Planning the Big Day – All the Places Part 3

Today is the last and final day of All the Places for this crazy wedding that Robby and I are planning. This is going to be a rather small post as I have two sessions that are calling my name to start editing! 😀

The last venue that Robby and I went to look at (and absolutely fell in love with) was Mabry Hazen House right in the middle of Downtown Knoxville! We loved the idea of having a historic venue be apart of our wedding. Robby and I have a thing for history (especially me) so we were absolutely ecstatic to find Mabry Hazen House. I contacted Calvin, the director of the museum (YES, MHH is a museum), and we got to scheduling a visit to the house. 

It was of course, January/February when we toured, and AGAIN it was absolutely freezing (I didn’t take any pictures on our initial visit, so all of the images below were taken in April). Calvin showed us the grounds where the ceremony and reception would both be and we could only imagine how much more beautiful it would be in May for the wedding. 

There is a gazebo on the grounds that has ample amounts of electrical outlets…a great place for the band or DJ to set up! 

One of my biggest requests is the fact that we definitely want Diesel to be there on our wedding day! Therefore, it is a huge deal to make sure that the venue is pet friendly. To our surprise, Calvin stated that the last owner of MHH, Miss Evelyn Hazen, was actually a pet lover. She occupied the house alone (along with many dogs and cats). In her will, she stipulated that if the house was to be sold, all profits would go to animal causes. This 100% stole our heart!!

This is the side of the house that would be in primary view during the ceremony and reception. Since the house is a museum, there only only about 2 rooms that guests would be able to see on the actual wedding day, and those would probably contain the remnants of what myself and the bridesmaids brought. However, we thought it would be great to have all of our out of town guests take a tour of the house on Friday leading up to wedding! 🙂

When Calvin took us on a tour of the inside of the house, Robby and I almost died!! There is so much history in this house from 3 different generations. Its absolutely amazing how much history one house can hold! 

Oh how I am in love with these doors…I could see many pictures right here on the big day!  

A little bit more history of the house: it was a vital part of the Civil War, both for the Union and Confederate forces!

As you can see, the venues that Robby and I looked at all definitely have a similarity. They are all historic homes that have amazing life around them. This is something that I have always seen as apart of my wedding day. I never saw myself in a ballroom or in a barn. I’m definitely a big old home kind of girl! 🙂 

Tomorrow, we will finally let everyone know which venue we chose for our wedding! We couldn’t be happier with our choice and know our guests will absolutely love it too! 

Planning the Big Day ~ All the Inspiration

One of the most amazing things about planning a wedding nowadays is the amount of inspiration that is out there! Whether it be wedding blogs, Pinterest, wedding magazines or friends’ albums on Facebook, there is always somewhere to draw ideas from! I love visiting wedding blogs! There are some seriously amazing brides out there who think of anything and everything to make their wedding unique! I can get my cup of coffee in the morning, check my email and just sit on wedding blogs for HOURS!!! Don’t put it past me on a Sunday morning!

This is going to be a very small post this week, but hopefully, the amount of info and additional looksies will keep you occupied for some time! 🙂

Here are the blogs that I hit up (at least) daily:

Green Wedding Shoes: Robby and I are doing vintage spoons for the wedding that I found on this blog the first day I visited it! 

DIY Vintage Spoons

Ruffled: They have some of the best vintage weddings out there!

Style Me Pretty: Their blog slogan is perfect. “The Ultimate Wedding Blog”

Southern Weddings Magazine: because when your a Southern Bride, this is your Bible!

One of their writers, Emily, is currently writing about planning her own wedding!

100 Layer Cake: They have some amazing DIY tutorials!

Once Wed: The most elegant wedding blog I’ve come across…the photography they feature is to die for!

I fell in love with this Farm Fresh Wedding Photoshoot so much that Robby and I visited the venue…check back next week for my post on Watermelon Moon Farm!

The Wedding Chicks: I love their vendors and DIY tutorials!

Rinse. Repeat.: A bride that shared her entire planning process and then surprised EVERYONE by going and eloping! She is amazing and has beautiful ideas!

I hope you have a blast going through these sites and get some phenomenal ideas!

Next week, I will talk about our quest for the perfect venue…it isn’t complete, but it is definitely a journey to talk about! 🙂

Planning the Big Day ~ The Guests

So, just in case you have recently stumbled across my blog…or me perhaps, you might have missed the small teeny tiny fact that I’m engaged!! 🙂 Yes, the love of my life popped the BIG question on a beautiful May day at none other than the Biltmore! You can check out our blissful (and I have to say the sweetest, most thoughtful and most romantic) engagement right here at Jennie Andrews Photography!

I am beyond excited to start on this little endeavor known as planning a wedding. Most brides probably have a slight panic attack when they realize just how much goes into planning a big shindig…where as I have seen probably (creeping up on) 100 weddings while tagging along with Jennie Andrews over the last 3 wedding seasons, so naturally I thought I had this in the bag. Oh boy…was I wrong! I feel like I just made 5 brides decide on eloping. 😦 But to be honest, I have seen SO much and have had SO many ideas, that deciding on what I really wanted and what would capture Robby and I as a couple has been a little bit tricky! I know I’m not the only bride out there who has felt like this (I follow an amazing blogosphere of ladies who blog about this very subject – see the end of the post for links). So I would like to put it all out there. Go through the tough guest list decisions, the breaking of traditions, deciding on if we should have a carving station or not…all of the little things that are left out of the bridal binders. Especially for planning a wedding here in East Tn! I hope to give you some venues that are a little bit less known, some alternative ideas for bands or DJ’s, and maybe even some DIY moments thrown in here or there (because lets face it…this is definitely going to be a DIY wedding)!

One thing Robby and I knew from the beginning, was we wanted only close friends and family and we wanted it to be laid back. Not show up in your blue jeans and flippie floppies laid back, but a relaxed atmosphere..no fuss. We’ve patiently waited 8 years for this marriage to begin (it’ll be 9.5 by the time the wedding rolls around) so we want to focus on us and making this a day that WE will remember.

Believe it or not, the guest list was the first thing we tackled. I had been told by many, many people that this is where the fights lie. He’ll want this person and that person and you’ll want friends that you haven’t seen in years there. I already knew that family was a must for me…and boy do I have a big family. So I knew that I would have to cut back on the friends…whereas Robby has a microscopic family (compared to mine) so he gets to go wild with his guys, and that was something that I had no problem compromising on. I am very, very happy to say that the mission of the guest list was solved one night, sitting at a restaurant where I had a glass of wine and Robby had a beer. No fights, no “if you are going to invite that person then I want to invite this person”. We even started suggesting who the other should invite! 🙂 We had decided that 80 was the number we wanted to stay close to, but we allowed ourselves the wiggle room so as not to add stress to a “potentially” stressful decision. Although the guest list isn’t 100% finalized, we have a hard list. Meaning, no one will be added. If we haven’t thought of them yet, then there must be a reason (ouch…little harsh there Kay). Once we finalize the venue, we are hoping to finalize the list!

Image by: Jill Thomas Photography found on explore. dream. discover

Need help on narrowing down (or even just beginning) a guest list? I actually created a list of my own, and Robby (with some help from his mom) created his list. Then we came together and went over both of them. Since we had a number in mind that we didn’t want to veer away from too much, that limited each of us while we created our own lists. We created a list of the “bare essentials” as we are calling them. These are the people that we wouldn’t feel right if they weren’t at the wedding. Basically, all of our family members were on this list (with the exception of the long lost aunt and uncle or the cousins that we haven’t seen since we were 7). Obviously, not everyone is in the situation we are. I have a close friend who doesn’t like half of her family. Not that she doesn’t see them…but she doesn’t like them. I have told her…”now thats a tough one” many times! Your wedding is your and your fiance’s day. And you should spend it with and surrounded by the people who will be there throughout your marriage to support and guide you. Hopefully that will help make those little odds and ends fall into place. 

Check back next week for our “Venue” post…man oh man…Knoxville has some killer areas for venues!!!