Our Favorite Day Details - 3.5.22

So the last time I left off we were just beginning to plan a wedding...fast forward a year and the wedding has been planned, completed, and we're 4 months into marriage! I did not blog as planned...if you're new around here this sporadic blogging is nothing different than the usual. Our favorite day would not have been possible without the guidance and support of my parents and Damon's parents.

I know a lot of my friends are in the middle of wedding planning, getting engaged, or just looking for ideas in general! I wanted to splash all of our wedding day details in one place. All photos were taken by our photographers at Atlanta Dahlia Photography- we highly recommend this team! Annie Schiffmacher (A.Maker Events) coordinated the week-of and day-of our wedding. She is organized, very communicative, and works out of Myrtle Beach. She's awesome!

Save-the-Dates, Invitations, & RSVP's

I will forever be loyal to Truly Engaging by Magnet Street. Not only was this the most affordable website I found online, it was also the most editable. I was able to change color, font, text position, size. Literally anything you wanted to manipulate was editable! For some perspective, we ordered 100 invitations with raised gold foil, 100 guest & return addressed envelopes, and 100 RSVP postcards for a total of $197. My mind was blown! I highly suggest RSVP postcards- we pre-stamped and pre-filled in guest count so there was no confusion and all guests needed to do was check yes or no, sign their names, and drop them back in the mail box. We loved getting the postcards back in the mail! We also ordered our Save-the-Dates and Thank You cards from this company as well. We plan on ordering Christmas cards from here this year too!

Flowers, Boutonnieres, & Bouquets 

Let me start by saying my mama is a rockstar. We had faux floral everything and she handmade them all. Not a single real flower was used and it all turned out incredible. We kept tables to glass hurricanes, glass jarred candles, and a faux Lamb's Ear garland. Bouquets were a beautiful mix of peachy and green floral from Hobby Lobby, Michael's, and Walmart. Stems were wrapped in jute and a braided beaded mix of twin. We shopped Hobby Lobby 50% off sales throughout the year. There was about a $400 total in florals.

Signage, Guestbook, & Favors

It was really important to us (mom and I) that we use things that could later be repurposed. For example, all of our signage (besides the guestbook) were in glass frames that both of us have now reused in our own homes and the leftover bell favors will be used on the Christmas tree this year. I bought a wedding sign bundle off of Etsy and we printed everything ourselves. This included a memory sign, bar menu, bride and groom drinks sign, an exit sign, a guestbook sign, etc. Damon and I wanted a fun guestbook, so we chose to use a couple boxes of Jenga blocks for guests to sign. Everyone rang their bell favor during our first kiss. Tip- Print your seating chart at Office Depot as a poster! I designed a poster on Publisher and uploaded it to Office Depot. They printed it for $20 and that was the biggest money savor we came across!

I wish we had gotten a picture of the seating chart in the daylight, but I am so proud of this thing! It was easy to create, extremely affordable, and easy to navigate!

Table Settings

My MOH Laura was the real MVP on this one. I was able to reuse all of her glass hurricanes from her wedding which was a big money saver. We bought a few extra from Dollar Tree, Goodwill, and Walmart to fill in here and there. Guest tables had 3 different sized hurricanes, a Lamb's Ear garland, and 3 candles. I didn't want the tables to be too crowded with decorations, so I chose to use a vinyl decal on one hurricane to show the table numbers for guests. The wedding party table had a mix of Lamb's Ear, Reserved signs, candles, and a terracotta cheese cloth runner going through it to tie in our wedding colors. Napkins were white cheese cloth and tied in a knot in front of guest seats.

Cocktail Hour, Dinner, & Cake

The biggest regret (if I can even call it that) was that I didn't get to see our cocktail hour come together. Thankfully, our awesome photographers got some incredible shots and from what I've heard everything was delicious. We used a company out of Sunset Beach called Host & Graze and they were amazing. We chose to do a huge charcuterie spread instead of a few different apps circulating. We wanted people to save room for dinner and hangout! Our wedding cake was simple and we really loved the idea of cupcakes. After shopping around for cakes and cupcakes, we realized that a major chunk of the budget would be going to dessert. We chose to use Walmart Bakery cupcakes (vanilla cake, vanilla icing) and got a couple dozen Gluten Free cupcakes from Cakes by the Sea (vanilla cake, vanilla icing) and a small cake just for us to cut. I ordered a topper from Etsy and grabbed some gold dust glitter to toss on it all. The dessert table came together beautifully! Tip: Highly recommend saving money on dessert and Walmart Bakery cupcakes were yummy. We used Middle of the Island out of Wilmington for our dinner buffet and caterer. Their staff was fun and enthusiastic and the food was delicious! We chose the route of providing our own alcohol (shoutout Damon's parents) and it was a big money saver. We went on a big trip to Total Wine in SC to scoop it all up.

Dresses & Suits

Our bridesmaid dresses and groomsmen ties came from Birdy Grey in the color Terracotta. They had amazing customer service from what I have been told from my girls! Flower girl dresses came from Amazon for around $20 and they were legitimately the sweetest thing! We ordered little denim jackets for them as well. Groomsmen suits came from Men's Wearhouse. My dress came from Camille's of Wilmington (10/10 experience there) and my veil came from...Amazon! The BEST $35 and I would do it over and over again. It seriously looked like the $185 veil that went with my dress. I ordered a couple different veils and this one matched flawlessly.

Ceremony

Early on we knew we wanted our officiant to be meaningful to us because we are both uncomfortable in front of the spotlight. Having someone up at the front we were familiar with was a big deal to us. Damon's brother, Bryce, was our officiant and he did a great job. He made us laugh and we truly had fun up there. It was over in the literal blink of an eye some would say. We knew we wanted the ceremony to be quick and simple- we were there for the reception! 

DJ

After "asking Facebook," I got a few suggestions for Shaun Burriss. I am now convinced he is an angel on Earth! We had some hiccups with our venue and he powered through them when I thought for sure he would wash his hands of it. Shaun is not that kind of guy and Damon and I both were so appreciative of him and how communicative and patient he was! He kept the dance floor full and his playlist was amazing. 

Hair & Make-Up

A close friend and incredibly talented girly, Sarah Palmer, did our make-up. She did make-up for Laura's (MOH) wedding on a whim and I knew from there she was the girl for the job. She also does make-up on the side when she is not in the hospital being a nurse! My hair stylist for the last 5 years, Kristin Earp, did all of our hair. She's the best and co-owns Honeycomb Salon in Shallotte, NC. Highly recommend!

Us Two

I had found the company Olive Avenue Jewelry when I was looking at wedding rings (and wishful thinking) one day on Pinterest. It's cute because I had actually pinned my engagement ring and my MOH, Sam, helped Damon decide between a couple of rings based on that pin! Damon's band (funny enough named the Damon) and both of my rings came from Olive Ave. We also both switched into matching Vans for the reception. We fell in love with this floral print when we saw it online!

I'm sure I'm missing some details that will come to me later. I'll list all of our vendors below that made the day possible and would love to talk about any of them if you have questions!

Vendors:

Coordinator- Annie Schiffmacher with A.Maker Events (10/10)

Dinner buffet- Middle of the Island (10/10)

Cocktail hour- Host & Graze (10/10)

Hair- Kristin Earp with Honeycomb Salon (10/10) Instagram: @hair_by_kristinnn

Make-up- Sarah Palmer out of Charlotte, NC (10/10)

DJ- DJ SBz (10/10)

Cake & Cupcakes- Walmart Bakery (cupcakes) & Cakes by the Sea (GF options)

Photography- Atlanta Dahlia Photography (10/10)

Wedding dress- Camille's of Wilmington (10/10) 

Wedding veil- Amazon (10/10- linked above)

Bridesmaid dresses & Groomsmen ties- Birdy Grey (10/10)

Groomsmen suits- Men's Wearhouse

Flower girl dresses- Amazon (10/10- linked above)

Invitations & RSVPs- Magnet Street (10/10)

Rings- Olive Avenue Jewelry (10/10)

Rehearsal dinner- The Oyster Rock in Calabash, NC (delicious, accommodating, very organized)

Venue- Slate & Cypress

#ComeMillerHighWater

It has been one whole month since the biggest surprise of my life happened! A whirlwind of a month- enjoying this season and starting to plan has been so much fun. For those that missed it...I'm engaged!

We have set a date, booked our venue and photographer, and now we’re nailing down final colors (aka the terracotta-mixed-with-greenery-and-springy-pinks-wedding-of-my-dreams).

We have just short of a year before we say “I do”, but I wanted to write about our engagement 1.) so I never forget and 2.) of course I’m going to document the whole process!

Since I never formally introduced Damon to the blog (whoops- it’s been a minute), here is what you need to know.

He’s the most genuine guy you will meet. His sense of humor matches mine, but sometimes I’m funnier. He cares about his family and friends. He encourages me to do my best and he listens when I’m upset. He loves disc golf, his truck, his crocs, sushi and steak, a good t-shirt, and me. Most importantly, he’s kind and good and okay okay okay enough sap.

We don’t necessarily have an “official” anniversary date because the first time he asked me to be his girlfriend I said no. He was so nervous, it was cute. I poked too much at him about it so he never asked me “officially” again ha! We dated the entire summer of 2019 and he met my parents in August of that year, so we say the official date is somewhere around then. I put him through the ringer in the beginning, but that story is for a different day.

As cheeseball as it sounds, we both knew about 6 months in that this was it. It was gettin’ serious. Almost a year into dating we started talking about marriage and what that meant to each of us. I laid it all out there and made sure he knew some of my engagement *ahem* wants? Expectations? Whichever way you name it- I wanted his proposal to be a surprise, not in public, and there be pictures. He would probably say there were way more checklist items tossed his way. Regardless, he pulled it off so well.

Here's the tea:

February 24th was just your average Wednesday. I got home from work and he met me at my apartment. We planned dinner at his parents house which was nothing out of the ordinary. Damon usually works 2 weeks out of town and 2 weeks at home, so when he is home we make a “world tour” to each of our fam’s for visits. I decided not to change into my comfies (praise- this was a miracle!) and we left just a few minutes later.

We told his mom we would bring dessert and I had an entire baked pear recipe picked out and needed to stop at Aldi’s to get some ingredients. He never broke a sweat y’all! He was so patient and let me walk up and down every aisle in the store. Looking back, I know my lollygagging was eating him up inside!

We got back into his truck and we were on the way. He never acted weird or odd the entire time. We listened to music the whole way there and talked. I didn't suspect a thing.

Once we were at his parents house, he was a little slow getting out of the truck. I was SO hungry, I went ahead of him a little up the stairs to get inside. This is where things just lined up perfectly.

I’m never the first one inside when it’s the two of us, but that day I decided to open the door and walk in. His mom came out to greet us and give me a hug at the door- again, not out of the norm. She said “Hi Leianna!” and then I saw movement behind her...

I thought it was his dad surprising us (he was out of town for work), but I squinted and realized it was MY dad, mom, and bestie Sam. They had been cued to come out of the hallway by her greeting. It all hit me. I heard the Aldi’s bag hit the floor and I spun around to him on one knee.

COMPLETE shock! I can’t remember a single word he said in those first ten seconds. He finally said “so will you?” and I spit out a “yes!” and quickly snagged the ring out of the box like he was going to take it back!

My best friend Laura, who is also a photographer, popped out and captured the whole thing from start to finish. He pulled this off so well! They had all known for a couple of weeks and coordinated everything down to parking their cars at the park and carpooling over so nothing would tip me off.

Laura captured it all!

Looking back, I still cannot pinpoint a single moment where I would’ve picked up on something. I’m going to let you in on my crazy- I had set up two venue tours *before* we were engaged and he went right along with it. This is where I should’ve suspected something ha!

I knew we would be engaged within this year, but never thought it would happen when it did. I’m so grateful for him and the time he took to plan this out to make it special. I’m looking forward to these next 11 months and what they have in store for us!