I’ve had a few requests for our wedding vendors.  Josh and I did a ton of research before our wedding to find people who were able to help us create our dream day.  Looking back, I’m so glad we chose each and every one of these people.  We had nothing but good experiences working with all of them.

If you’re getting married in central Wisconsin in the future, I would highly recommend these people.

My dress – Vera’s Bridal in Madison, WI

Bridesmaid dresses – Vera’s Bridal in Madison, WI

Tuxes – Nedrebos (ours were ordered in Madison, but picked up in Wausau)

Girls hair – Studio E in Wausau, WI

Rehearsal dinner – Wausau Mine Co.

Church – St. Andrew Lutheran Church

Photographer – Something Beautiful Images

Flowers and decor – Evolutions in Design

Reception venue – Rothschild Pavilion

Caterer - Rockman’s Catering

Sheet Cakes – 2510 Bakery

DJ and photobooth – The Brian West Show

I really enjoyed meeting with all of these people and getting to know them throughout the planning process.  I would highly recommend doing a little bit of your own research and knowing your budget and where you want to spend money before you meet with people.  That way you can be up front with vendors and not blow your entire budget on things like the cake.  Focus on what’s most important to you and spend your money there first.  You don’t have to do it all!

I’m also planning on putting together a post of DIY projects we did (which includes most of our decorations) and fashion from the day.  I hope you’re all as excited as I am for those!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!  Time to celebrate.  And celebrations around here usually involve wedding photos as of late.  Last time we left off we talked about the wedding party photos.

After we wrapped that up we headed straight to the Rothschild Pavilion where everyone else was wrapping up cocktail hour.  The way our venue was set up there was a small area with tables, food, couches and a bar for the cocktail hour.

We had everyone’s name on a card with their table number so they knew where to sit.

We assigned tables for people, but they could choose their seat at the table.  I wanted to do this because I wanted to make sure that people could at least sit by others that they knew and they didn’t have to struggle to find the right number of chairs for their family…  Or grandmas didn’t have to sit way in the back of the hall…  While I’m glad we did this, doing the seating chart was probably the hardest part of wedding planning.  I think I did, and then re-did it at least 4 times.  And then sent to my mom who wanted to make more changes.  We were moving people and tables up until the day before the wedding.  Ughhhh.

During the cocktail hour our guests had access to light appetizers and an open bar.  Our caterer put together fruit trays, veggie trays, cheese, and hummus and pita chips.  My uncle/godfather also very graciously provided smoked salmon that he caught and smoked himself!!!!!  I think that was the hit of the party.

The room also had one long table with framed engagement photos as well as old wedding pictures from both of our families.  I loved the personal touch of these pictures and had so much fun looking at them when we were getting everything together.

Our guest book was a giant photo mat in a frame that we wanted people to sign.  At the end of the night it was covered in signatures and messages from our loved ones.  We put in our favorite picture of our whole wedding party and it’s in our living room now.  I really wanted to do some sort of “guest book” that would be a constant reminder for us of everyone who was there for our wedding.  Formal guest books are fine, but they end up in closets and don’t get viewed often enough.  This frame is always there, as a constant reminder of our day, and also our family and friends who were a part of it.

As far as the decorations, I didn’t really have “colors” per say.  I wanted a theme of “vintage/rustic garden”.

Lots of greenery with antique details and a few pops of yellow.  Every table was a little different.

I started looking at wedding magazines the day (literally) we got married and I just couldn’t see us having a theme color we stuck with at all.  I wanted a wedding that we would be able to look at down the road and not think it was trendy at all.  I also loved the idea of a unique rustic decor with lots of eye catching details.  And flowers/greenery that we could take home and plant so that everything wouldn’t die the next day.

Randy at Evolutions in Design took my ideas and ran with them.  Farther than I could have ever imagined.  This space was giant and wide open

and with a lot of hard work it turned into this.

My flowers were mostly hydrangeas (both white and green) with other mixed greens and flowers interspersed.  I apologize I don’t know my flower names better.  I’ve included pictures of a lot of them.

My dad also made these really sweet signs himself that hung in the bar area and we got to keep after.  So cute!

So… that’s the decor.  I was blown away, and I think our guests were too.

For dinner drinks, we actually bought  A TON of red and white  wine from a local grocery store.  We had the bottles at a table and asked everyone to take back a bottle of each to their table for dinner.  It worked out well because people could have wine with dinner, but we didn’t have to pay for the expense of serving everyone.

We also had custom wine glasses made and set up at every table setting as both their glass for the night, and people’s favor.

For the grand march we danced in to Get Up Offa’ That Thing by James Brown.

Everyone was cheering and clapping as we came in and husband and wife together.  So fun!

Then we sat down, Josh’s dad greeted everyone, prayed for the meal and dinner was served.  We chose a plated dinner because neither of us are big fans of buffets.  I’ve been to a few weddings where they are done well.  But often the food is cold, there’s not enough of it, and people are left waiting in line a long time.  We had Rockman’s Catering do all of the food and they were a dream to work with!  I had high expectations for the food as a food blogger and they delivered and then some.

Everyone was served a spring mix salad and rolls.  And then they their choice of entree.  Chicken fondue (chicken baked in a cheese sauce with broccoli and other vegetables), pan fried white fish with lime infused butter, or a roasted vegetable tart.  All entrees were served with garlic mashed potatoes.  The vegetable tart was actually my idea as a vegetarian entree.  I wasn’t thrilled with anything off their menu, but they told me that they would basically create whatever I wanted.  My mom had made this vegetable tart for Christmas Eve dinner a few months back, I sent them the recipe, and they turned it into a meal they were able to prepare for a crowd.  It was incredible!

As everyone ate, my dad, sister, and Josh’s brother gave speeches and toasts.

And we kissed a few times too

Then we served our guests cake.  As mentioned previously, I made my own wedding cake.  But I was nervous that it either wouldn’t turn out or I wouldn’t be able to bake for 300 people, so we ordered sheet cakes from a local bakery.  Josh and I served the cake to our guests.  We went around table to table after dinner and served everyone, as a thank you to them for coming, and also to give us a chance to personally talk with every one there.  It was so much fun!  While people waited, we had a slideshow of pictures playing of us growing up and then some recent ones of the two of us together.

Then it was time for the first dance.  We danced to The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra.  Josh came out with a rose for me that was so cute.  The whole day was such a whirlwind that I love thinking back to this moment and just having 3 minutes to ourselves that felt so romantic (granted we had 300 sets of eyes on us) but I wasn’t thinking about that at all.  We didn’t have dance lessons at all so we just swayed and did a few twirls and dips.  It felt just right.  Just like us.

And the dance was off!  We had a wonderful DJ who kept the party going all night into the wee hours.  I think everyone had such a blast!!!

A little later we had the father/daughter dance and mother/son dance.

The whole time we also had a photo booth for everyone.  The booth printed out 2 copies of everything so the guests got 1 copy to take home and then the other went in to a book for us.  We got the book right away and looked at it the next day and laughed for literally an hour straight.  We had props for people to use too.  You could definitely tell as the night went on, the pictures got a little crazier

Overall, we wanted our night to be something that we would remember forever, and that our guests would remember too.  I loved that it was full of tiny unique details and not a cookie-cutter day like some weddings.

Just thinking about it makes me beam from ear to ear.  The best day of our lives.  For sure.

For the rest of our wedding recaps, check out this page.

Have a great weekend:)

It’s been a while since I did one of these wedding recap posts for you all.  When I was trying to decide what to post for ya’ll today I was looking at what you are all viewing on my blog.  Overwhelmingly, you are all looking at these wedding recaps.  I can’t blame you, when I was wedding planning (and let’s face it, even after being married) I loved looking at pictures from other people’s weddings to get ideas.

I was also secretly excited about this because I love thinking back to our wedding day and discussing details with people.  It was fun bringing all of our pictures home during the holidays and sharing them with our families and reminiscing.  Our photographer, Sarah, did such a wonderful job capturing every moment on our whirlwind of a day.

So, the last time when we left off we talked about the ceremony, getting ready, the rehearsal and setting up, our wedding week, my bachelorette party, how Josh proposed, and how I made my own wedding cake.

After the ceremony, we stayed at the church and took a few family photos.  Then we drove to downtown Wausau and took pictures in a few different spots.  We didn’t have a ton of time before the Grand March so things felt a little rushed, but we managed to get a lot of amazing shots.  The rain we had all day managed to stop for the hour we were outside!  But it was still a little chilly.  I didn’t mind so much because my dress had 7 layers of tulle in the skirt!!!!! and the guys were ok in their tuxes, but my girls were all cold.  I love you all for bearing with us and creating these memories.

Without further ado, a ton of pictures.  All photos are copyright Something Beautiful Images.

 

Happy Friday friends!  I am so beyond happy that it’s Friday today!!!!  I’ve enjoyed my first week of school but I feel exhausted.  It always takes a little bit to adjust to school when I come back and I am ready for the weekend.

I’ve also decided that from now on I will be doing wedding recap posts on Fridays.  I have so much fun writing them and it seems like the perfect end to the week.

You can head on over to the wedding recap page to see the rest of our wedding recaps.  We left off talking about getting ready with my best girls.  And now it’s time to actually get married.

It’s been a little while since I did a wedding post, mostly because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to compose this post.  For Josh and me, the ceremony was the most important part of our wedding day.  It’s what getting married is all about and we tried so hard to make it as special as possible.  Sure, the reception was a blast and we loved partying with our family and friends, but at the end of the day it’s about getting married to each other.

Our faith is very important to us and we wanted our wedding to be a reflection of that.  I realize that not all of have the same beliefs as we do, but if I want to be true to myself and tell y’all what really happened I’m not going to leave anything out of this post.

Josh and I were married at the lutheran church that I grew up in in Wausau, WI.  The whole process started months earlier, meeting with the pastor and going through some pre-marital sessions with him.  At our first session we told him that we wanted our wedding ceremony to be a reflection of our faith and the Christian symbol of marriage.  We wanted it to be a celebration and worship service.  And the pastor was so excited to do a wedding like that for us.

We worked hard to pick hymns and readings that reflected our love for each other and God’s love for us.  We had some friends of ours who are wonderful musicians play during the ceremony, but we also had some audience participation as well.  I really wish we could have recorded all of our music on a cd or something because I would love to listen to it over and over again.  These were our song choices.

Prelude Music

Blessed Be Your Name

From The Inside Out

How He Loves Us

Divine Romance

You’re Beautiful

Processional

All Creatures of Our God and King

And then I walked down the aisle with my Daddy to Canon in D.

It was my parents’ wedding song so it was really special to have it be a part of our ceremony too.  I remember staring down the aisle as I walked toward my husband and just grinning.  It felt like forever and a blink at the same time.  I also remember looking around and seeing all of our friends and family who traveled from so far to be with us on our special day.  I wasn’t nervous, I was so excited!!!  Everything just felt so perfect.

We followed a traditional wedding service with lots of personal touches.  For our readings we chose 1 John 4:7-12 and  1 Corinthians 13.  Two of my best friends, Bridget and Brittany, read for us and did such a great job!

Then it was audience participation time.  We had everyone sing Amazing Grace together.  All of the verses.  This is one of Josh’s favorite hymns.  I loved the fact that it was something that everyone knew and could sing together.

After that it was time for the gospel.  We chose John 15: 9-12 as our gospel and really felt like it fit us well.  Our Pastor did such a great job creating a message that was fit for us and that everyone else could relate to as well.

We had one more song for everyone to sing, Come Thou Fount.

Then it was time for the vows and sacrament of marriage.  We went with very traditional vows because we felt that they were strong and expressed our promises to each other perfectly.

During that time we also did a Unity Candle ceremony where Josh’s sister sang Love Never Fails and our bridal party prayed for us.  I first heard this song on the radio last year one day and had such a strong connection with it that I could not stop crying.  It was just so insanely perfect for us.  I knew it had to be a part of our wedding.  And Josh’s sister has a beautiful voice and agreed to sing it for us.

After that we served communion to everyone, as a way to share a meal with our guests.  Our songs for communion were You Are My King, and How Deep The Father’s Love For Us.

Then we were announced as man and wife.  We kissed.

And ran down the aisle hand in hand to We Go Together!

We came back in and greeted our guests and dismissed them aisle by aisle rather than doing a receiving line, which I really liked.  I felt like I was able to spend a moment with every single person that came to see us and that was really special to me.

The whole ceremony experience was beyond words perfect.  I am getting chills just typing this.  So. Much. Love.

I realize that our style of ceremony is not everyone’s idea of a perfect wedding, but it was perfect for us.

So if you’re still with me, thank you.  I would love to answer any questions you might have about how we did our ceremony.  I also plan on posting more details about all of the diy projects we did for this, and for the reception too.

Next week, we’ll talk about the party!!!

Happy weekend:)