Fall in Love with Jamie + Andy: Their Charm, Their Details, Their Amazing DIY Nashville Wedding!
Friday, July 22, 2011
When you think of a downtown Nashville wedding, you would usually imagine the skyline lit up at night and maybe a church or funky venue along Broadway. But Jamie and Andy's had nothing of the downtown feel; instead the photos show a warm, intimate ceremony that appears to be in the countryside. With such a fun twist, we had to share! Especially since we also loved their engagement photos, which we featured back in February.
From all the photos, you will see that these two lovebirds are truly that – in love. And the snowy Loveless background of their engagement photos was the perfect pre-cursor to their vintage wedding. Jamie is a lover of anything vintage, with her own etsy shop (Owl Really) and she pulled the look together perfectly and subtly.
Andy and Jamie took a small budget and a larger guest list and combined it into a beautiful wedding. Their wedding shows that you can do much with little. It takes a lot of creativity, which luckily - Jamie has, some DIY, loving and giving friends, and you end up with a whole lot of fun. Every photo we have shows laughing, smiling faces. Enjoy the charm and nostalgia of weddings past…
Jamie Wilson + Andy Young
Wedding date ~ Saturday, April 30 2011
Ceremony ~ Little White Church aka The Hope Center
Reception ~ The Anchor Fellowship
Guests ~190
Blog ~ owlreally.blogspot.com
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Budget
Spend ~ $6,000; Value about $8,000
Wedding Team
Stationery | Design by Emily Keafer (everylittlething.squarespace.com), Printed by Allen Printing
Gown & Accessories | Mori Lee bridesmaid dress bought from Bridal Warehouse, ordered in ivory, and altered to be one of a kind. With added on beaded lace bought from Textile Fabrics.
Bolero I Basilica bolero from Uptown Urban Craft (uptownurbancraft.com) Earrings and necklace: 1928.com
Shoes | Already owned!
Veil | Borrowed
Fascinator | Handmade by the bride
Groom’s suit | Target
Bridesmaids outfits | Dresses from Modcloth.com, any pink shoes / Jewelry from amula.etsy.com
Groomsmen outfits | Any white shirt, any black accessories, and gray suit pants from Target
Hair | Lauren Henry (flickr.com/photos/laurenhenrystyle)
Makeup | Sylvia Fox (seriouslyfoxy.com)
Officiant | Randy Draughon of Midtown Fellowship
Ceremony musicians | Our friends Kerri Ruschival, Rebekah Mitchell, Andra Moran, and Stephen King played folksy renditions of our favorite hymns on keyboard, mandolin, guitar, and banjo-tar.
Transportation | We left our reception by cab!
Caterer | Friends and family – it was a potluck dessert reception!
Baker | Wedding cake: Dawn Joy Stoika, formerly of The Bake Shoppe
Groom’s cake I Erin Monaghan of Sweet Euphoria Desserts (sweeteuphoriadesserts.tumblr.com)
Florist | None! I made fabric bouquets for the girls and we had succulents from my great-aunt’s garden for the centerpieces.
Bartenders | Michael & Jenny Gilbert, friends who volunteered to make homemade rootbeer and served it along with raspberry sweet tea and lemonade we bought at Sam’s Club and made the day before in 5 gallon buckets
Photographer | Alvin Pearman of Pear Image Photography
Videographer | Ryan Mitchell, a friend
Reception Musicians | Steve Huber and the Flatheads, a bluegrass band
How would you describe your style as a couple?
While Andy is not as obsessed with vintage style as I am, he can definitely appreciate the history and cool-factor of items made decades ago. He rocks suspenders and hats and his grandfather’s sports coat. I wear dresses daily and even though they’re not all vintage, I like to think I’m paying tribute to the generations before me that took care to dress up every day.
I am very frugal and love to thrift which I knew would bleed over to wedding planning, not only because it’s my way of life, but also because it felt wasteful to spend lavishly. Andy’s laidback attitude helped keep my head on straight while wedding planning and his catchphrase was, “It’s just a wedding.” That saying didn’t demean our wedding, but helped keep the focus on the MARRIAGE, not a few hours on a beautiful Saturday. (However, our wedding was gorgeous and simple and US and I loved every minute of it.)
How did you incorporate that style into your wedding?
I thought about how weddings USED to be – they used to not be such a spectacle – and I wanted to go back to the “olden days.” It felt nostalgic to keep it basic and not include every single wedding tradition (like dollar dances or garter tosses, etc). In fact, we nixed practically all the wedding traditions: no unity candle, no first dance, no toasts, no bouquet toss… It was just us, our family & friends, and (hopefully) fun times.
Because we were doing our wedding on a budget, we had limited venue options especially since it was important to us to be married IN Nashville, not a suburb or the country. The chapel at the Hope Center was free because I’m a member of Midtown Fellowship which has the lease on that building. Happily, the chapel is quaint which was key when I thought about our wedding. I wanted it to be simple, charming, folksy, casual, handmade, and vintage.
We were so fortunate that our dream reception venue, the Anchor Fellowship, was quite affordable compared to other options – and SO flexible. It is naturally vintage – it was built in the 1850s and features worn hardwood floors and exposed brick walls along with vintage-style string lights that the church leaves hung all the time. The building evokes a very nostalgic feel, which I love about it.
I didn’t choose colors, which is mind-blowing to most people. As soon as you start planning a wedding, one of the first questions you hear is, “What are your colors?” I wanted it to look eclectic and wanted more of an “anthropologie” feel rather than a color scheme. We chose gray for our wedding party ensembles because we both love gray and I fell in love with a gray dress that seemed perfect for a bridesmaid dress. Other than that, I chose happy colors for the flowergirls (pink, teal, and yellow – I was not interested in making them mini-brides!) and used pink when I could (in the bridesmaid bouquets and shoes) but everything else was a free-for-all.
I thrifted all the plates that I used to make cake stands and the other elements of the centerpieces so I was at the liberty of whatever I could find. Everything turned out charming and vintage and eclectic. I loved it.
What was the favorite aspect of your wedding?
I loved being able to express our faith and our commitment to each other; in front of almost 200 people, we made a covenant with God in a fun and meaningful ceremony. It was a joyful ceremony and even our friends that don’t share our faith thought it was beautiful and heart-felt. Many people remarked that they had never cried at a wedding before ours!
In a tangible sense, I loved our succulent centerpieces. I researched buying succulents and found some decent options on ebay, but when I posted about it on Facebook, my mom's cousin Mary Beth told me that her mother-in-law (my great-aunt) had "hens and chicks" in her garden in Michigan. My great-aunt has been very sick and I knew she wouldn't be able to make it to Nashville for the wedding, so I was instantly intrigued by the idea of having plants from her garden at the wedding. In an amazing turn of events, the snow cleared in Michigan one weekend, Mary Beth was able to dig up about 50 hens and chicks and she brought them to Louisville a few weeks later to my bridal shower. My mom and I planted them in the various containers I had thrifted and I brought them back to Nashville to keep alive until the wedding!
We found out that the plants had actually originated in my great-grandmother's garden! Once we learned this, all the women in my family wanted to take some home after the wedding. It was perfect! I loved having that sense of family and history incorporated into the wedding and I'm so glad that SO many family members now get to enjoy these plants! I am keeping some potted but I am also going to plant some at our house.
Where did you splurge? Where did you save/DIY?
I don’t think I splurged on anything! My alterations ended up being as expensive as my dress, but since my dress was around $250, that wasn’t THAT bad. The beaded lace seemed pricey at about $50 but was SO worth it.
I DIYed almost everything. I planned the wedding from beginning to end with help from family and friends – it was definitely a community effort. I made my bouquet and bridesmaid bouquets (flowers were too expensive and I fell in love with the statement bouquets that Petal and Print makes, so I made my own!), my hairpiece, all the cake stands for the various desserts, and the flowergirl baskets. We even made our own photobooth with 10 yards of fabric that was given to me, borrowed professional lighting, and had an extra photographer manning the camera!
We also used items we already had. I wore shoes I already owned, I used a platter I already owned for the communion bread, I used knickknacks from home to decorate the reception space and I used a cute table I found on the side of the road years ago to hold our communion elements during the ceremony. I did zero decorations at the church minus the table and communion elements because I wanted the focus to be on the marriage, not on ornate flower arrangements or candelabras.
We borrowed items, like my veil and table runners. We had a lot of help from family and friends who gave us generous gifts (like our videography, our invitation design, our ceremony music, our reception music, and more). I bought tablecloths instead of renting them (it’s cheaper! And I’m selling them now!). We barely needed decorations since the reception space is so great. I used borrowed glass candle holders, the free and meaningful succulents in thrifted mugs and teacups, and knickknacks from my own home.
We saved on favors because we didn’t do them! We chose to donate to Thistle Farms in lieu of favors which ended up saving us time and my sanity. I would never have been able to make almost 200 favors!
Now that the wedding day is over, is there anything about your planning process you feel you could have done differently?
We were only engaged for 5.5 months and did most of the planning in about 4 months. I only had 2 meltdowns – both times when I felt like my vision wasn’t coming together. If I could go back, I would trust my instincts more and not get bogged down in trying to make things perfect. Some of my favorite laugh-out-loud moments are from things that went wrong – like our communion bread being totally molded when we pulled it out to put it on the platter. (Thankfully we had sandwich buns leftover from lunch that we used in place of the French bread I had bought!)
In one sentence, what words of advice do you have for couples in the midst of their planning?
Think about what is REALLY important and meaningful to you and your fiancé and cut out anything that isn’t in line with your values and desires, whether that’s a first dance or chair sashes.
All wedding images by Pear Image Photography and all stationery photos by designer Emily Keafer.
Big thanks to the happy couple for sharing their special day with us! We wish you the best, Jamie and Andy!!
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