The story of my dress is one of my favorites from this whole experience.

First I want to give a shout out to Ms. Sandy at Beautiful Brides in Wilmington, NC. She is SO wonderful and helpful and is a wedding gown, seamstress guru. Anyone ever heard of a little movie called A Walk to Remember? The wedding scene at the end, Ms. Sandy was the brains behind Mandy’s wedding look even making the veil herself! She’s awesome. I’ve had so many friends (and even a cousin!) find their gown there, I can’t count them on one hand.

Now on to the story…

I went to 3 different bridal shops and Ms. Sandy’s was my last stop. I was with my dear friend Alicia when, after trying on a handful of dresses, I was going to call it a day. I wasn’t really anticipating finding “the one” that day for some reason. I tried on a bunch of gowns I loved on the hanger but didn’t feel right when I put them on. In a tale as old as time, before leaving, Alicia convinced me to try on a dress that wasn’t what I was looking for. At all. The color was a little more on the true white side than I had wanted, and it was strapless. I was looking for something champagne I thought, but definitely NOT strapless. No way. No.

So here I am trying on this gown (with a straight across neckline…hello small chested…not working…) and I walk out and I just felt it. I felt it, but something was holding me back. Ms. Sandy clipped it in the back and in the front creating a sweetheart neckline (because that was totally possible with the designer) and I just knew. This was it.

It was so random and not what I was looking for at all, but it was it. I remember not even really knowing why. I knew I felt like a bride, like a woman even, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was sealing the deal, especially since some family members didn’t think it was the right choice. Talk about heart wrenching.

Fast forward to a few weeks later…I hadn’t even mentioned to Andrew that I put my order in for my dress and while flipping through wedding magazines together (he’s amazing) and showing each other things we liked/didn’t like, he stopped to point out to me a dress he liked. “This is my favorite dress I’ve seen so far” he said.

It was almost identical to what I had chosen.

Although it was a different color (more of a silvery and a different type of fabric) the neckline was the same as what I had changed mine to (sweetheart), there were folds in the fabric at the top just like mine, there was an embellishment in the center right below the bust, there was gathering in the fabric to the side with an embellishment there as well… the similarities were insane.

My heart skipped a beat. It was in that moment that I knew why I had chosen what I did. It all made sense and I knew I had made the right decision. I was totally at peace about it all.

Soon though, my thoughts turned definitely to “he knows! He’s seen it! He had to!” but I didn’t bring it up until after the wedding and to this day he swears up and down he had never seen my gown until the moment I walked down the aisle, and I believe him.

Looking back at these photos, it really does all make sense. The gown was simple, yet full of character and that’s exactly the kind of style I think I embody in wardrobe, as well as personality. I absolutely love this dress.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any of my bridal portrait photos to show you because there were some intense things happening in the days leading up to the celebration day so I never received a hard copy of those photos. The only ones I have are the ones I was able to print literally the day before the wedding and they are all in storage at the moment while we sort out our moving situation. I do however have some solo shots of me in my gown from the day of the celebration and they are beautiful and I love them.

Photos of the dress were taken at the our venue, photos of me were taken at the Graystone Inn  which is a few blocks away. I chose to do photos of the girls there because it has a beautiful old world vibe and I wanted that in keeping with the theme of the wedding celebration. We walked there after getting ready :) All photos are by Amy Leigh Photography.

 

I mentioned in my “choosing a venue” post that one of those photos contained a sneak peek of my official bridal photos. You couldn’t really see it though so I thought I would include this, which is a pretty clear photo of one of my official bridal portraits. They were so beautiful. Hopefully I’ll be able to share them with you one day!

Where did you take your bridal portraits or what have you always imagined for them?! I’d love for you to share :)

xx

Catch up on the wedding series here:

November 3rd- A wedding series

November 3rd- Choosing a date

November 3rd- “Engagement” photos

November 3rd- Choosing a venue

A little background story to begin….

Shortly before Andrew and I started dating, I was involved in a production of a show called Once on this Island with a theater group I was a part of (TechMoja) when I lived in Wilmington. The show was being performed at the local Community Arts Center (CAC). The CAC is also referred to in our town as the Hannah Block Historic USO Building. It’s known as the CAC to locals and the USO Building to tourists because it was actually a traditional USO building in the 1940’s. Service members would come there for fun events, it was like a town dance hall, but they also did other things there. Today, it’s used for summer camps for kids, art shows and theatrical productions among many other things.

So, I invited him (along with some mutual friends as to not seem too eager) to come see the show. I didn’t think he would come but when he text me a few hours before saying that he was coming, I about lost my shit backstage.

I don’t typically get nervous before shows, I just get super hype and excited. Not this day. I was SO nervous my cast mates were asking me what my deal was because my behavior was so out of character. No pun intended, I swear. That’s when I started telling my friends about a guy named Andrew.

I may not have given his name away right then, it was still a little early (Spolier alert: We got married at the courthouse 3 months later..),  but all my friends could tell there was something special about him and so I had to admit it to myself as well.

I saw my friends outside after the show and I was so happy to see him there. Little did I know, he hadn’t even come with the others. He came on his own. He wasn’t sure there would be anyone else there that he knew, but he wanted to come see me anyway.

Fast forward to after our courthouse wedding, discussing where to hold our public ceremony. I was having a hard time because we didn’t belong to a church and all the beautiful churches we had in our town, we couldn’t marry in because we didn’t belong to that church. Ugh. ANYWAY– I was really discouraged because I had always envisioned a beautiful old style church wedding.

One night in stressing over this dilemma, Andrew had the idea to have it at the CAC. When I ask him why, he told me that was where he was the first time he realized he loved me. Talk about the Walk to Remember moment I always dreamed of! I cried of course and that was where our the decision on a venue for our public wedding ceremony was made official.

And amazingly enough, we could hold both the ceremony and reception there! We decided on a classic wedding theme as we knew we wanted our colors to be black and white and pulling inspiration from the 1940’s memorabilia that decorates the CAC. Our “theme” became just “black and white 1940’s dance hall affair”. Although we didn’t do much decorating because I loved the memorabilia that already decorates the space, we had all black and white decorations, black bridesmaid dresses, and black and white suits for the guys, complete with a full jazz band at our reception (but we’ll get into that later!)

It could have been a more perfect location and I love that it was him who decided on such a key element in the planning process!

The E.O.A was a club Andrew and his friends had in high school where they collected change from various other students after everyone had bought their lunch. Hence, this inside joke. And yes, I made that sign myself ;)

We made the programs ourselves

Hey, engagement photos!

Our guestbook was a calendar for guest to leave their birthday…even though I’ve been terrible about sending out cards. Sorry yall! Also, there’s as sneak peek of my bridal portraits ;)

The rest of the space will be shown through the ceremony photos! How did you choose your wedding venue? Or have you always envisioned something specific for your big day?!

*All photos: Amy Leigh Photography

Catch up on the wedding series here:

November 3rd- A wedding series

November 3rd- Choosing a date

November 3rd- Engagement photos

 

 

So last week marked the 3 year anniversary of my wedding ceremony! (Not to be confused with the day Andrew and I actually got married.) So to mark this momentous occasion, I decided to turn the details of our wedding celebration into a little series on here I’m just going to call “November 3^rd”.

That’s the day Andrew and I decided to put on this little shindig and it was a wedding that went down in history books some would say. I’m assuming that’s because of the liquor bar.

There were ups&downs and things I wish I would have known or at least thought about before moving forward so hopefully you’ll find some things in this series about my wedding that might help you out, or at least make you laugh and say Oh God what was she thinking.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll share some stories, some do’s&don’ts, and (of course) a heck of a lot of photos.

I can’t wait to re-visit this event and share with you all!

My favorite shot of the day, Amy Leigh Photography

November 3rd- Choosing a date

November 3rd- “Engagement” photos