It’s been a few weeks since my last post but I’m baaaaaack! And I have a very good reason for skipping a few posts…October 5th was our wedding day and it was absolutely the best day of my life so far! After 16 months of planning, I was so ready for the day to be here, and it did not disappoint. Everything was beautiful and we had so much fun getting to see all of our friends and family. In today’s post, I am going to share with you all of our wedding vendors (Spoiler: all amazing and would definitely recommend them to anyone!) as well as information on decorations, paper goods, and everything else that went into the wedding planning.
We did have an event coordinator at the reception venue, as well as at the church who helped out a lot the weekend of the wedding. But we didn’t actually hire a wedding planner, so all of the organization and research was done myself. I may end up writing a whole post with tips and tricks to planning a wedding without hiring a wedding planner, so let me know if you are interested in seeing that!
The ceremony: Holy Family Catholic Church
My family is very religious, and Brent’s is mostly not. We did decide to get married in the church, but did not have a full mass. It was actually a super quick ceremony, maybe less than 30 minutes even. Not going to lie, it was definitely the most nervous I have ever been in my life. Partially because my dress broke right as we were supposed to be walking down the aisle, so we were running behind and I actually ended up being sewn into my dress the whole night. Definitely a lot of last minute stress, but at least it worked out okay in the end! I was so nervous at the beginning of the ceremony I was shaking the whole time and was actually a little worried I would pass out, but luckily I stayed conscious the entire time and it was a beautiful ceremony.
Like I said earlier, the church did have a wedding coordinator who helped a little bit during the weekend of the wedding. She also helped make sure that we had the documents we needed and that we brought everything to the rehearsal that we would need on the wedding day. Our pianist/music guy was also from the church, and he helped a lot as well in getting information ready to be put in the programs. More about the programs later.
My hair and makeup were done by friends, so I won’t give their exact information here but let me know if you are interested in working with them and I’m sure I could get you set up. I was really impressed by all of the hair and makeup that day! Everyone was so gorgeous.
The venue: Tiffany Greens Golf Club in Kansas City, MO
Part of the reason we chose this venue was because of the scenery. The golf course is gorgeous, which is another reason I was so glad the rain went away. All of our wedding party photos were taken outside at Tiffany Greens, and it made beautiful photos.
I also loved working with the staff at Tiffany Greens. The main coordinator was so helpful all of the time. I could always call or text her with questions, and she was a big help in solving a few almost-crises on the wedding day itself (seating charts are hard….) I also really liked that there were two separate rooms, plus a separate bar, as well as an outdoor balcony area. It really was a great venue for our wedding, and things went smoothly thanks to the great staff. One of the perks of having the wedding at a country club was that it’s already so beautiful, and they provided tables and chairs. So there really wasn’t a lot of decorating for us to do. I think we had like 3 tubs of decorations (including cupcake holders and cake stand and other necessary items), plus three boxes of charger plates, and that was pretty much it.
The dress and veil: Something White Bridal Boutique and Kendra J Bridal
That dress though. This was one of the things I splurged on, and I don’t regret it for a second. I have always known that I wanted a trumpet or mermaid style dress, and I love lace. This was actually the first dress I tried on (other than practicing at David’s Bridal), and I knew it was the one the second I saw it on. I like that it is relatively a simple style, but the lace details and sparkles are what sold me, and of course THAT TRAIN. The dress and veil are from Something White Bridal Boutique in the Crossroads area in downtown KC, and I got alterations done at Kendra J Bridal in the Gladstone area. I will say, I should have probably got it altered a little tighter because it definitely felt and looked a little looser than I wanted, but not a big deal really. I somehow managed to keep this dress a secret from Brent for almost a year, so I was sooo happy for him to finally get to see it!
The wedding party attire: Azazie and Men’s Wearhouse
For the bridesmaids dresses, we got them from Azazie. The important part is to order all of the dresses, ties and pocket squares at the same time so they will be the exact same shade. You can add them to your showroom and then the girls have 24 hours from the time the first person orders. As far as style, I only cared that they all wore the same style dress and gold jewelry. Other than that, I told them to do whatever they wanted for shoes and hair (although a lot of us ended up having very similar hairstyles anyway). The guys including Brent rented their suits from Men’s Wearhouse, and again the ties and pocket squares were from Azazie. I absolutely loved how it turned out with the dusty blue, burgundy in the flowers, and the black and white. So timeless and pretty.
As far as I know, the girls loved their dresses. They were very pretty and seemed to be great quality, and the girls said they were super comfortable too. I think it was a great deal for the price.
The flowers: Wild Hill Flowers
Okay. If you know me at all, you know how much I love flowers. I suck at gardening and keeping them alive, but I’ve got fake flowers all over my house at all times and I’m constantly wearing floral prints. So of course flowers were one of the most important parts of our wedding for me. I know a lot of people choose to save some money here and make their own floral arrangements with flowers from HyVee or somewhere, but I decided this was my number one area to splurge a little. We did keep it pretty minimal because yes it is super expensive. Our florist did the bouquets, pinned corsages for the moms, eucalyptus garland for the head table, flowers on the cake, and centerpieces for the guest tables. We kept the color scheme pretty simple with just white and burgundy, and lots of greenery. I still can’t get over how perfect everything turned out!
I had two consultations with the florist, one about a year ahead of time and one a couple of months out. Both were pretty quick and she was able to take my ideas and make something exactly like what I had in mind. At the end of the night, we let guests take flowers home too, so we didn’t have to figure out what to do with all of the flowers afterwards. All we took home was my bouquet and one centerpiece, and I was so sad when I had to throw them out after a couple of weeks. They were so gorgeous and made the whole house smell so good too! I considered getting some of them pressed or preserved, but decided to save some money there and just rely on pictures for the memories.
The food: Garozzo’s Ristorante
I come from an Italian family, and again, if you know me, you know how much I looooove Italian food. Garozzo’s is my favorite Italian restaurant in KC, so of course we had to go with them for catering. We had pasta with vodka sauce, chicken spiedini, and tortelloni gina. Everything. Was. So. GOOD. We got so many compliments on our food and everyone wanted to go back for seconds. Garozzo’s was even thoughtful enough to leave a present for us, and it is a signed bottle of one of their wines. So generous and we are planning on drinking it on our first anniversary. Seriously guys, Garozzo’s.
The dessert: Cami’s Cake Co.
Brent’s two sisters-in-law are both in the wedding business (one did my makeup and the other did our photobooth), so they were both super helpful in wedding planning. One of them recommended Cami’s Cake Co. to us. The cake was so good, and the cupcakes were a huge hit (I’ve heard they were delicious. They went super fast, and even the cake I think was gone by the end of the night! The only dessert I got was during the cake cutting…) The cake was just a simple white wedding cake, and for cupcakes we had salted caramel chocolate, snickerdoodle, and vanilla lemon. The vanilla lemon is actually amazing, but I have had a thing for lemon lately.
My aunt and cousins also made Italian cookies, which is a tradition in our family for Easter, Christmas, and for a lot of the weddings. It’s my grandma’s recipe so it’s very special that we had those at our wedding. Again, they went super fast and I didn’t even get one this time!
The DJ: Icon Event Group
Our DJ was Tony Tone, and he did a great job. We paid extra for him to act as emcee as well, so he helped dismiss tables for dinner and kept the party moving along well the entire night. There was one point where Brent and I had left to take sunset photos and it was quite a while before we got back to the main room because we were talking to so many people. When we did get back in there finally, the party was already going and everyone was dancing! That was such a fun moment for me because I was worried that people wouldn’t dance. It was actually such a fun night of dancing, and neither one of us generally likes to dance that much.
Besides being a great DJ and emcee, he was also funny and laid back and really made us feel comfortable during consultations and during the wedding night itself. Other than the one time he messed my name up, great night haha
The photographer: Kelsey Diane Photography
Again, I can not say enough great things about Kelsey. I said flowers and the dress were some of my most important parts of the wedding, but photography was my #1 most important thing. I love having photos up all over my house (and of course for social media…), so it’s really important for me to have great quality photos from the wedding. I actually found Kelsey through a friend (who’s wedding was actually at the same venue as well!) We later found out that not only did she go to the same high school as Brent and his friends, but she actually already knew his brother and sister-in-law and their family. So that was really cool! She is so much fun and again, made us feel really comfortable during the engagement photos and on the wedding day itself. We were constantly laughing, even though sometimes taking pictures like this can feel so super awkward!
Part of the reason I wanted to work with her was because she is SO GOOD at golden hour/sunset photos. It was cloudy for our engagement photos, so I was really hoping it would be beautiful for the wedding day. It rained all morning, so I had pretty much given up on sunset photos and had accepted it just wasn’t going to happen for us. But then it cleared up just in time to get amazing wedding party photos, and yes we did get our sunset photos!! They turned out PERFECT and I still can’t get over it. I mean LOOK.
These are just from the preview photos that she sent us, and I am so excited to see the rest of our photos in the next few weeks! Which, by the way, she is great about getting photos to us. She sent us like 60-some photos for the preview, and it was just a couple of days after the wedding. It was so nice to get to look through wedding photos while relaxing on our honeymoon in Mexico (post coming soon about that also!). She captured some really special moments that I didn’t even think of at the time. Overall, 32/10 would recommend to anyone, anytime, for any reason.
The photobooth: PKC Photobooth
Brent’s sister-in-law owns PKC Photobooth, and I may be a little biased but it’s my favorite photobooth. We used it at my family bridal shower as well, and both times it was a big hit (as photobooths tend to be). People had so much fun with the props, and it was constantly being used the entire night. I love that the photo strips are basically a favor, and that way I feel like you don’t need to actually spend extra money on traditional favors. Sarah is also very professional and fun to work with, and I so loved having her photobooth at our wedding!
Decorations, invites, etc.
Shoes – I actually bought like three other pairs of shoes before I finally found this pair from Lulu’s that I loved. They were chunky heels so my feet barely hurt throughout photos and the entire night of dancing, plus they were only like $35!
Earrings – I absolutely loved these earrings from Sara Gabriel. Again, I bought a couple different options for jewelry but I have always seen myself wearing dangle earrings for my wedding, and these were so sparkly and really stood out without being too loud.
Rings – All three of the rings are from Shane Co. They have always been really friendly and helpful without being pushy at all, so we love working with them. Brent really likes that his ring is less traditional. I love that mine is simple and traditional, but still very pretty.
Watch – This watch belonged to Brent’s great grandmother, and was one of my favorite things I wore on the wedding day. It was my something borrowed and something old. Brent’s sister-in-law also wore it during her wedding, so it was a nice touch during our wedding as well! Plus it’s gorgeous of course.
Perfume – I have been using Scentbird for a while now, and this is one of my favorites so far. It’s Guilty by Gucci, and I love that it now reminds me of our wedding day every time I wear it.
Paper goods – Our save-the-dates and thank you cards were from Minted. For our invites I decided to save a little money and went with Zazzle, but they still turned out great. Our table numbers, escort cards, signs, menus, and programs were all templates that I bought on Etsy. I printed everything myself, except for table numbers and menus I got printed by Prints of Love.
Guest book – We didn’t do a traditional guest book. Instead, we got a cartoon of us drawn by Miss Design Barry and guests signed that instead. We have it hanging in our living room now, and I absolutely love it. It’s so special and unique. I even paid extra to have the dress look just like my actual dress.
All other decorations were mostly from Amazon or Etsy, including our cake stand, cupcake stands, string lights, gold table runner, Mr. and Mrs. sign (I bought it and then painted it ourselves to save some money there), votive candles, and welcome sign (I just used a letter board. Simple and somewhat unique). I also bought a few things at Michael’s, like all of our picture frames and some stands for signs. I also used a lot of pumpkins that I already had around the house, and a few of them I had just received as gifts at the bridal shower.
Our wedding day was everything I hoped it would be and more: magical, beautiful, perfect, romantic, a little chaotic, and definitely a blur. It was so fun planning the wedding, and the day itself was so much fun too! But at the same time, I am so glad it has finally come and gone, and it is now time to start our married life together. Since we have lived together for a couple of years and already own a home together, it really isn’t that different. But at the same time, it feels completely different. I am so glad that our wedding day was as beautiful and perfect as it was, and I hope that this post has been helpful to future brides planning their weddings as well!
