As much as I love a wedding full of fluffy peonies and pastel hues. (See my own wedding for evidence.)
Every now and then a wedding comes along that is so beautifully different it's like a breath of fresh air!
Jerrod and Jessica had a romantic and stylish wedding in Nashville, Tennessee with a sumptuous palette of crimson, deep pinks, purples and gold, a ceiling adorned with umbrellas and fairy lights, feathers everywhere and a subtle, chic carnival theme.
Jessica looked incredible in a show-stopping champagne, ruffled wedding dress teamed with a statement necklace and topped off with a volumous birdcage veil.
Watch out for the couple's beautiful portraits amidst the lush green landscape, a sentimental balloon send off during their ceremony and fluorescent glow sticks!
All captured to perfection by Teale Photography.
When planning the wedding we really wanted to incorporate fun and elegance with things we love. I grew up in Tennessee and developed a love of county fairs (where we had our engagement shoot), family picnics on the farm, and string lit fall evenings. I also inherited my mother’s worldly style, my father’s fascination with history, and my grandmother’s adoration for peacocks.
Jerrod and I together fell in love with vintage engagement rings which was sort of the starting point for our vision and when we found the umbrellas the rest fell into place. Vintage Parisian Cirque became the working theme and while that can invoke some over the top additions we ended up with just the right balance.
The jewel and berry tones, subtle inclusion of feathers, and beautiful vintage accents felt positively homey. Top it off with funnel cakes and string lights, could it get any better?
The Ceremony
The 5 year anniversary of my father passing was the day after the wedding. I was initially nervous that would be a bit sad, but ultimately I thought what better way to celebrate his life than to all be together for something joyous. We made a tribute table with great pictures of my dad and loved having so many of his family members there to celebrate with us. Jerrod carried my dad’s white handkerchief while I carried my grandmother’s blue one.
My sweet cousin read “Oh The Places You’ll Go” (a condensed version) during our ceremony. Travelling and seeing the world is really important to us and while I used to view marriage as a roadblock to the rest of the things you want to do in life; with Jerrod it feels like the beginning of a great adventure.
One of my favorite memories of the wedding occurred because of another dear friend and her husband who sang and played a Beatles medley on the ukulele for the ceremony. Matt and Melissa Mobley’s beautiful arrangements make me tear up at just the thought.
Ceremony Music
Seating of grandparents/ mothers: I Will, Beatles
Groomsmen/ Bridesmaids: Here Comes the Sun, Beatles
Bride: Something, Beatles
Unity Ceremony (Balloon Release): Across the Universe, Beatles
Recessional: Love and Happiness, Al Green
Symbolic Balloon Release
We wanted to do something a bit different for the unity ceremony. The thought of having a unity candle without my dad felt very sad. While I wanted to incorporate our families, I wanted to find a way to make it a more uplifting moment.
We came up with the idea of having our family members and bridal party write us prayers and wishes for our marriage which were attached to the balloons. My adorable 3 year old niece brought them down the aisle to “Across the Universe” on the ukulele and we released them tied together to symbolize our families coming together through us. We will actually read those wishes for the first time on our 1 year anniversary.
Décor and Details
I cannot stress how amazing the team at Cedarwood is! I came in with a few ideas and they really brought them to life in a way I couldn’t have imagined. I had to have the umbrellas, feathers, string lights, and an old world cirque kind of feel. Cedarwood was able to balance my ideas with the most amazing floral arrangements, French stamped burlap runners, mercury and amber glass vases, and even a chandelier in our ceremony alter. We added grey and white paper bags, straws, and our J symbol from our invitation to carry out the theme of our paper.
My most time consuming DIY project was the table escort cards that were personalized admit one tickets. I loved how they turned out and they were amazing hanging in the barn!
The Refreshments
Jerrod and his friends from college (most of the groomsmen) used to homebrew beer pretty often together. Being such a beer connoisseur it was important we had something he’d like! One of our friends who is also a home brewer offered to make a couple of Jerrod’s favorite beers as our wedding gift. They were awesome!
Our food was southern gourmet I guess you’d say. One of our favorite restaurants catered a pecan crusted chicken entrée, with green beans, jalapeno cheese grits, and a beautiful strawberry salad as sides. During cocktail hour they also served sausage balls and mango goat cheese crostini’s as passed hor dourves in the barn. I am still getting compliments on the food.
We also had one of our favorite local treats as favors to our guests. Moosehead Kettle Corn proved Dill Pickle, Cheddar Cheese, Cajun Spice, and our favorite, Apple Pie kettle corn which we buy every Saturday at the Farmer’s Market.
Funnel Wedding Cake
Neither Jerrod nor I are big cake eaters. We agreed early on that we would have cake only to appease our guests, but if it were up to us we’d have funnel cakes instead. We both searched for months to find a funnel cake vendor with absolute zero luck. I was even trying to track them down through the local fairs or events that would have those types of vendors.
A good family friend who lives an hour away called and said the local high school band supporters make funnel cakes as a fundraiser and they would travel to Nashville for our wedding.
The Wedding Music
I loved dancing to ‘Rocky Top' in the barn played by The Bluegrass Trio. A dream for any University of Tennessee fan!
A very good friend has an awesome DJ business and he offered his DJ and lighting services for our reception. I would have never dreamed how much of an impact it would make on the enjoyment of the evening, but having him MC the event meant I never had to think about people enjoying themselves. In fact I didn’t have to worry about a thing other than other than how long can I stay on the dance floor before it might be rude to my guests.
Oh and of course we also had to give out glow necklaces. No fun shindig is without something that glows!
First Dance: That’s How Strong My Love Is, Otis Redding
Photography & Videography
Our videographer was a friend and he’s not actually a “wedding” videographer, but is also one of those amazingly talented people we know. I didn’t really want a typical wedding video, but I did want some live action pieces of the day set to some cool tunes. He well exceeded my expectations with some beautiful images of the day and super cool slow motion footage from the dance floor.
The photographer was a much more intense decision. I probably took more care with this choice then I did with anything else. I was instantly in love with Teale’s pictures. The natural style and soft color was exactly what I was looking for. She and her husband also turned out to be awesome which was a definite bonus!
Advice For Other Couples
Everyone tells you “enjoy it because it flies by”. That’s true and it does. But for me what I learned was that I was envisioning an unrealistic view of perfection that was actually keeping me from enjoying it. You spend so much time agonizing over every decision and you plug each detail into the “what the day will look like” picture in your head. Circumstances beyond your control make perfection next to impossible and you just have to be able to let it go.
Stand by the decisions you want while planning, but try to take the agony out of them. Then once you get to the day of your wedding delete the image in your head of what should be and just enjoy what is. No matter what decisions you made, or what unforeseen changes happened, nothing (even rain) will keep this from being the best day of your life!
Congratulations Jerrod and Jessica!
Thanks for sharing your wedding with us and thanks also to Teale Photography for these gorgeous photos.
Teale Photography are coming to the UK soon and are excited to offer UK couples a special discounted rate on their beautiful work. So if you like what you see be sure to get in touch via their website!
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