This is the most surreal blog I’ve ever written because I STILL can’t believe that I’m actually married. It’s been 2.5 weeks and I’m still tripping up and calling Addison my fiancé rather than my freaking husband. I love saying that though. “Hi, this is my HUSBAND, Addison.” Such a cool feeling hehe
BUTTTTTT I wanted to share alllllll of our wedding details with you guys! Partially because I know a lot of you are planning a wedding yourself and might want to snag the suits, dresses, shoes, or earrings in ours – but also partially because I’d like to share some insight I’ve learned on wedding planning. There were…. quite a few things that went wrong during ours, and if I could help even one bride have a less stressful wedding than I had, then I’ll die a happy woman. Kinda joking, kinda not.
So before I hop into the details, I want to make one thing clear: we paid FULL PRICE for every single thing and service in our wedding. I did not use my social media following to ‘collab’ with any businesses. Everything in here was paid out of pocket by us as well as our parents, as they were both gracious enough to help us pay for our wedding. Just wanted to make that clear so you guys know none of this is sponsored in any way shape or form!
Alright, so. Let’s break it all down!
Our Venue – Black Forest by Wedgewood Weddings in Colorado Springs, Colorado
- I chose this venue because they’re kind of an ‘all-in-one’ venue. You pay a set price (depends on how many guests you have) and it includes the venue, food, open bar (if you choose to have 0ne), cake, floral centerpieces, and day of coordination. They use specific vendors, all of which were fabulous to work with, and you get to meet with them individually still to pick out your very own details! The only things we had to pay for outside of Wedgewood for the ceremony/reception were the photographer, videographer, and the girls’ bouquets.
- I could nottttt recommend a Wedgewood location more! When shiz hit the fan on our wedding day (aka hail wrecking havoc on our plans), our day-of-coordinator was SO helpful. She organized everyone and everything the ENTIRE night! From coordinating and organizing the ceremony to making sure all of the reception events (cake cutting, toasts, first dances) were done on time. Seriously though, Wedgewood is the way to go and if I were re-doing our wedding, I’d pick them all over again!
- What I would’ve changed: honestly the only thing I wish I would’ve done differently is hiring a personal wedding planner. While Wedgewood was AMAZING the day of, I think having my own wedding planner would’ve allowed me to actually enjoyyyyy the week of the wedding – it was really hard trying to focus on the happiness of the wedding when I had to deal with all of the things that went wrong leading up to the wedding day. So if it’s in your budget, I think a wedding planner would be so worth the stress it would save you!
- I’ve been working with Mikkelle for photoshoots for Balance/Bicah for over a year now, so I knew I wanted her to do our wedding, too!
- She’s just the best… she’s SO sweet, SO talented, and gets pictures back to you quickly.
- I seriously recommend Mikkelle for ALLLLL of your picture needs! We hired her for our engagement pictures, as well 🙂
- Mikkelle’s Instagram: click here
My Beauty Squad – Lyon’s Mane + Kelsey Bailey Beauty
- Hair: My amazingly talented hairstylist, Caitlin Friend, @CaitlinAmigo on Instagram, did my wedding hair as well as my bridesmaid’s hair! She actually doesn’t do wedding hair anymore, as she focuses on extensions and color and all that fun stuff, but she made an exception for me since I’ve been going to her for myyyy extensions for 1.5 years now! So she’s not someone you can book for yourself really. Sorry, guys!
- Makeup: I have to say THANK YOU to all of my Instagram friends for this find, as you guys suggested her to me, but I hired Kelsey Bailey Beauty for my makeup as well as my bridesmaids! I just have no words to say besides she’s THE BEST EVER and you should hire her for your wedding makeup, too. She is not only the sweetest human alive, but the most talented MUA I’ve ever been to!
Our Videographers – Silk & Sage Films
- I found Silk and Sage Films through ‘The Knot’ and am so glad that I did! While it’s only 2.5 weeks post-wedding, so I don’t have any of the video back yet, they were extremely organized and communicative to make sure they knew the game plan for the actual wedding day. They were also SO nice and helpful! And very understanding when plans changed due to hail and such. I’m SOOOO excited to see some of the videos they got!
- My Dress: Harlie with Slit by Made with Love – I can’t link this dress because it has been discontinued! Which makes sense given I bought it off the rack as a former sample dress. You’d have to buy it from a resale site if you wanted that specific dress! I did buy it from A & Bé Bridal in Denver, though.
- My Veil: Honestly, I have noooo idea what it’s called but it was the most basic veil the Bridal Shop had. Just a really long, plain veil! So no link for that either, sorry!! Lol
- My Earrings: By FAR my most requested wedding detail! Here’s the link to them 🙂 I got them in rose gold to match our wedding rings!
- My Necklace / Bracelet: Both of these were gifts (necklace was from Addison for my birthday and the bracelet was from my mom as a surprise wedding gift), so I don’t have the links to them!
- My Shoes: Okay these were also a highly requested link! Here’s the style of them. I will say the color I got (Ivory / an off white) isn’t in stock anymore 🙁 But you might be able to find some on a resale site!
- Bridesmaids Dresses: My bridesmaids wore this dress in the color ‘Celadon’ which was a very light sage green. It was a super flattering style on everybody! They wore basic nude block heels with it.
- Tuxes:
- I’m going to be honest, I’m VERYYYY hesitant to even share the tux shop they rented these from with you because our experience with them was absolutely horrible.
- I specifically wanted green suits, and we found the perfect color (what they were all wearing) at Al’s Formalwear in Denver. We were PUMPED about it! Addison, the groomsmen, and both of our dads wore them on the wedding day.
- The groomsmen had light green bowties and pocket squares, whereas Addison had Ivory so he could stand out more!
- The [condensed story of the] issue we had with them: We told them upfront that our wedding was out of town from Denver, so they told us all of the suits would arrive by Tuesday, but Wednesday at the absolute latest (our wedding was Saturday 1.5 hours from Denver). Well, Tuesday comes, we call to check on them, and it turns out they’re closed on Tuesdays. Oh, well.
- On Wednesday we called back and were told that none of our suits are in Denver yet, nor have they even shipped. Long story short – they said they’d all be here by Thursday, but when they came, one full groomsman’s entireee outfit was missing, one groomsman’s pants were missing, two groomsman’s ties were missing, and another groomsman’s shirt was missing. When we told them this, they asked Addison, “Well, do you have a plan B?” Like…. excuse me? Why would we have a plan B for our GREEN WEDDING suits. Lol
- We had to leave for the Springs on Thursday night since our Rehearsal was Friday afternoon, and I had to sit on the phone with them for almost an hour arguing with them that they needed to overnight them to where we were staying in the Springs. After a lot of back and forth, they finally hand packed the missing items and overnighted them to us… we got them on Friday night. The DAY before our wedding. I was glad it worked out, but still.
- This was by far the most stressful situation with the wedding (other than the hail) and the incident that made me realize a wedding planner is probably very worth it. Because I was SOOOOO stressed the two days before my wedding when I should’ve been happy and excited for the big day.
- All in all, I DO suggest green suits but I do not suggest getting them from the same place
Well, I thinkkkkk that’s it, you guys! If there’s any details I’m missing that you’re curious about, feel free to DM me on Instagram and I’ll add it into this blog. I know this is a LOOONGGG blog, but hopefully it’s worth the read 🙂 Especially if you’re wedding planning, too!
While it may have been stressful, it was absolutely the best day of my life and I wish I could re-do it all over again. I’m so grateful to have married such an AMAZING man, and even more grateful to have so many virtual friends cheering us on!
