{Unfake Wedding Feature} A Private Virginian Home, Dianne + Kent

When you’ve got a venue staring you right in the face, say like, you’re future mother-in-law’s gorgeous home? Take it. I love the idea of opening up a home to friends and family to celebrate a marriage. In fact, what better way? People used to do it all the time. I think brides might get themselves worked into believing that there must be a special venue in order to properly celebrate. Well, I say what’s more special than a family home?

Welcome to the Unfake Wedding of Dianne & Kent!

The most important question: wedding night…did you or didn’t you?

T30SB Commentary: Oh, for goodness sake. Really? How many in a row do we have to have before folks understand, it’s just in good fun? Whether you have sex on your wedding night or not is no indication of your love, commitment or your sex life for that matter. The point of the question is so that everyone understands this fact.

 

Please take the time to tell me all the vendors you used.

Photographer  Robert Holley

DJ/Band DJ Elon

Reception Venue  My mother-in-law’s home.

Flowers  Flower Gallery of Manassas

Dress  Crystal Bridal Gallery (www.crystalbridalgallery.com) The dress Designer was Allure.

Hair/Make- Hair   Sharon King (of JC Penny’s Salon at Fairoaks Mall)/Makeup – one of my best
friends Jenny Lira did my makeup along with my mom’s and niece.

Tuxedos   Kent had his own tux
Catering    Maryland Country Caterers

Cake   Wanda’s Cakes

Ring Box   I used  Braggingbags on Etsy and had a wooden ring box (instead of the ring pillow)
engraved on the front “With this ring I thee wed.” She also made me a chalk board in
which we wrote “Thank You” and used for our pictures to make our own Thank You cards.

Allison Chamblee of Design Perks. She designed personalized labels for our
wedding favors/gifts as well as for our bottles of wine that we served at the wedding. A very
nice touch to the day!

Reverend Dan Thompson  We do not have our own church here, so I had to ask
around and search online for an officiant to marry us. I found Pastor Dan indirectly and he was just wonderful. I cannot say enough great things about him. His ceremony was perfect. He is
extremely kind and giving. He made us feel as if we’d known each other for a long time.

 

Who was your favorite vendor and why?

We honestly loved them all. Everyone took such great care of us from start to finish!

Was there a “method to your madness” in choosing your vendors?

I was lucky in the fact that a couple of the vendors I used were based upon recommendations from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law (whose wedding was just the year before ours). I was also able to find my DJ from the recommendation of my photographer.

 

How long did you take to plan your wedding?

We picked our date in February; I started planning about one or two months later, and we were married in September…so 6 to 7 months in all.

How many guests did you invite versus how many came?

We invited 85 people and had 70 in attendance.

What was your budget?

We were trying to keep it around $15,000, and we actually managed to spend $15,500…so I think we did pretty nicely!

Did you include rings and/or the honeymoon in your budget?

No we did not include the rings or the honeymoon in our budget. Our honeymoon probably cost just about the same amount as our wedding did. It was fun to spend the money on just the two of us without any guilt or hesitation.

Were you over or under budget? By how much (you can give a percentage)?

Pretty much right on target.

How large was your bridal party?

We really didn’t want a large bridal party, so we had my niece as my junior bridesmaid and my two nephews – one as a junior groomsman and the other as the ring bearer.

Did you have favors for your guests? If so, what were they? How much did you spend?

My mom and my aunt actually made homemade strawberry jam as favors to our guests. Allison
Chamblee created labels that coordinated with my colors and my invitations to put onto the
jars. We also had gift bags for our guests staying at the hotel which included bottles of wine, with personalized labels as well.

Did you include any special family traditions?

Nothing to speak of.

What was your biggest day-of crisis and how did you handle it (or rather, not handle?)?

Everyone told me that there would be one issue of the day…and as much as I didn’t want to
believe what I was being told…WE HAD AN ISSUE!! I was having pictures taken, sipping on
a glass of wine and finally enjoying the moment when at about 4:40 (20 minutes prior to the
start of the wedding ceremony), I was told that the shuttle bus had not arrived at the hotel to
pick up my guests. Seriously?!?! I guess you could say that this was an issue that I DID NOT
handle all too well! My “enjoying the moment” quickly went to a “WTH moment”…not such an
elegant photo opportunity I must admit. J After several phone calls with the shuttle service
and the hotel, my guests were packed in like sardines into the small hotel buses…luckily they
only had to suffer a ten minute ride while “snuggled” up so closely to each other. We started
the ceremony about one hour late and a working shuttle bus finally arrived…only 3 hours late
I must say. On a good note, we had a terrific driver for the evening; he stayed as long as we
wanted him to; and we got a full refund for the shuttle service.

 

T30SB Commentary: Holy cow, I love this giant ice tub!

What was your biggest wedding planning crisis and how did you handle it (or rather, not handle?)?

We didn’t really have any thankfully…our crisis just waited until the day of!

Who was the biggest pain in the ass on your wedding day (you can opt out of this if you’d like)?

Honestly everyone was on their best behavior and we had a really fun time J

What was the biggest waste of money that you loved?

Nothing…I loved it all and I don’t think anything was a waste of our money…truly.

What was the biggest waste of money that you wish you’d passed on?

Again, I can’t think of anything.

 

 

What did you love that was also the cheapest?

I really loved the personalized labels…and they were extremely reasonable!!

What was the most unexpected thing that happened (not necessarily a bad thing, just a surprise)?

The shuttle bus fiasco for sure.

What was the funniest thing that happened?

This is actually cuter than funny, but… After the ceremony, we went with our photographer to a little park near the front of the neighborhood where we had some amazing pictures taken. On the way back to the car to return to the reception, I noticed an enormous amount of “prickly things” from the cattail grass that we walked through…these little things had just attached themselves to the lace on my dress. In a moment’s notice, I had my new husband and my photographer diligently picking out what appeared to be a hundred of these little “monsters!” I had earlier mentioned how great it would be to have a photo with us and Rob (our photographer) because we loved him so much…and hence I got my photo op!

There was one other funny moment during the ceremony. I didn’t think it was that funny, but
all of our guests certainly did. Our Pastor was having us say our vows. As Kent was reciting his vows to me, a stink bug landed on the lapel of his tuxedo. It would not go away! I tried
so hard to ignore it and concentrate on Kent, but I just couldn’t stop looking at it! So I tried
to quickly brush it off of him without it being so noticeable. Pastor Dan then made a funny
remark (which I wish I could remember) which caused everyone else to laugh out loud,
leaving me a tad bit embarrassed. But I was glad it was gone and I could focus on my soon-to-
be husband…and not a stink bug.

T30SB Commentary: I just love this kind of photograph! Reminds me of my own family…

What was the most ooey-gooey, tear-jerking moment?

Ironically we didn’t really have a tear- jerking moment. Crazy I know!

Did you DIY? What parts?

As mentioned earlier, my mom and aunt made the jam. I had labels done for the jam plus labels for our wine bottles. I love to bake, and I wanted more sweets than just our cake; so I made an assortment of cookies, brownies and bars that were displayed after everyone was done with dinner. We also did gift bags, which included: a bottle of wine with a wine opener, salty and sweet snacks, dried fruit, water, gum, etc. We wanted our guests to have something available when/if the munchies struck them.

Where did you go on your honeymoon?

We had a two week vacation in which we visited Paris, Venice and Prague. One word – AMAZING. I kept a journal each day of our trip, so we will have not just the pictures but the actual words to “relive” our trip together.

If you could do it all over again, what would you change, if anything?

There is really not much I would change except I wish that I had had more time for pictures with just my family before the wedding. We just ran out of time so quickly!

Congratulations to Dianne & Kent!

Comments

[Emily]

This was such a lovely interview! Totally going to pick up a journal for the honeymoon in less than a month, what a great idea! I really love your set of questions, too.