Harrodsburg, Kentucky Wedding from abby rose photo

"Lovely wedding. Is the bride's flower/bouquet just one large peony?"

"loved the flower girls dresses.....any idea where they're from?"

"What typef of flower is the bride holding?"

"I see quite a number of outfits there! Sweet wedding! Could you tell me where the bolero/lace top the bride wore for the ceremony is from ? Thank you!"

"The pictures are super romantic! The idea with the tent is wonderful! The whole settings look like the wedding of your dreams."

"A beautiful wedding organized by a ridiculously talented wedding planner!"

"Ahhhhh! I used to work at Shaker Village when I was in high school, love it!"

"Hi all! I'm checking with Abby Rose Photo on all of the questions. I'll let you all know what I hear! xo"

"hi guys! I believe those flower girls dresses were from zulily. I want to say that her bouquet was actually a sort of deconstructed creation, put together petal-by-petal. But, I could be wrong ;-) I've messaged the bride to let her know about these questions - hopefully she'll pipe in! ;-)"

"Thanks all, for the wonderful comments! Our goal was to create an intimate down-to-earth, fun wedding that was still elegant and wedding appropriate, but with modern updates and zero stuffiness. In the beginning, Bryan and I disagreed a bit on the idea of a wedding: he wanted a full wedding weekend with a huge guest list, and I wanted 20 people max gathered in our living room. We knew we wanted to feature music, as well as feature our families and friends and know that they felt well cared for, while being on a budget! We both come from large families and are surrounded by large groups of wonderful friends who live all over the country (the world!) and who would be mostly long-distance guests no matter where we decided to tie the knot. As I grew up in KY, I was familiar with Shaker Village, and we were both drawn to the beautiful outdoor venue, the Shaker values of simplicity and quality design, the celebration of music, the belief in equality of the sexes, and the design philosophy that one should not have excess decor but only have functional items, but that those items be made beautifully. We needed to please a crowd that was a giant mix of socio-economic backgrounds and geographies, and make those who made the trek to KY feel the trip was worth it! We both enjoy spending our free time outdoors, so the outdoor setting of Shaker Village was perfect! I hadn't been there since I was 15 - and Bryan had never been, but we both just knew from afar that it was the right place. And loved that there were over 40 acres of gorgeous trails for our guests to explore (many of whom are runner / triathletes), and petting farm and history tours for families. Due to some miscommunication issues, we were left with no design or plans in place except the benches for the ceremony, the site, the name of the after-dinner wedding band, and the bluegrass band for the Friday night cocktail party about 2-3 months before the wedding. It turned out we didn't even have a photographer!! Talk about a giant race to do a DIY!!! We didn't even have time to make a visit down to Shaker Village itself until two days before the wedding so it was all long-distance planning and gathering! I had no clear design mantra except for the above which left me overwhelmed, but My AMAZING sister, Rebecca Wulff, a former graphic designer in CA, took the bull by the horns, and with the help of my incredible mother, helped us come up with the look! We wanted to create as little waste as possible. For the bonfire (not seen in the photos), we covered hay bales with a collection of blankets and pillows gathered from thrift stores (for a total of $60!!), that were later donated to my cousin as sewing projects. To keep our flowers to a minimum, we used the gorgeous local scenery to our advantage, and then could use our budget on quality lighting and the gorgeous Sperry tent. For the table arrangements, the solitary symmetrical line of green apples scattered with the beeswax candle taper hurricanes fit right in with Shaker village as well as our October date, and the apples were all either roasted over the campfire later by guests, or used by Shaker Village the next day. Zero waste!! We used fabrics and drapery sparingly, using a collection of Kaffe Fasset striped fabrics picked out by my talented sister, and sewn as bench runners by my hard-working mother. To save money on the cake, we found the piñata off of Etsy, and my mother added a couple strips of Kaffee Fasset fabric at the last minute. The guests were all given a pair of still connected beeswax taper candles, wrapped in strips of "My old Kentucky Home" sheet music and tied with a "ribbon" from the Kaffe Fasset fabrics, and placed at their plates for place-settings. The candles were in keeping with the Shaker design, as well as would be easily carted back in luggage (as opposed to food or liquid or anything fragile!) and the fact they were still connected symbolized a union. The piñata (piñata crafts, Etsy, $35) was a huge hit with both the kids and adults, and was filled with all kinds of local goodies from Rhode Island where Bryan is from, from Michigan where my parents live, and from Boston, where we now live. We then saved money by serving a Shaker Friend Chicken dinner with corn pudding and green beans and featured a dessert table of 5 different local Southern cakes and pies. My mother spent countless hours in the kitchen making batches of her famous decadent caramel corn, and that was scattered around the dance floor and bar in bowls for snacks as well. This saved us bunches of money on a traditional wedding cake, and was a bunch more fun!! We had no idea what to do about a last-minute photographer, but racked our brains and remembered working with Abby - so talented, so professional yet hands-off, and yet such stunning photos! - for a family photo shoot in Michigan a few years back. I contacted her out of pure desperation and we were THRILLED that she was willing to travel down to KY for the event. We knew right then that things always work out for a reason as she was such the right choice for us anyway. Bryan and I went to town investigating musicians: instead of using traditional wedding musicians, we saved money (and increased our talent!) by hunting youtube and myspace for people who could cover the songs we wanted played, such as processional: Heavenly Day by Patty Griffin and the recessional: You and I by Ingrid Michaelson. We were soooooo lucky to find the ridiculously gifted Annie Fitzgerald (anniefitzgerald.com) who made the trek down South to sing our ceremony and dinner music, joined by a brilliantly talented local gal Jeannette Grout who could play the ukelele and sang the recession as well as sang a song accompanied by my musician husband that was written by my Grandmother about a young couple starting a life together. We enlisted another non-wedding band, Whistlin' Rufus to play some string band / bluegrass type music during the cocktail hour / lawn games. In lieu of a traditional wedding party, we had a few different readings by close friends and families, and really only featured my sister's kids. We decided against programs and printed menus to save paper, and found a full-length mirror off of Craigslist for next to nothing that I fashioned into a reversible Chalkboard paint sign used as our menu (and later re-sold on Criagslist - again zero waste and ended up being nearly free!). The ring bearer was my oldest (and most responsible!) nephew, carrying the rings tied to fabric made with my mother's gown used at my sister's ceremony, and placed into a Shaker box for carrying. The flower girl basket was also a Shaker basket with a Shaker broomcorn and grapevine wreath carried by the 19 month old flower girl. The flower girl dresses were not listed as such, and were found by my sister at Chasing Fireflies. My 4 year old nephew carried my Great-Grandfather's old brass school bell and led off the processional as a bell-ringer. Bryan and I were both escorted simultaneously by our parents down separate aisles to stress equality. Lynn at Bel-Air Florist in Versailles, KY understood our desire to create beauty with little waste (and low budget) within ten seconds of talking with her! She came up with the idea of the Glamellia after a few conversations (the single flower I carried, and my sister had a smaller version - created out of roses with rose petals attached!). The boutainniers were all slightly different - really quite gorgeous. And we then had only one large arrangement on a cocktail table, placed into a milk-jug I found off craigslist and stenciled with the same stencil you see on the shutters. The shutters see for the escort card grapevine wreaths were found off of Craigslist (for FREE!! ) and then were claimed by someone at Shaker Village the next day. Again: zero waste! And Lynn had the vintage church door from a prior wedding and we rented it for next to nothing, placing a Shaker broomcorn wreath as the only decoration. We used ten white pumpkins to line the two aisles, and those were claimed by family and friends the next day! We used Craigslist and Ebay a LOT - including for the lawn games - and were able to re-sell the ones we didn't want to hang on to for the rest of our lives. We were so fortunate that my sister found Liz from Sperry tents who worked with us on the farm tables, the tent, and the lighting. This was the big budget blower, but after having the problem with the original planner, we were so worried about anything being disorganized, and were wowed by the organizational prowess of Sperry tents as well as awed by the beauty and the sailcloth fabric. We splurged on heaters as we knew it would cool off once the sun went down to keep our guests happy. It was perfect! The tent and lighting were definitely $$$$ but the beauty and peace of mind were phenomenal. They were impeccably organized!! We were also so fortunate to have found Marcie Hancock, a coordinator out of Louisville, who picked up our DIY pieces and ran with them!! Thank you thank you thank you, Marcie!! She never once let on that we were incredibly disorganized and chaotic (which we were!!) and she went above and beyond to pull everything together into an absolutely flawless event where my mother and Bryan and I got to enjoy the weekend as she dealt with so much stress of the actual logistics of rental drop-offs and set-ups! She more than paid for herself with her handwork and behind the scenes ideas we had overlooked (such as enough bathrooms and electricity!) For my dress: I really wanted to wear this deep purple/magenta dress I found (not kidding!) but couldn't get any buy-ins and didn't want to disappoint my adorable (and more traditional) husband. I had always loved the Princess Grace look - and thought Ivanka Trump's Esther gown was stunning - but clearly that was a bit much for me and our setting! Instead, I found the Vera Wang Georgina which I knew would match my husband's idea of the traditional white gown, but ordered some extra lace and had Lily, the adept and patient Vera Boston seamstress and company help design the bolero top so that I wouldn't be in a strapless dress. The top buttoned in seamlessly to the dress, and made me so much more comfortable for the ceremony! My mother had helped picked out the gorgeous Monique Lhullier Chandler - which was more my style than a strapless traditional wedding gown, and so I wore that for the dinner and dancing! And then - to justify my purchase of the dresses, I was able to sell them on the used dress web sites, but kept the lace bolero and extra lace scraps as my keepsakes to be passed on to the next generation. The night before the ceremony, Bryan's parents threw a cocktail party at Woodford Reserve Bourbon Distillery with bluegrass music. And the day after, for incredibly inexpensive, we rented out a steamboat Dixie Belle at Shaker and had some coffee and muffins for a short one hour steamboat ride (The Sunday only cost us a total of less than $500 yet gave our guests another fun family friendly way to enjoy the gorgeous scenery and catchup with out of town friends and family). Made for a perfect "Destination Weekend" and yet met our original goals of making sure our focus was on the comfort / ease of our family and friends and in creating an intimate, down-to-earth fun, yet appropriately elegant affair. Our long distance guests were left with the absolutely breathtaking beauty of Kentucky. And I was so pleased that our guests enjoyed themselves - from the two year olds to the 88 year olds, from the non-drinkers to the imbibers, from the locals to some stylish coastal guests - all seemed to enjoy the festivities! And there was little overall waste (um, except for lots of plane flights!). Thanks to all of the wonderful people who helped pull this off - as I was waaaay out of my element and overwhelmed with the very idea. But my sister(!!!!), my mother(!!!!), Abby, Annie (anniefitzgerald.com), Marcie from A Thorough Fare (Louisville, KY), Ann from Shaker Village, Liz from Sperry tents, Lynn from BelAir florist in Versailles, KY, thank you thank you THANK you!! And mostly, to my adorable and loving husband who later serenaded me with the after-dinner traditional wedding band, the biggest thank you of all!!"

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