Munchies

We loved the food served at our wedding! From popcorn to dinner to dessert, we worked with some wonderful chefs and even imported some snacks from Canada!!

Being HUGE popcorn fans, it was really a no brainer when we decided to have a popcorn bar during our cocktail hour. In Canada, there's a place called Kernels that makes delicious flavoured popcorn. It was always a treat to pick out our own little bags of popcorn when I was growing up, and dill pickle was ALWAYS my favourite!! Jermaine worked at a cinema growing up and also had a weakness for popped corn, AND he met my maid of honour Jennifer at this cinema, who would introduce us many years later!! Popcorn certainly seemed fitting to share with our guests. I hand stamped brown paper bags with a few friends, so there was one for each of our guests to mix their own concoctions. We had three HUGE gold basins to serve the popcorn in and several flavours for our guests to customize their own bags. It was definitely a hit!!

Photos by Five By Five Photography & Design

For dinner, we went with Kitchen by House Blend. We ended up hiring them at the last minute (think two weeks before the wedding!!) which I certainly would not recommend, but was necessary in this case. I had met Holly at a wedding show about a month before our wedding and their food was DELICIOUS! I didn't think we could afford to work with them, but Holly worked with us to create a menu that satisfied not only our budget but our appetites. Being a vegan, I've been at many weddings where I've only been able to have rolls & lukewarm veggies, so I definitely wanted to have an entree that I could enjoy. We served chicken, BBQ, mashed potatoes, veggies, baked beans & rolls, and had a vegan quinoa option that made me VERY excited! 

For dessert, we had a cookie bar containing lots of different options. I spent the weeks before the wedding baking from some family recipes, and my Mom brought several novelty brands from Canada. The more traditional chocolate chip, shortbread & gingerbread met Fudgeos (a favourite import of my coworkers!) and maple leaf cookies and allowed our guests to create a plate that was all their own. Hand stamped signs beside each plate let our guests know what they were choosing. We also had delicious chocolate cake & Viennese torte baked by Creative Crumbs.

I'm so thankful that we were able to incorporate so many delicious items into our menu, especially at our mini-budget's price point. We even took some leftovers with us on our honeymoon and had our own popcorn bar all week, with a few pieces of cake! Talk about sweet love :)

xoxo

mrs dobbins

Bridal Attire

Photo by Five By Five Photography & Design

As a budget bride, I had long thought that my 'dream' dress would be out of reach. After watching 'Say Yes To The Dress' on many a Friday evening, and scouring the pages of bridal catalogs, I knew that my tastes were slightly (!!) higher than what I thought was reasonable to spend. I was thrilled when I found this dress with a sweetheart neckline and a full, layered tulle skirt on the David's Bridal website, well under my $1,000 pricepoint. With only a five-month engagement, and a rush needed for a petite order, I made my decision on this dress VERY quickly - less than two weeks after we were engaged! While my Mom wasn't able to come down from Canada before our wedding, I was very thankful that Jermaine's Mom was able to be with me when I said yes to my dress! With an aggressive workout strategy, I took the risk of ordering my dress several sizes smaller than I was measuring at my fitting, despite strong objections from the staff. While it may not be for everyone, I knew that especially with my 5'1" frame, losing any weight would result in a drop of several dress sizes. I was thrilled when my dress arrived and needed only slight alterations - and it was too large!! I used two separate full slips underneath my skirt to increase the fullness, which also meant I didn't need to have the dress hemmed. I'm so happy with my decision and loved wearing my dress on our wedding day!

After months of searching, I found this gorgeous gold sash on an Etsy shop Love Like Style several weeks before the wedding. I love the intricate designs of the gold lace, and it ties in the back with lovely tan ribbons that cascaded down. I've worn it on several occasions since and love having that element of our wedding day to accessorize with.

Another Etsy find, la Boutique Isabelle provided my lovely lace headpiece. The simplicity of the lace was something that I loved, and I was happily surprised to discover that the ribbon ties on the headpiece exactly matched the gold sash I had ordered. I'm so glad I could find items that were unique and fit not only into the vision I had for my bridal attire, but the small $50 budget I had allocated for these items.

One evening last fall, Jermaine & I were driving through Louisville and happened to go past a bridal shop I hadn't seen before, Afterglow. I let out a very loud GASP when I saw this veil in the window and then had to quickly reassure Jermaine that he wasn't about to hit something! I went back a few weeks later with my sister-in-law and found that it was not only still there, but on sale! The veil is cathedral length, slightly off white, and has a darling ruffle along the edges. I opted to keep the extra length as I loved the extra volume it added.

 

My shoes were gold herringbone TOMS. I have been in love with these shoes since the day I saw them (several years ago!) and knew I wanted to have them for my wedding. Being stubbornly unwilling to buy ANY wedding items before we were engaged, I almost missed out on having these shoes, as they disappeared from the TOMS catalog one month before Jermaine popped the question. Imagine my delight when they reappeared one month before the wedding!! I ordered a pair immediately - and then the post office lost the package. A second pair was ordered, which DID arrive in time, so I was able to walk down the aisle in my dream shoes!

PS - how CUTE is my little flower girl and her dress?! She had matching gold TOMS too!! Love her!!

xoxo mrs dobbins

J&J

 Photos by Five By Five Photography & Design

I'm still in LOVE with these yarn letters that I made for our wedding. Super easy, almost free, and a lovely pop of green in our cocktail hour space. I simply traced the letters and ampersand out on some thick cardboard, then cut the shapes out. The 'J' letters were quite easy to wrap with the yarn (which was leftover from the jars I had made), only needing a small amount of glue on the backside to hold the ends.

The ampersand was another story!! I actually had to cut out the small portion in the middle, and then made another cut along the top left side of the loop to make it easier to line the yarn up. After wrapping with a mixed beige yarn and gluing the ends underneath, I took a popsicle stick to join the pieces back together along the back side, tucked the ends of the popsicle stick into the yarn and glued everything in place.

We have these fun letters up on our mantle now - along with several other wedding goodies!! They're another reminder of the wonderful day we had celebrating our love for each other.

xoxo mrs dobbins

Our Decor - Advice Cards, Guest Book, Card Briefcase & Place Cards

Photos by Five By Five Photography & Design

The advice cards I made were a fun, easy, CHEAP idea from Pinterest. Using an online template I simply used cardstock to print the cards out and we had a colourful box nearby for guests to put their completed cards in. We had SO much fun reading these cards after the wedding and seeing similar themes and responses come up...apparently people were really ready for us to get married!! So good to have these as a keepsake as well!

To contain our cards and bring some colour to our gift table, I took a $4 briefcase from Goodwill and gave it a quick facelift. Some burlap covered the bottom and a 'cards' sign made from cardstock and twine dressed things up (and I hid a few dryer sheets in the pocket for the month leading up to the wedding, to get rid of the musty smell it had from being out of use for so long). One of my favourite parts about this briefcase was that at the end of the night, we just had to close it up and everything was nicely contained inside, with no worries about losing anything!

Jermaine & I both grew up loving Sade, and even danced to her song "By Your Side" for our first dance, so using her albums Promise & Stronger Than Pride, along with The Ray Charles Singers' Something Special for Young Lovers, as our guestbook was a perfect fit! We found scratched up vinyl copies at yard sales and used book stores, and bought vinyl display frames to hold each record - this was one wedding errand that Jermaine really enjoyed!! With scrapbook paper lining each frame to add some colour, we put out several metallic Sharpies at each record to do the trick. As vinyl collectors, we now have beautiful art work to display on our walls among our featured records, and can see a daily reminder of the amazing family members and friends we have in our lives.

For the name cards, I knew I wanted something simple that would make a larger visual statement when together. Using cardstock, I printed out each guest's name as they RSVP'd 'yes', and then punched a hole in the corner, either above or below the name. Using spare edging from the burlap table runners I made, I took two or three short pieces and tied them through the hole to add a bit of interest. Clothespins held each name to some twine we hung in one corner of our cocktail hour space and I loved how they looked! Our friends also made a game out of clipping clothespins to the backs of guests' shirts or dresses all night, and at one point I had about 7 on my sash!!

What fun ideas have you found for your decor?

xoxo mrs dobbins

Servingware

Whew!!! It turns out that going straight from planning a wedding into planning a green card (involving thousands of pages of paper and photos and documents and...) makes for a VERY busy year!! Throw in Jermaine's brother getting married in Florida the week after my happy Canadian self received said green card, and you've got a blog with a ton of drafts and no posts in months. Sorry for the delay, and I'll get back to posting more fun details from our December wedding!

We went with higher end disposable options for our plates, glasses and cutlery. This option worked best with our budget on many levels, especially as we did not have to keep our serving staff to clean the dishes afterwards and only had staffing there for the meal portion of our evening. I found recycled paper plates & recycled plastic glasses on sale and we used faux-silverware that was also purchased at a discount. The green napkins came from Ikea and were the exact shade of green I had been looking for! I wrapped the cutlery sets ahead of time with some friends and tied each set with twine to keep them in place.

Photo by Five By Five Photography and Design

Since we had a buffet style dinner, we placed each cutlery roll at the place setting as the plates were at the serving table. The pops of green on the muslin tablecloths I made looked great!

To make our set up quick & easy, I arranged things up at home and took photos so that our family and friends could see how things were to go. As we had about 20 people help us the night before our wedding, things were finished very quickly!!

We bought PLENTY of supplies and were able to return several unopened packages afterwards, which was great. The opened sets have been well used at our home when guests are over, making clean up a breeze while living with a broken dishwasher!

xoxo
mrs dobbins

Rings

Growing up, I had always dreamed of getting a piano for my engagement, not a ring. I've played since I was young, but always on a keyboard, never having a real piano. Music has always been a huge aspect of my life, so starting out my family with something that would be a daily aspect of family life seemed like an awesome idea, especially since I was not a fan of most 'typical' bridal jewelry.

Photos by Five By Five Photography & Design

When it came to rings, I took a lot of convincing for me to get anything more than a very thin, round band (pictured on the far left, above). Most of my jewelry is made out of twine and ten cent saint medals, so the idea of spending a ton of money on something to wear just wasn't a priority for me. However, it was really important to my husband that I have a 'real' engagement ring, so we went back and forth for months trying to find a ring that we would both be happy with. I scoured Etsy for something unique, and in the end, I came across the incredible designs by Kristin Coffin Jewelry and fell in love, especially as she uses recycled gold and many designs have Moissanite stone options instead of diamonds. Not only is the Moissanite option an awesome ethical alternative to a diamond, it's incredibly cost effective, something that I insisted on. I remember sending Jermaine an email with the links to my rings saying "Ok, I've become a girl now..." and we ordered the ring the morning after he proposed! Kristin worked with us to create a custom band with a slight dip in it to fit around the engagement ring (second from the left, above), and they are just lovely.

I also ordered a very thin band from Scarlett Jewelry which is what I had initially envisioned having. Melanie did a wonderful job with my ring!! This is the ring that Jermaine placed on my finger during our wedding ceremony and it is beautiful. I've been wearing all three rings together most days, especially after talking with my Grandmum the day after the wedding. My grandparents have been married for 56 years (!!) and she has NEVER once taken off her wedding band. By wearing my thin band on the bottom, followed by my engagement ring and then the twig band, I can take off the twig rings when I need to, but can keep my wedding band on. Five months later, I haven't taken it off since the day after our wedding when I heard that story! I should also mention that the idea of having three rings came from my own parents - my Mom received a third 'family' ring when I was born, and I always loved that! While we are just two for now, I love knowing that we are a family, and the third ring represents that to me. It also includes our desire for God to be present in our marriage and brings the Trinity to mind when I see the rings my husband placed on my hand.

We decided to purchase a piano together as a family during this first year of our marriage, once we're settled into our home. I can't wait to bring home a beautiful instrument to share with our family over the years!!

xoxo
mrs dobbins

Centerpieces

For our centerpieces, we used several found & recycled items to make something beautiful. Jermaine & I love spending hours in used book stores, including McKay's in Nashville. They have 'free' bins outside filled with books that have seen better days, so over several months we collected books on each trip, in addition to buying several beautiful hard cover editions. While many of the books were beautiful, there were others with spines falling apart, so we stripped those ones of their covers and turned them into something new. I love the way the pages came together in different shades of cream to blend with the muslin tablecloths and burlap runners. Each table had several stacked books with glass jars containing candles and flowers. We even posted specific books at several tables like How To Control Your Teenager, dog training titles, Harry Potter and Robert Jordan titles! We really enjoyed incorporating our love of books into our decor.

We used recycled glass for our candle holders & vases. There were lots of pickle, sauce & dressing jars in my kitchen over the past year, and several friends joined in with collecting their household items. I added different shades of yarn & hot glued them, which was a simple, quick and inexpensive way to dress up the glass. We used electric candles in many of the jars to add a warm glow to our reception space which looked wonderful all evening!

Other items used around our reception space and at the head table were from my home, including photos, birds, clocks, dried flowers Jermaine had given me, and even an Instamatic camera that was in my closet at home in Canada - purchased by my Mom in the 70's! It was wonderful to incorporate so many personal items and really made our identity shine through.

My Mom's Instamatic camera from the 70's made an appearance at our head table!

 

I'm so pleased with the way our table decor came together!! With a little planning, it was easy to look ahead to collect the items we were looking for, and adding other personal touches really made our reception space feel like a celebration at home with family & friends.

xoxo
mrs dobbins

Flower Girl & Ring Bearer

We were thankful to be able to use the ring pillow and flower basket from Jermaine's brother's wedding for our flower girl & ring bearer (his brother's son!). I wanted to add our colours to the basket & pillow, and luckily a little bit of yarn added the touches I was looking for.

Our flower basket got a touch of orange yarn to add a rustic element to it. I filled the basket with tissue paper flowers, as our flower girl decided she was ok just holding the basket and not throwing anything. We were so excited to include our good friend's little girl, and she did a wonderful job at the wedding!!

The ring pillow had some green yarn wrapped around it, which matched the bridesmaids' dresses. Our ring bearer was our nephew, normally a tiny tornado of energy. He took his job so seriously on the wedding day, and we were so proud of his ability to stay still and stand up with the big guys!

These touches were quick and easy to do, and really made these items fit in with our rustic theme. As the yarn was removable, it also allowed us to temporarily change the look (and was super cheap!) without altering the borrowed basket & pillow! We were so happy to make our wedding a true family affair!

xoxo
mrs dobbins

ps - I should also mention that their outfits were AWESOME! Our ring bearer already had the grey suit he wore, which was perfect for my nephew! We found our flower girl's dress for $17 on clearance at Target, and it had the sweetest flowers around the hem! Her shoes were TOMS (like the rest of the bridal party!) and we both had cute gold ones on - LOVE!! It felt like she was my little mini me that day with her long curls too!! We're so thankful for these little ones :)

Vendors

We were so thankful to work with such INCREDIBLE vendors for our wedding!! I'll be going into more detail on several of our vendors, but here's the rundown of who we worked with to help make our day spectacular (all photos courtesy of Five By Five Photography & Design, aside from the photo booth):


Ceremony & Reception:
Camp Marymount, Fairview, TN

Photography:
Five By Five Photography & Design

Photo Booth:
Flashtastic Photo Booth

Rentals (tables & chairs, lounge furniture):
Southern Events

Catering:
Kitchen by House Blend

Cakes:
Creative Crumbs

Bartending:
Topshelf Bartending and Staffing

Hair:
Angelica (Burdett) Stevens at Aveda Origina Salon & Spa

Makeup:
One 10 Makeup

Flowers:
CostCo, assembled with my Bridesmaids & family members

DJ:
Scott Hutten

Ceremony Musicians:
Natalie Coughlin and Kyle Bashour, Teens from Holy Family Church's Life Teen programme

Guest Accomodations:
Courtyard Marriott - Cool Springs
 
xoxo
mrs dobbins