pictures and to Kellie Bryson with The Bake Shoppe and A Catered Affair for connecting us with the bride and groom.
About the Author:
Tabitha
Blogging is something I’ve enjoyed doing for years. My interests lie mostly in lifestyle related topics like fashion, style, design, food and weddings. When I heard Ashley was looking to bring on new members to the ABG team, I jumped at the opportunity - I can’t think of a better way to stay involved in weddings than to write about them and to stay in touch with the trends and new ideas. Lucky for me, Ashley likes my blog and trusts my experience to bring me on and so far, it’s been a blast.
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Posted on February 17, 2011 |
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