It's Our 1 Year Anniversary, see...

So, I was thinking this...

Happy First Anniversary, sweet one. :) I love you.

Our Wedding: The Reception

Our reception was perfectly simple. Nothing fancy. Nothing over the top gawdy. Sweet, homespun, personal.

I knew I wanted my father to speak. And as predicted, he had the whole place in tears. His words were so powerfully poignant, I tell you! 

As I always say around here, my favorite thing to do is celebrate Timothy's Greek heritage and my Southern heritage. So, naturally we had Greek mints and Cackalacky BBQ sauce (my mom's brilliant idea) as favors for our guests. For those of you who don't know, "Cackalacky" is a nickname us Carolinians call our states. :)

To close out the evening, per the request of our family, we sang some Beatles "Something In The Way She Move." 

Have any fun reception stories from your wedding?

Linking up with:

Wedding Wednesday 

Our Wedding: The (Very Tiny) Wedding Party

In keeping with the simplicity of our wedding, Timothy and I decided to have only our sisters in the wedding party which was a perfect fit. There stood my beautiful sister in seafoam green lace to the right of me, and his gorgeous sis in a simple (sexy!) chocolate dress to Timothy's left. 

One of the most charming elements of our wedding was our flower girl. My darling aunt who has Down Syndrome was the perfect person to lay down petals on our special day (and a real crowd please too!).

Our Wedding: The Honeymoon

Our honeymoon was absolutely perfect. And it was FREE. 

My parents own a glorious little cabin tucked away on a mountainside in Warrensville, NC. What better way to celebrate our Fall wedding than a blissful, captivating Autumnal getaway? So, mom and dad handed us the keys and we drove ourselves on a foggy trip to beautiful Appalachia. 

When you live in work in Orlando, FL at the most magical place on Earth, the last thing you want to do on your vacation is anything tourist-y. Get us away from heat, crowds, Starbucks, and Mickey ears. Stat.

Prior to the wedding, I literally chose our wedding date based on the peak of the leaves changing color. Nailed it.

The adjacent town to the cabin is West Jefferson, NC. It's an adorable little one-stoplight town with local shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, sweet people, and buckets of charm. One of the larges draws to this tiny place is the Ashe County Cheese Store. Cheese is my jam. And what's even more of my jam? Cheese curds. Give me cheese curds all day long.

We have a fire pit next to the cabin. But, fire pits are rendered useless when you've got damp fire wood. It took a solid three days of failed attempts before Timothy could get a unwavering flame. At long last, s'mores time it was!

We spent the rest of the week tending to activities completely specific to what we're all about: antiquing, thrifting, eating totally awesome barbecue, playing UNO, making sausage balls (recipe to be posted soon!), being silly. We even had a little birdy fly into the cabin window (we thought FOR SURE he was dead). But, turns out he just had a few birdies of his own flying around his head. We fed him, nursed him back to health, and he flew away as though it had never happened. Magic? Yes.

The honeymoon was everything we needed: cost effective, laid back, chilly, filled with good food and most importantly, completely us. :) 

Our Wedding: Window Shutter Guest Book

I fell in love with the window shutters guestbook idea in the early months of planning our wedding. If fate wanted to have a hand, it surely did. One Saturday afternoon, we learned there was a yard sale happening next door to Timothy's folks' house. Low and behold, what shoudl we see but a closet door lying haphazardly on their lawn. "How much?" After a simple shrug, the neighbor responds, "A buck?" SOLD!

What you should know about me is that I'm a freebie whore. I use the term, "whore" lightly because you should also know that I am not a prostitute. To put it simply, I'm an avid advocate of signing up for samples online. You should try it. It's awesome. So, when I received a coupon for free paint at Ace Hardware, I immediately ran to our local store and grabbed our seafoamy little wedding color. And if that wasn't enough freeby-ing, I also order a bucket load of free customized Vistaprint cards in our wedding color for guests to write their messages upon.

This was a great, simple project for us to work on together and it looked beautiful at the reception. We had such a blast reading our sweet little notes the night of the wedding over chocolate-dipped strawberries in the hotel room. Perfecto.

Total cost of our guestbook? One dolla. Nailed it.

Our Wedding: The Engagement Photos

Alright kids, first confession: We got our engagement photos done THREE days before our wedding. You wanna talk about procrastination? We did it. We went there. 

I was so concerned with making every little decoration by hand that I forgot 1. To buy a dress until the last minute and 2. To capture that beautiful moment of "we're not married yet but we're gonna be."

We wanted our shoot to capture the fact that we rarely take anything seriously, our simplistic affection for one another, our quirky antics, our love for music, and Paddington the Bear- who I've had since I was born, whose ears are mere tatters of felt, and who still sleeps in the Mr. and Mrs. Pappas bed each night. :) Enjoy.

Who Did It: Our amazing family friend: Debbi Randall Ballard 

My Advice: Be sure to find a photographer who can capture your personality as a couple. How sad it would be to look sterile and generic and uncharacteristic in your engagement photos knowing the vibrant and unique couple you are! Be comfortable and familiar with your photographer as best you can. :)

 

Our Wedding: Pre-Ceremony Letter Exchange

After a year's worth of raiding the Pinterest closet for wedding ideas, I knew we couldn't resist the idea of the pre-ceremony letter exchange. Since we did a very traditional Baptist wedding, we didn't write our own vows. Naturally, this meant we wanted a place that day that we could exchange our personal words of love with one another. 

We hope to frame our letters soon as sweet keepsakes of our special day. :)

Read more about our wedding details right here!

Our Wedding: The Proposal

Timothy proposed to me on our one year anniversay (Aug. 4, 2011) in my favorite, favorite ride the world, Walt Disney World's Tower of Terror. At the break of dawn, I was given a VIP tour of the entire ride before wrapping up in the hotel lobby where Timothy took a pre-planted engagement ring from one of the tables and got down on one knee.

The proposal took me by complete surprise as the tears flooded my face and I grabbed him in a constrictive embrace forgetting to even say yes. Photographers hopped out from behind decorative bushes as the park guests cheered and applauded the happy moment. 

Naturally, we celebrated the proposal over a Waffle House breakfast. Rings are expensive, y'all...

Our Wedding: The Cake

Who Made It: Mandie of Got What It Cakes in Charlotte, NC

My amazing and wonderful mother organized 527 cake tastings for us. It was probably more like 6, but after you've been stuffing your face with baby cake samples for four days straight, it feels like 527. We tried everything from stuffy, high-end cakes shellacked in fondant to modest cakes made by sweet grandmothers right out of their own home. At the end of the day, Mandie was a perfect fit- her bubbly, vivacious personality blended beautifully with our crazy antics as a couple. 

My aunt had given us a super whimsical I-don't-get-it-but-I-love-it cake topper of a rabbit and a cat with people faces. People kept asking the story behind it to which we always responded, "We got nothin'. But, isn't it cute?" I adore my aunt's taste and no other cake topper would've come close to what we needed.

Mandie had the idea of using my paper flowers on the cake which worked beautifully with the simple, rustic look I wanted the cake to have. The icing was NOT fondant and the layers consisted of, legit, the best carrot cake I've ever had, and a white and chocolate marble in the center. The guests absolutely loved it. Happy guests mean happy bride and groom. :)

We couldn't have asked for anything more.

Our Wedding: Rustic Burlap Jars (Craft)

My dear sweet husband dealt with a year's worth of jar hoarding from me which is how I REALLY knew he was a keeper. :) Pickle jars, pasta sauce jars, salsa jars, and jelly jars made up the bulk of our wedding decor. Jars, glue, twine, and burlap: one of the simplest and cheapest ways to decorate your own wedding. I even added in some scrap trim that just happened to be one of our wedding colors and Disney World packing paper to the mix. Let your imagination go crazy!

Our Wedding: The Dress

Having a homemade wedding means you feel a little less guilty when you (or your wonderful family) splurge on your dress. I've never been the kind of girl who spends money on clothes. The bulk of my wardrobe consists of thrift store buys, hand-me-downs, and gifty clothes from mom (I think she feels sorry for me having a pitiful guilt complex about spending money on anything other than a necessity).

So, when the dress shopping mission began and the price tags contained extravagant numbers consisting of- not two, not three, but four digits, I peed myself a little. 

A lot.

All over the place.

Clean-up on Aisle Bride. 

In that moment, I made a pact with God that if I'm a good wife, I get all boys when I decide to bear childen. Rented tuxedos for life!

On top of lofty prices, I, the uninformed bride-to-be, had not a clue how far in advance one has to actually purchase their wedding dress. I found my perfect gown on a sunny afternoon in July. I was ecstatic, enthralled, elated, various other e-words!

The boutique clerk asked me excitedly, "SO, when's the big day?"

"October 6th!" I boasted.

Crickets. Very sad violin-playing crickets on a rainy day.

".... Oh. Yeah, your dress isn't going to be ready by then."

"What? ... But, it's right here. Let me have it," I thought daftly (<--- picked this word up from my English mates- er, friends). This is promptly when the phrase, "off the rack sale" suddenly made sense to my air-filled head. It's a special occasion because you. can't. usually. buy. off. the. rack. I get it now.

Luckily, the stars aligned and we were able to pull some strings (i.e. rush delivery dollar bills) and my beautiful dress arrived just in the knick of time for the big day.

The Dress: Queen Anne's Lace

Designer: Claire Pettibone

Boutique Purchased From: J Majors Bridal Boutique (Charlotte, NC)

I ended up cutting corners on the rest of my attire with sparkly flats borrowed from my sister, an Etsy garter, and "something borrowed" jewelry from my mother-in-law. For anyone hoping to find a delicate, antique-like dress with fairy-like, natural undertones, Claire Pettibone is your woman. I'm completely in love with her whimsical style and unique understanding of the female figure. :)

Our Wedding: Paper Flowers (Craft)

Since Timothy and I have been doing musical theatre our entire lives, we had heaping piles of sheet music in our possession. We thought it would be a nice personal touch to use sheet music from our past shows to bring our theatrical sides into the wedding. I spent weeks coffee and tea-dying the pages to turn them into these little paper flowers that we used all through out the wedding, even on the cake! It was a SUPER simple detail that gave a great touch of personality to our special day. :)

You could also do this with pages from your favorite book or newspaper clippings.

Materials Needed

Paper
Brewed Coffee or Tea

Paintbrush (I find that sponge brushes work best)

Stapler

Tacky Glue

Buttons

1. Use a shallow tray and fill with a pot of brewed coffee or tea

(the tea will be darker if you use multiple bags)

2. Brush the paper in three-four coats of tea. Allow to dry completely overnight.

3. Cut the tea-stained pages into strips.

4. Form the strips into a flower formation and staple at the center.

5. Cover the staple in a decorative button, attach with a dot of tacky glue.