Weddings by Jess

It looks like all the email issues have been resolved. I did, however, want to inform everyone that due to some personal reasons, I am not currently accepting any new weddings. I will let you know when I will start taking on new contracts.

I’m having some problems with sending emails. I hope to have it resolved shortly, but feel free to call if you have any questions.

Shelby and Darrin were married last October in a cool, fall ceremony held at Vanderbilt’s Dyer Observatory. It rained the day before, but it luckily held out for their entire wedding day!

Their photographer was Jonathan Hobson of Vizarti Studios, who took all of these photos.

Here’s my cameo of helping the bride up to the ceremony area by holding her train out of the mud.

Ralph Griggs officiated the ceremony, which was held on the back lawn of the observatory.

The reception was held under a tent provided by Nashville Tent & Awning. They have a special tent that perfectly fits the back of the observatory. Chairs and linens were rented from Grand Central Party, and Nashville Event Lighting did a romantic orange wash on the ceiling of the tent. Shelby and Darrin also wanted a custom gobo, so they ordered one from goboman.com for use in my projector.

The cakes were done by Mary Asherbranner, and the reception was catered by Down South Delights. Ben Hamric was the bartender for the evening. For table centerpieces, we stuck with the fall theme and picked up some pumpkins and faux fall leaves. Some candlelight completed the ambiance during the evening reception.

I’m so glad I could be a part of their day!

Now is a good time to buy a gown!

The White Room in Lebanon is having a Maggie Sottero trunk show on January 9th and 10th. All Maggies will be 10% off. To make an appointment, call 615-449-9756.

Faccio Bridal is having a Rivini trunk show on January 8th through the 10th. You can meet renowned stylist Monte Durham and enjoy 15% off all purchases. To make an appointment, call 615-778-9437.

Hello! I hope everyone had a great holiday season!

I need to play catch-up on the blog and post about the remaining two weddings I had in 2008, but first I wanted to share my new year’s party decor with you.

Most of this was based on designs from the Hostess with the Mostess site, so I won’t take credit for it. I went with a red and silver color scheme to match my house (which is mostly decorated in red, black, and white). I always decorate my Christmas tree with red and silver, as well, so it gives the added bonus of being able to reuse a lot of the stuff for next Christmas.

You can see here that I did some of the Martha Stewart pom-poms above the bar.

Here’s a view of the table before a ton of food was put on it. Wrapping paper was used as a table runner. It would work best on a square or rectangular table, but since I was doing set-up in about two hours, I didn’t have time to move my rectangular table downstairs.

I cut up some silver bead garland to attach to the champagne glasses.

The centerpiece cost less than $15 thanks to after Christmas sales at Hobby Lobby. I cut strips of cardstock in both silver and red and pinned them to the candles. The numbers are just silver stickers.

Robin and Seth were married earlier this month in a gorgeous ceremony at Cheekwood. The weather was absolutely perfect, and I’m so glad I got to take part in their day!

Their photographer was Steve Herlihy, who provided all these great photos!

The ceremony was held at Cheekwood’s Reflection Pool with a string trio from the Wedding Musicians Company providing the music. Robin’s make-up was done by Lisa Johnson of Brides by Lisa, who did a fantastic job.

A reception followed at the Pineapple Room Restaurant. The cocktail hour was held on the deck and a sit-down dinner followed inside the restaurant. Wedding Musicians Company again provided the music with their jazz trio.

All the flowers were put together by A Village of Flowers.

The Bake Shoppe created the cakes.

Overall, it was a fantastic day and a group of wonderful vendors!

Here are the save the dates I designed for Jessica and Danny’s upcoming wedding. We printed them as postcards through Vistaprint, which is perfect for couples on a budget.

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I have been so busy lately! Stay tuned for posts on Jessica and Danny’s save the dates and Robin and Seth’s upcoming wedding. But today I just wanted to share that Dawn and Joey’s wedding was featured on Ashley’s Bride Guide today! You can see some more of their gorgeous photos from Dove Wedding Photography and read about their day from their point of view.

I was commissioned by a bride in Louisiana to create their wedding invitations. She provided me with their monogram, which I used on the back flap of the envelopes and incorporated their fleur-de-lis theme on the invitations themselves. For privacy’s sake, of course, I blurred out all the private information, but you get the general idea!

I briefly posted about Dawn and Joey’s wedding a couple months ago, but I wanted to do a full recap with some photos from the great team over at Dove Wedding Photography. Dawn and Joey were both a delight to work with. They had an exact vision in mind, and I did my best to execute their well-made plans as their week-of coordinator.

The day started off well with a call from the groom saying that their DJ was bailing out and sending someone else in his place for the ceremony; the regularly scheduled DJ was supposed to still show up at the reception. I talked to the new DJ and made sure he knew what time to be at the ceremony location so that I could go over the cues that we had agreed upon with the previous DJ the day before at the rehearsal.

Luckily, this was the only issue the entire day. While we were all half worried that he wasn’t going to show either, he did. The ceremony prelude music wasn’t exactly what they had planned, but luckily I had a copy of the rest of their music to give to the new guy. The ceremony on the plaza started right on time, just as the bells begin to ring downtown to indicate the new hour.

The original DJ never did show, even for the reception like he said he would, but luckily his replacement stepped up to the plate and no one ever knew the difference. All the dances at the reception went off without a hitch, and you can see me here in the background (on the right) trying not to cry as I watch the newlyweds. I’m such a sap at weddings.

Dawn and Joey, I’m so glad I could be a part of your wedding day!

You can check out more of Dove’s photos of their wedding here.