Featured Wedding: Katie & Michael

Katie and Michael’s wedding day was one to be remembered. They were one of the most easy-going couple’s we’ve had the pleasure of working with. Their family and friends were so supportive of the pair that it was hard not to be excited for their big day! The beautiful October weather allowed Jason Tucker Photography to capture some beautiful moments.

Tucker Photography

The natural blush tones of the bridesmaid’s dresses and flowers worked seamlessly with the light purple and gray of the groomsmen’s tuxes. Their florist, In Full Bloom, created gorgeous arrangements that matched their color scheme to a tee. We couldn’t help but gush over the little flower girls in their dresses! They were so cute! Katie & Michael chose a ceremony under the trees in front of the Cabin by the Spring.

For their reception, the bride chose plum table cloths and natural centerpieces. It was a non-stop party for the pair after their nuptials. All of the guests enjoyed the live band and danced the night away. With ribbon wands and lavender pieces being thrown, the couple made their grand exit to their classic blue Jaguar getaway car. It was a night to remember! Congratulations Katie & Michael!

Tucker Photography

Wedding Venue: Cabin by the Spring

Wedding Coordinator: Shannon Thomas at the Hermitage

Photography: Tucker Photography

Flowers: In Full Bloom

Catering: Two Fat Men Catering

Getaway Car: Matchless

Lighting: Nashville Audio Visual

Cake: Signature Cakes by Vicki

Featured Wedding: Marissa & Henry

Everyone looks gorgeous on their wedding day. It's a mixture of all of the joy, adrenaline, and, for us ladies, spending more than 5 hurried minutes on our makeup! Marissa and Henry, though, have to be one of the most gorgeous couples in the history of weddings, and they are so loving and trusting of each other that it makes them beautiful people on the inside and out. 

Marissa and Henry are also world travelers! During their entire wedding planning process, they were living in Dubai, so we had a lot of Skype sessions to make sure that they had the wedding they wanted even though they couldn't be here to do it all themselves. It was an ideal spring wedding, full of soft colors, a little, lucky rain shower, and this happy couple, who took off the next day for their Sri Lanka honeymoon! If you love what you see, be sure to scroll all the way down for the list of their rock star wedding vendors!

Seriously, they look like they could be models! Their wedding photos  are so dreamy!

Marissa chose soft greens and purples for her wedding colors, and we're enchanted with her bouquet!

Then there's our trusty golf cart! It's not a Hermitage wedding unless you get an a ride around the grounds!

Marissa and Henry wanted to tie the knot outside and chose to do so under one of our largest trees. A little sprinkle started during the ceremony, but the wedding party and most of the guests were completely sheltered by the canopy of leaves above them. The light rain made it feel like a moment out of a romantic movie.

Apparently, Henry likes donkeys, so he had to get a quick picture with Homer, who's stomping grounds are on site.

Marissa and Henry are history buffs and wanted to incorporate the history of the Hermitage into their wedding somehow. They chose to organize their seating chart with presidents instead of numbers, so guests could look up their name to find out if they were at the Thomas Jefferson or Teddy Roosevelt tables. The images of the presidents even had a subtle purple tint so they would match the decor! 

Since this was a destination wedding for everyone, Henry and Marissa wanted to stick with some classic Southern food. Everyone got a taste of Nashville!

The swagged lights Marissa decided to add in the Cabin looked amazing and added just a little more magic to the evening.

It was such a perfect day for this amazing couple, and we're so glad we got to be a part of it!

Here are the wedding vendors who helped make their day perfect:

Venue: Andrew Jackson's Hermitage- Cabin by the Spring 

Planning: Emily Piepenbrink at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage

Photography: Emily Lester Photography

Rentals: Liberty Party Rentals

Lighting: Nashville Audio Visual

Catering: Two Fat Men

Florals: GreenFinch Floral Design

Cake: Dulce Desserts

Ceremony Music: Avery Bright

DJ: Nashville Party Authority

Wedding Advice From a Recent Bride

Hello! My name is Chelsea. I’m with the events staff here at The Hermitage. I absolutely love working on the weddings here and am so honored I get to be a part of so many. On April 2nd I reversed my usual role and got to be the one walking down the aisle! I had the wedding of my dreams, and I wanted to share my wedding planning experience as a bride with you!

Hardest/Easiest Part of Planning

Hardest-

• Deciding on a general direction- Let’s be honest, there are SO many cool ideas out there. You should have seen my Pinterest board. It was a hodgepodge of beautiful randomness. I didn’t know if I wanted a rustic, boho, or a woodland feel. It just gets overwhelming. I say this to encourage you to sit down with your fiancé and decide on what kind of wedding you want. What kind of feel do you both want? What is representative of you two? Decide on a theme--a point in time, a painting, a movie, something. Find photos for inspiration, get creative, and then run with it.
• Keeping up with all of the details- Lists will become your best friend. They’ll be on legal pads, post-it notes, voice memos, and the occasional text to yourself. The minor details seem never ending. How do you want your napkins folded? What will you be using for a send-off? Where are guest favors to be placed? The list goes on and on. However, as your big day gets closer the list will get shorter and shorter… I promise!
• Seeing the big picture- Sometimes it’s difficult to see how everything is going to flow or look together. No matter how many times you layout all of your décor on your living room floor it is still difficult to envision how your guest sign-in table is going to look with linens, flowers, candles, and all. Just relax and trust your planner to have it all come together!

 Easiest-

• Having a planner do the big stuff- A planner will save you so much time and more importantly, stress! They will make hotel blocks for your out-of-town guests, create all of the floor plans, and will organize the ever so frantic bridal party to make sure everyone walks down the aisle at the right time (That’s some sort of magic if you ask me!). They will also set-up and tear-down all of the décor that you brought. They’re there so you can enjoy your wedding day with your loved ones and not have to run around worrying about the little things. This is the time to focus on yourself and the next step you and your fiancé are about to take, not on how many seconds should pass between each bridesmaid walking down the aisle.
• Vendor meetings- No need to stress! These are so much fun! Whether you’re trying food, playing with table settings, or talking with a photographer or DJ, this is your time to reveal to them what the wedding of your dreams looks like. Have any questions or possibly odd requests? Do NOT be afraid to ask. You’d be surprised what certain vendors are able to tailor. Let them know what is important to YOU because each bride likes to emphasize different aspects of their wedding.
• Budgeting (can be stressful, but it is easy when you’re on top of it!)- Don’t be afraid to shop around for vendors and get quotes. Plus, you’ll be able to see who fits your wedding style the best. If I could only give one piece of advice it would be to decide on your top 3 most important parts of your wedding and splurge on those. If you are dreaming of pretty flowers and greens, then do it! There are corners that can be cut in just about every category. And when spending keep everything logged, keep every receipt, and don’t impulse buy. Little things add up quickly and you don’t want to be left with a bunch of unneeded items.

Head Table- Why not sit in throne chairs and drink out of brass goblets?! Oh, and you can't have a royal table without a garland!

Mistakes I think I made during planning

• Time management- Do not, I repeat, DO NOT wait until right before the wedding to get “small stuff” done. If I could go back I would have had everything done at least 3- 4 weeks out. But of course I was still making my guest favors the night before…oops! Granted, I didn’t have the help I needed until everyone was in town to help me out, but I did think that I had a lot more done that I actually did. I guess I bit off a little bit more than I could chew. Thankfully, I had some amazing people to help me get everything together without being crazy stressed!
• Choosing vendors that I really didn’t trust- The bottom line is don’t choose to work with someone if you don’t trust them completely. You will waste time worrying and trying to micromanage what they do. Know that it’s okay NOT to book after a vendor meeting. And don’t just book because they are a family friend or gave you a good deal. You want to trust your vendors in full to provide the best service for your big day!

Favorite aspects of your wedding

• The guests- After plus ones we only had 85 guests and it was PERFECT. Originally we made a long list that included long lost family and friends to people we got to know at our gym. The both of us then sat down and decided that our criteria was that we will not invite anyone that we wouldn’t take out for coffee. Sure, we ended up running into some people that we marked off of our list, but we still had no regrets. It made our wedding intimate, loads of fun, and not to mention cheaper!
• Make it personal- Do not be afraid to do something different! We started off our ceremony with a “warming of the rings” where our rings were placed inside a wooden box and were passed around for our guests to see and to put their wishes, blessings, and prayers over. I’ve had people continuously commenting how unique and sweet of a gesture it was. And now looking back my fiancé and I are so happy to have been able to involve our loved ones in our ceremony.

Escort Cards- We had table "animals" rather than table numbers. Our guests loved finding out which animal they were going to be at for the night!

What I wish I would have known

• Some little things just don’t matter- At the end of the day it’s about you and your husband. No one is going to remember every little detail. For example, last minute we decided to not drape the doorways at our cocktail hour to save some money. And you know what?  I never caught a glimpse of my cocktail hour! And the while planning the whole time I was very adamant on draping those doorways that I would have never seen. If I knew this little thing wasn’t such a big deal I would have never been so hung up on the drapes (see what I did there). But seriously, focus on the bigger things that you find truly important.
• How fast it goes by- Oh my, your wedding day is over in a blink of an eye. My final advice would be to enjoy every moment of it and please, please, please if you’re going to splurge on anything, splurge on an amazing photographer! You will have these photos for you to remember this quick, but special day for the rest of your life. Make sure that it is captured in the best way possible. It makes all of the difference.

Table Setting- I love a colored table cloth rather than sticking to a traditional ivory. And I couldn't resist these wooden chargers!

The Toilet: Your Wedding's Unspoken Hero

Photo by Felix Andre Skulstad

I won’t lie, I love a nice bathroom. Bathrooms are like life’s little rest stops; they afford small breaks for you to relax and collect yourself. If you’re female, they allow for some fantastic bonding moments as we can never seem to go to them alone. So today, I’d like us all to take some time to think and appreciate the wiz palaces at our weddings.

First, as a bride, you should definitely give some thought to the restrooms at your wedding venue. This is the place where you and your closest bridesmaids will be undertaking the herculean task of holding up your dress while you try to relieve yourself while not being able to see the commode. So… make sure there’s more than one restroom because you never know how long that will take. Then make sure that there’s at least one stall that can hold four of you standing at once. Don’t you already feel more grateful for that commonplace piece of porcelain?

Second, think about all the ways (beyond the obvious) that bathrooms will help your guests. When your Cousin Sarah’s new baby is wailing for a diaper change, the bathrooms come to the rescue. When Uncle Pat gets chocolate icing all over himself, the bathrooms come to the rescue. When one of your bridesmaids needs to have a very intense, very private conversation with her friend about the fact that she’s still single, the bathrooms come to the rescue. Your guests will appreciate that you’ve made the restrooms as comfortable as possible for their moments of crisis.

This leads us to the fact that restrooms are a popular place at weddings. Everyone will visit them at some point that day. Because of that, I think it’s fun to include them in your decorating plan as well. Add a flower arrangement, a basket of supplies (hairspray, deodorant, etc), or even some cute bathtub baby photos of you and your groom on the countertops of your venue’s restrooms. Since everyone will end up washing their hands (we hope), the bathroom countertop is a great place to decorate!

Going to the bathroom isn’t something most folks think about when planning or attending a wedding, but it’s one of the most vital aspects of them. So let’s stop forgetting about that important little antechamber and start celebrating it. Hooray for the humble toilet!

Featured Wedding: Stephanie & Alex

I love a good theme, and Stephanie and Alex’s rustic Americana theme is one of the loveliest I’ve seen. Not to mention that there’s no better place for an Americana wedding than the home of 7th President, Andrew Jackson.

Stephanie and Alex held their ceremony in the historic Hermitage Church and the reception at the Cabin by the Spring, both of which are on the grounds of the Hermitage. There is some seriously clever and imaginative styling that went into this, and the bride executed it herself. Once you see the photos below I think you’ll want to join me in giving her a standing ovation.

Three cheers for Stephanie & Alex!

Credits:

Photography by www.abigailbobophotography.com

Florals by Green Finch Floral Design

Catering by Two Fat Men Catering

Rentals by Liberty Rentals

Music by Premier DJs and The Hogslop String Band