When this photographer-turned-bride set out to plan her own wedding day, inspiration struck from an unlikely spot. “We took the feel of our wedding day from one of our favorite days of the week – Sunday’s spent at Josh’s grandparents’ house for dinner.” Opting for homestyle foods and locally grown flowers, their farm wedding was thoughtfully designed from start to finish. See it through the lens of Julie Cate right this way.
From the Bride… This being my own wedding, I’m quite excited to share our inspiration and everything that went into our special day.
Our inspiration began from the location Joshua, my fiancé proposed at. It was next to a river that we always go swimming at – the path there is full of ferns and the most beautiful sounds of the water flowing, and the birds and insects singing. We also took the feel of our wedding day from one of our favorite days of the week – Sunday’s spent at Josh’s grandparents’ house for dinner. We chose home-style foods that were all sourced locally.
Since I’m a photographer and florist in the wedding industry, photography and flowers were the most important things on my list to choose. I chose Julie Cate after looking through many photographers’ full albums of wedding days – something I would absolutely recommend when booking a photographer. Our florist was Local Color Flowers because their passion of locally grown flowers is just amazing. There is so much romance in each flower from our day because I know they were chosen and hand picked by people who have a passion for growing flowers in Maryland. We settled on a burnt orange, rust, brown-pink palette to compliment the season and to contrast the rest of our color palette which was cooler tones of blues and greys. We had ferns lining our ceremony aisle to relive the moment we decided to journey towards marriage at the river Josh proposed at.
We set the tone with our invites for our guests with the help from Julie Ha Calligraphy – we wanted to incorporate the natural feel of the florals and ferns, but also pull in a little of my husband’s love of antiques by making them feel as though they were old letters. Julie did such an incredible job of hand coloring the paper, tearing the edges and crafting such beautiful calligraphy.
Our venue we choose last minute in May after our original venue got shut down (sigh). It couldn’t have been more of a blessing though. Glen Ellen Farm was the most perfect venue for us, from the love of historic details (our cocktail hour was in barn ruins), the love of farming flowers (the owner is constantly keeping care of her flower plots that she hopes to continue growing), and just the peaceful sounds of birds, sights of deer and wildflower paths. Glen Ellen was the place that fully pulled everything together for us.
Photography: Julie Cate Photography | Floral Design: Local Color Flowers | Wedding Dress: Leanne Marshall | Invitations: Julie Ha Calligraphy | Venue: Glen Ellen Farm | Hair/makeup: JKW Beauty | Major Flower Farmer: Butterbee Farm | Veil: Love Veils
