Our Wedding
In light of our anniversary coming up, we went back to our ceremony site, watched all of our raw video footage, and really reminisced. So I did a roundup of everything wedding related!
Check out this blog post I wrote during the planning process of how we completely shifted the direction of our wedding, fire vendors that were absolutely terrible, and some lessons I learned in the process! As well as details about my bachelorette party in San Diego.
If you don’t see it here, we probably didn’t do it! We didn’t do a lot of the traditions – a wedding cake, garter/bouquet toss (I didn’t even have a bouquet, or one flower the entire wedding!), or even a bridal party.
We also didn’t have seating arrangements – the long tables we did made it a lot easier for people to just find their own seats without having to have an exact seat count. Also…seatings charts are stressful and we already had to assign rooms and cabins at our lodge, so no thanks.
All photos are either Rock Sandretto Photography, A Bugling Affair Photography, or from family/friends.
First, here’s our story and engagement story from our website (we used Zola):
Engagement Party:
Check out this blog post for details
The Custom Dress Process:
Check out this blog post for details.
My dressmaker was Angela Kim Couture – the best!!!
Invitations
The invites were a piece of wood with a lasered design that I designed in Photoshop. I used this vendor on Etsy for the wood – he was the most reasonable I could find! Then we hand-stained them with dark walnut.
I had a mutual friend illustrate the area map and the venue grounds for me. The venue grounds piece had room assignments on the back and those only went to the people staying on site.
The envelopes are from Amazon, and I got this custom wax seal from Etsy. Remind me to never do that again! It was so time consuming. But I did love the little detail. This is the wax and the color is Champagne Gold.
Venue:
Our venue was Greer Red Setter Lodge. We rented out the entire grounds for the weekend which included a large lodge with 9 bedrooms (us and our friends stayed at the lodge), and 4 additional cabins for our families and more friends.
The grounds are so ethereal with the Little Colorado River running through it. It was truly a dream!
Our coordinator Shaneen Elefante with A Bugling Affair came with the venue and was so great and knowledgeable about the area. She really made things a lot less stressful for us. We also paid her team extra to do tear down – an absolute must!
Week of Events:
In true “us” fashion…we extended the wedding weekend and packed it full of events. Our friends joke that staying with us at the cabin isn’t a “vacation” because we pack it full of activities.
Wednesday: Lake Day + Happy Hour at my parents cabin so we could finish projects. This day was mainly family!
Thursday: Golf, off-roading and shooting, and dinner + games + drinks at The House Show Low. Most people came in this day!
Friday: a few close friends and family staying on site with us came to pick up some wedding stuff to bring to the venue and Danny’s parents hosted a brunch at their cabin
Rehearsal Dinner:
We ended up going with Spicerageous for ALL catering, because the owner Matt owns two of our favorite restaurants in Pinetop and he is amazing! He was also the only place to accommodate a “family style” meal and custom menus.
The event planner April was amazing. I’m a pretty detailed person and she was probably even more organized than I am.
They did a plated 5-course rehearsal dinner and we ate at the lodge we stayed at with mainly immediate family.
Rehearsal Outfit was done by Angela – more about her in the “custom wedding dress process” section.
Welcome Party:
This was the most fun night! We had our welcome party at Molly Butler Lodge – a historic restaurant/bar/lodge in Greer. We had our dance instructors come and teach some line dances – “Good Time” by Alan Jackson and “Copperhead Road” (more about our instructors in the “first dance” section.
We set out our welcome bags at the party (details on the welcome bags in the welcome bag section).
My friend got me the custom jean jacket from Etsy.
Welcome Bags:
Since people traveled very far for our wedding and it was in really high elevation, I felt the welcome bags necessary. In it, we included:
- Water bottle with our names and hashtag on it (we still have some lol). I designed it in Photoshop and bought custom stickers online.
- “his” and “her” favorite snacks – Danny’s is Sour Patch kids and mine is Cheese-its. I made the design for these and ordered the stickers online.
- A map of the area and a little note along with the schedule of events and driving directions to the ceremony
- A custom coozie that I designed and ordered online
- Single pack of Advil
- Liquid IV
- Starbucks coffee packet
- A map of the grounds for people staying onsite
- A Smirnoff ice for our friends staying onsite
Dress + Accessories + Danny’s look:
My dress + accessories:
Danny’s look:
We used the Black Tux for Danny’s look. You give them all their measurements and preferences. They send you a box about a month before the event and if you need to exchange sizes, just send it back! They give you a free return label and just ship it back up to 3 days after the event.
Leis & Haku Leis
In Hawaiian culture, it’s traditional for the immediate family and bridal party to wear leis and haku leis. Men always wear the ti leaf (for the groom you can put maile or pikake in it which we did). For women on the bride’s side, they wear haku leis (mine was just a little more full than everyone else’s). Women on the groom’s side wear flower leis.
My dad and godmother brought them from Hawaii! Our photographer captured these special moments:
Hair + Makeup:
Hair by @sincerelysavannahleighhair
Makeup by @glowbyaimeejo
Ceremony:
Our ceremony was not at our reception venue. We found this spot off the beaten path with a view of Sunrise Ski Mountain in the background, which is where we got engaged.
We only provided a few benches for people (immediate family and disabled or pregnant) which our wooden table rental company dropped off the night before and picked up after the ceremony to bring back to the reception…lots of logistics!
We explained the standing ceremony situation in the welcome sign on the mirror pictured below. We felt like standing made it much more intimate as people could get closer to us and really be a part of the ceremony.
We had a champagne and beer bar cart setup at the entrance of the ceremony which three my brothers took care of. We figured if we made people drive 15 minutes on a dirt road to see us get married they might as well get a drink out of it!
Cocktail Hour:
I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have the largest charcuterie board known to man at my wedding. Our caterer Spicerageous put together this 8-foot charcuterie board for us! I made sure to have the catering coordinator make me a box to snack on our way back from the ceremony.
We used these clear acrylic plates with matching appetizer forks for the board.
First Dance:
We got our first dance choreographed by local dance instructors up here in the White Mountains, Steve & Deena. If you’re up here on a Thursday night, go to their free lessons at The Lodge Bar and Grill in Pinetop!
They came to our wedding just to watch the dance, and we are still friends today! I hope we can still remember it on our first anniversary.
Bar + Alcohol:
We made our bar ourselves (well, Danny did most of the work). The one I wanted was this one from Glamour and Woods and was going to be about $900 with all the pieces, so we made this one ourselves for about $300. We had to transport it ourselves, but we were able to sell it for a pretty penny afterward!
We also got all our own alcohol at Costco and hired a pair of bartenders. I would not recommend our bartending service for many reasons, including not having the proper liquor license a week before the event (talk about stress), not following really any of my instructions, and being rude to a couple guests. Their name is AZ Black Tie Events. They were very inexpensive, including the small travel fee we paid.
Along with our signature cocktails (hers – cranberry mule and his – old fashioned), wine, mixers, and bottled beers…we got two kegs – one from our friend’s brewery The Shop Beer Co. in Tempe (Church Music IPA), and one the Tripel Houblon from Pinetop Brewing Co.
We got these cute custom napkins with different sayings on them. Two more sayings were “i’ll drink to that” and “chug, chug, chug”.
I made the bar sign with an old vintage mirror we found on Offerup and white vinyl with a Cricut. It was so time consuming and a LOT of learning. I sold the Cricut immediately after the wedding LOL
Dinner + Table Settings:
I already mentioned our caterer Spicerageous (more details in the “reception dinner” section). We did a “family style” dinner which I loved! It forced people sitting together to talk as they shared food and we got a lot of feedback that people liked the concept.
Tables, benches and head chairs: from Rustique Rentals. I’ve also used her for my friends baby shower and she’s great! We did pay a small travel fee but Amber was so accommodating.
Table runners: I got bulk chiffon fabric from onlinefabricstore.com and cut it into 1/4’s.
Candles: my aunt is a Goodwill junkie and I had her on this project for over a year lol
Plates: Amazon here
Chargers: they’re from Hobby Lobby but I found them on Offerup from a previous bride. They’re pretty common
Cutlery: Amazon here
Menus: I designed them in Photoshop with our wedding fonts and printed them through Vistaprint
Napkins: I got them in bulk online super cheap and had my friends come over and fold + iron them one night in exchange for pizza and wine. Then we inserted the menus, tied twine and cut juniper the week of the wedding.
Coffee & Tea Bar:
Probably the least used part of the wedding and the most work LOL. We had a Keurig and Nespresso with a bunch of coffee and tea options and mix-ins.
I also made the signs myself with Goodwill frames and Cricut.
Sweets + Desserts:
We did not do a wedding cake. Neither of us really like cake and we felt like it was an unnecessary expense that not everyone really even likes. Instead we did a sweets table. The baker was Carol’s Creations – a friend of the planner and venue.
We did blueberry buckles, brownies with and without nuts, mini cheesecakes, and sea salt rice crispies.
I didn’t get a pic of the table, but we had them on a ton of acrylic risers thatI got on Amazon.
We used these clear acrylic plates with matching dessert forks for the sweets table.
Photobooth:
I loved our photobooth! The attendants brought props and gave us a print out and digital copies for everyone, and they also had a video station set up where everyone could leave us a video message. We watched them on our honeymoon and they were HILARIOUS.
The vendor was Ron with Pinetop Photo and Video.
Reception + Pizza + After Party:
DJ: We chose a friend of a friend who is more of a “club DJ” who has done a few weddings we’ve been to and I liked his style at them. We wanted more of a club vibe because we’ve both been scarred with super cheesy wedding DJ’s in the past (say NO to “Shout” and anything Bruno Mars).
Pizza: We had our caterer Spicerageous do a midnight (9pm) snack for us – this was probably the best “extra” decision we made….I really needed it cause I barely ate dinner from all my jitters.
Everyone went inside the lodge after 10pm which is the city noise ordinance. The lodge has a huge living area with big fireplaces and a pool table.
Decor:
We didn’t really have much decor other than what I’ve already shared. We really wanted the setting to set the scene.
We used our own fonts for everything from the wedding invites, welcome bag goodies, menus, and vinyl on all the signs. The fonts are Lato and Wilderness.
The below sign is our favorite song (what our video is to as well) and I made it with the Cricut and a Goodwill frame that I spray painted.
Day-After-Brunch:
We had a brunch at our house the next day. Our caterer Spicecrageous did breakfast waffle cones for us and they were DELICIOUS. They parked their food truck right outside our house. It was a great opportunity for family and friends to see our cabin, too!
Wedding Video:
I am soooo glad we did a video. I found this video company out of LA through Sav Labrant’s Instagram. They started out their career doing music videos, so their videography and editing has a totally different vibe than most wedding video companies.
They have a videographer in the Valley so we only had to pay the trip fee from the Valley, not LA. We also added the drone footage as well. It turns out the videographer knew my brothers, so the dynamic was awesome too 🙂
Here’s the final product: https://www.instagram.com/tv/B6vm4VDjHuy/
Photographer:
Our photographer is from Alabama – yes, I know…extra. I absolutely fell in love with him on Instagram years before even getting engaged. He just has such a different vibe and I feel has such a talent for capturing love and emotion but in a casual, non-posed way.
He didn’t charge a travel fee, but we did pay his way here plus lodging. Thank God for Southwest points!
He did our engagement photos as well – you can see them at the bottom of this post here!
Rock Sandretto: website and Instagram
Boudoir Photos:
My wedding gift to Danny was a little book of some boudoir photos I did. I loved my photographer! She totally knows how to make a girl look good and feel comfortable. She posed me exactly to look the most flattering – like to the inch. It was such a sigh of relief. I printed the book through Shutterfly.
The photographer is @darahdoesboudoir with Darah Does Photos.
Here are some of the less risqué photos from the shoot:
Things I would have done differently:
- Not stressed as much
- Not done a coffee bar: it was barely used and took probably the most amount of effort
- Worn my veil :/ It was so special because my dressmaker remade my veil out of my moms and I totally forgot it!
- Worn the fur jacket I bought specifically for the reception instead of the comfy shearling one I ended up wearing
- Said hi to more people and taken more pics with people – I only got a few with friends!
