North Carolina Wedding by The Beautiful Mess Photography
Cracker Jacks are probably one of my favorite snacks and completely remind me of being a little munchkin. I mean caramel coated popcorn and peanuts, total genius in my book, which makes this couple extra endearing because they whipped out my most favorite of treats as favors at their cute as pie North Carolina wedding. Add to that a groom who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty in the planning process (SCORE!) and tons of details that made this celebration full of personality and we have a clear favorite on our hands. See more of the cute details captured by The Beautiful Mess in the gallery.
From the Bride…
When Paul used candles to spell out the words “Will you marry me?” in the valley behind his grandparents’ mountain home, I’m not sure he knew what he was getting into. I once had a friend who started “taking notes” while watching ‘A Wedding Story’ at the age of 12… I am not that girl. I had no clue. Colors…I should know that already? Trumpet? Ball gown? A-line? Are we talking dresses or musical instruments? On top of being clueless, I was teaching second grade while working on an extra certification. Enter long suffering, sweet, helpful fiance. Paul found the church and reception venue with little guidance from me besides that I wanted “simple but classic.” (I actually did not step foot into the reception hall until a month before the wedding and it was perfect. Praise the Lord, ’cause there was no turning back at that point!) I wanted places that didn’t need many decorations or flowers. The church reminded me a lot of the small New Hampshire churches I grew up in – small with stained glass windows – beautiful but simple. We added a few twinkle lights and paper lanterns to the reception hall and it was gorgeous.
The rest of the details kind of ‘found me’ or emerged from our interests. (I knew I wanted lots of green but didn’t decide on deep purple until one of my bridesmaids tried on a sample dress in that color. So pretty–decision made.) And while I wanted the day to be special and reflect our personalities, I also knew we couldn’t spend as much on one day as I did on my entire college education. So we got crafty and thrifty and did a lot of things ourselves. (No joke–this wedding would NOT have happened without my family… and Ikea.) We got married on a Friday (mostly because we got a late start for booking a June wedding…woops) which saved on the reception rental. (Many places have different pricing for Friday/Sunday as opposed to the ever-popular Saturday wedding.) The wedding photography was very important to me but flowers had never been my ‘thing.’ So I found a really great website that sold silk flowers and ordered all the bouquets, boutonnieres, and flowers for the pews, altar, and tables at the reception. After many trips to Ikea and every craft store within a 20 mile radius of my apartment, my mom, sister, aunt, and I assembled the bouquets, added ribbon to the boutonnieres, and arranged the flowers for the altar and the tables. It cost about an eighth of what a florist had quoted me for the same flowers. Score. We also opted for a smaller cake with a cupcake arrangement (because I love cupcakes) only to find out it cut the cost of our cake by half. Sweet. Another aunt helped my mom create the table numbers with the numbers and backgrounds made out of different shades/patterns of purple and green. We put different engagement pictures on the back of each. We bought all the vases and candles for the tables from Ikea and also set up a candy table with jars and dishes from Ikea. Paul searched the internet for the best deals on bulk candy and then found online promotion codes to cut costs even more. We added pictures of us as kids on the candy table and pictures of our grandparents’ weddings on the cake table.
Throughout the process, as I was thinking of ways to make our wedding somehow unique to us… I thought about things that we did together that we loved. Being raised in New England (the heart of Red Sox Nation), I had always loved baseball. Paul loved any sport. We spent a good portion of our dates at basketball and football games. So we decided to incorporate a bit of that. My mom added a basketball ribbon to my garter and for our ‘guest book,’ we had people sign baseballs, a bat, and a basketball. We used good ol’ Cracker Jacks (a timeless baseball staple) as our seating cards. (Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a box of Cracker Jacks–a snack and a prize?!? Bonus.)
Photographer: The Beautiful Mess Photography / Flowers: DIY by the Family / DJ: Grant Giesler / Cake: Sweet Life Cakes / Groom’s Suit: Express / Ceremony: First Baptist Church of Cornelius, NC /Reception: Birkdale Golf Club, Huntersville, NC
14 Comments about “North Carolina Wedding by The Beautiful Mess Photography”
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I love this! looks just as beautiful as the most expensive weddings. a good photographer and a good looking couple is all you really need, with close ups of the details. I love the brides idea of changing ribbon on her lace dress for the reception... thank you, I'm stealing this! Beautiful, congrats.
I love the cracker jacks and baseballs. So creative.
Beautiful wedding! I love the shade of blue for the bridesmaid dresses - where are they from?
Love the All American vibe!! Where does one find those original cracker jack boxes?
what is the website the silk flowers are from?
So pretty! I love the purple/green together and the purple pretzels are so cute! Everything is pretty, elegant and fun! Definitely a winning combination :) I see that she also changed her sash (after the ceremony?), love it! Congrats, such a pretty ceremony/reception and great pictures of it all!
Wedding obsession of the day! LOVE the baseballs.
Cool! I love love love her dress. Where is it from???
Candice + Dan~ You guys knocked this one out of the park. Beautiful shots!!!!!
I ADORE the dress. Do tell where it's from.
I love the cracker jacks and baseballs thankyou.
Thanks so much for all the sweet comments! We loved our wedding and had so much fun we'd do it again. : )
My dress was actually from David's Bridal...but I saw one a lot like it on the Today Show wedding today! So maybe look that one up on their website? The bridesmaids dresses were from David's Bridal too. Since my wedding I have seen pictures of at least 3 other weddings where they used those dresses in different colors and they all looked great. They're cotton and have pockets (so cute!!) and my sister has already worn hers again. Yay for a bridesmaids dress that can REALLY be worn again!!
We got the vintage Cracker Jacks from Cracker Barrel. (A spur of the moment decision after breakfast a couple weeks before the wedding...they thought I was crazy when I asked for 140 boxes!)
The website where we got all our flowers is afloral.com. They have some really great bouquets. I ordered two and put them together to make mine.
Hope this helps! Thanks again everyone!
When will people learn to read the post before they start writing compelte nonsense. Never ceases to amaze me.
Those silk flowers are ridiculously cool. Great post!