Q&A with Hannah from WTAW
We are excited that our team member Hannah will be getting married in March! There isn’t a better time to discuss the wedding process and ups and down’s of organizing and scheduling the wedding vendors, and expectations.
Please tell us about your engagement and your story. How long is your engagement?
We knew we were going to get engaged eventually, but having just graduated college, and with me being in grad school at the time, we were not financially ready yet. We spent the summer working and saving, and then September he accepted a job offer in Alabama, and we started long distance. At that point, I knew every time he came down to visit, it could be “the day”. All of his visits were special, but one day we planned to go to visit the Bellingrath Gardens, about an hour away. We walked around the gardens for a little bit, and every once in a while he would have me stand with my back facing him, looking out over the waters, so he could “take some pictures.” Little did I know my friends had arrived earlier, and those times he was supposedly snapping pics, he was actually texting them, getting everything into place for the big moment. We walked by a wedding, and I didn’t want to disturb them, so I started walking another direction, but he insisted we go right by them. There was a brick-paved ledge overlooking the water, and he thought we could get better pictures up there. Once we were there, he stepped closer to face me and grabbed my hands. The next thing I know, he was on the ground with a ring in his hand, and I was saying yes, and my friends were congratulating us and snapping pictures. That was 5 months before our wedding.
What type of wedding are your creating? What inspired you to create this type of wedding?
My main theme is rustic, but it has some simple elegant touches, like gold-rimmed punch cups, gold forks, etc. Pinterest was a huge inspiration. I knew my family and friends had some décor from their weddings, and I knew I could most likely borrow some of these items, so that was a huge part of my decision to go with rustic. But I’ve been able to customize some pieces to my style, like spray painting black lanterns gold, and using burlap to make napkin rings, etc.
What were the best moments of your wedding planning? And the hardest moments? Why?
The best moments of my wedding planning were accomplishing some huge projects and seeing them go better than expected. I ordered things early enough to be able to put together the table setting before the big day, and just seeing it all come together helped me to stay motivated to continue completing other projects.
The hardest moments for me were DIY-ing 116 napkin rings. There were a lot of hot glue burns from that adventure. They look amazing with the place settings, and were a fraction of the cost of buying napkin rings, but there are other options that would have been easier to go with.
How do you stay organized? Are friends or family helping with the process?
At first I lived nowhere close to family, so I did things on my own for a while, but then I moved closer to my in in-laws and my mother-in-law was a tremendous help with organizing and putting things together. I had a planner that I wrote everything in. It was basically a brain dump of all the things that had to get done. The checklist was intimidating at first, but doing things with my in-laws really helped to narrow it down and spread things out! And my family was a huge support from a distance. My mom gathered decorations from my sisters’ weddings to help me out.
Now for the details, what colors for the wedding did you pick? What wedding dress design and catering? Tell us about your wedding cake! Do you have favors or other unique items to help on your wedding day?
Our colors are cranberry red (his favorite color) and light blue (my favorite). We offset these colors with a lot of greenery and gold accents.
My wedding dress is a satin ball gown with an ivory lace topper.
We are having a cake and punch reception. My mother-in-law and I are making cheesecake, and we are having coffee punch and sweet tea(basically a necessity here in the South) as well as other small desserts.
We have wedding cake bubble favors! Our send-off will be with bubbles, so they are functional and stylish.
One unique item we are using is a plant stand instead of a cake stand. We found a wooden one that costs a third of what cake stands normally cost, and we decorated it with extra flowers from my bouquet. After the wedding, we can take it home with us, and use it for its intended purpose.
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