photography by Punam Bean Photography

I have to say, this is one of the prettiest weddings I have ever seen…with or without a budget. I love the sweet, understated details of the day and the intimate feeling of having just close friends and family as guests. You really get a sense of just how special this couple is.

And, I was totally floored by the incredible journal that Nole wrote both during the planning phase and after the big day. You can see her planning documented right here on her Knot Bio…it includes inspiration boards, fun DIY projects and other really interesting tidbits. Her post wedding re-cap can be read right here and is filled with vendor reviews and ideas that are so helpful to any bride planning her wedding. Thank you so much, Nole, for sharing this with us!

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Post tags: Nole and Andrew, Punam Bean Photography, Washington DC
Post categories: All Real Weddings, Budget Beautiful, Real Weddings

More details from Nole…

In order to stay in our budget, we kept our guest list to only our closest family and friends (around 50 people) and prioritized some wedding elements (such as food and photography) over others (such as floral arrangements). We also tried to do as many DIY projects as we could.

We made most of the big decisions pretty early on, including our color palette, flower choices (but not a florist, which came much later), caterer, bakery, and photographer. For the flowers, I knew that I wanted a bouquet of lilacs and sweet peas, ever since I’d seen a similar bouquet in Martha Stewart Weddings a couple of years ago. For the reception, I wanted a mix of spring flowers — peonies, ranunculus, anemonies, etc. — in shades of purple and white.

For our caterer, my husband and I are both big foodies, so having great food at our wedding was a big priority. We also knew that we wanted a global-inspired tapas meal service for the reception, and worked with our caterer to develop a menu that included Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Latin dishes with enough choices to satisfy all of our guests. For the cake, we used three 9″ cakes from a famous DC bakery called CakeLove, which makes just the most amazing cakes and cupcakes. Our families are big coffee and tea drinkers, so we also bought heart-shaped sugar cubes and sugar swizzle sticks from Sur La Table to use as sweeteners when the coffee and tea was served with dessert.

For photography, it was important to us that we have a photojournalist-style photographer that would document the entire day, particularly as we had some important family members (my grandmother) who were not able to travel for our wedding. We found our photographer, the amazing Punam Bean, via Weddingbee, and instantly fell in love with her work and documentary-style approach to wedding photography.

Throughout the planning, we looked for ways to save that wouldn’t affect the overall look and feel of the day…we saved a lot by having a friend play the music for the ceremony and using our iPod to provide the music during the reception, both which probably saved us thousands of dollars. We only served wine (which we purchased directly) rather than having an open bar at the reception. And we find a lot of our decorations on ebay, including the mason jars used to hold the floral arrangements and moroccan lanterns which lined the entrance path to the venue.

We ultimately spent around $13,000 on the wedding, so we didn’t do too bad – particularly since we live in one of the most expensive cities in the country!

We have MANY more pictures to come, so stay tuned!

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Post tags: Nole and Andrew, Punam Bean Photography, Washington DC
Post categories: All Real Weddings, Budget Beautiful, Real Weddings

One of our readers, Nole, emailed me back in January with questions about her upcoming wedding. It turns out that Nole’s wedding went off without a hitch and she has generously offered to share some pictures and details with us!

photography by Punam Bean Photography

Details from Nole…

My husband and I met in grad school while working on our M.A. degrees in international affairs (me) and security policy (him). Given our mutual background in international affairs, as well as my love of all things vintage and my husband’s love of history (he was a history major in undergrad), we knew that we wanted a wedding that was inspired by both vintage and global elements. I’ve always wanted a Spring wedding just because of the flower choices in the spring, and we both knew that we wanted to have an outdoor wedding if at all possible. We also wanted a really informal and intimate wedding — essentially a fun dinner party with all of our family and friends. We chose our venue, Woodlawn Manor, because it had the perfect historic feel (it was part of the underground railroad in the 1800s) as well as beautiful outdoor lawns for outdoor ceremony and reception.

And thus, we set out with the goal of pulling off our perfect wedding with an initial budget of $10,000….

We have so much more from Nole coming, so stay tuned!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2008. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Nole and Andrew, Punam Bean Photography, Spring Wedding, Washington DC, Woodlawn Manor
Post categories: All Real Weddings, Budget Beautiful, Real Weddings