Bride Blogger Bailey

May 28, 2010: Wow, what a wonderful day! After working so hard for 9 months on everything wedding, I couldn't stop saying, "This is exactly how I imagined it!" My biggest fear about planning a wedding in a different state was how everything would come together. I had met with all of my wonderful vendors and communicated my vision but to see all of the vendors come together, doing their part, was truly amazing! Everything was perfect and exactly how I imagined it!

We held our wedding at the Lied Lodge in one of the apple barns and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was, hands-down, the best location we could have chosen. It fit perfectly with our theme!

I used Stacy, with Petal Creations, as my florist. I know I gave her a large task considering I didn't have specific flowers in mind, but I did know what colors and layout I wanted. I had told her that I did not want "perfect" bouquets but I wanted more than just the look of gathering flowers from grandma's garden. Stacy was able to completely achieve this with both my bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets. Since the wedding was outside and we had huge trees as the background, I wanted an altar that would not take away from the trees but give the ceremony a point of interest. Thanks to my construction management brother-in-law and the vision of Stacy, the florist, they were able to create one of the prettiest wedding altars I've ever seen! For the reception I wanted to use burlap as a table runner to tie in the rustic barn feel and mason jars for vases. Beyond that I gave Stacy free reign and she completely blew my expectations out of the water. Thank you, Stacy for bringing my vision to life and making the setting of the wedding truly beautiful!

Our DJ was Jeff with Prime Time Music and Entertainment. This was a very important detail to us because we wanted our guests to have a great time at the reception and in my words I wanted to "dance the night away". Needless to say we did more shopping around for a DJ than we did for any other vendor. We were referred to Jeff because we were told the he was more than a DJ - he takes the time to get to know his clients so that he can incorporate all the aspects of wedding and all of the people involved in the wedding. And wow, did he! Not only was the dance floor packed the entire time, but I had numerous guests comment on Jeff being one of the best DJs they had ever heard. Thanks Jeff for giving us a great party!

Cali, owner of A Sound Impression, was our videographer. She put together a highlight video from the wedding that was featured last week on the blog - if you haven't seen it yet, check it out! I must confess that I initially thought a videographer was just someone who taped the wedding and I wasn't sure if I needed this done. But if you watched the highlight clip it is clear that she did so much more than just "taping the wedding". Cali did such a phenomenal job capturing every aspect of the day. Cali and her team were there the entire day filming us getting ready, our first look at each other, the ceremony and the reception. Considering how fast the day went by, I am so thankful that I will be able to relieve every moment thanks to A Sound Impression!

Brighten Photography from Seattle did our photography. This was a easy pick for me since the talented Ben and Whitney just so happen to be my sister and brother-in-law. I feel blessed to be related to such talented people, besides the fact that it made us a lot more comfortable during pictures. We knew they were good, but once we saw our engagement pictures we were even more blown away. I can hardly wait to see all of the wedding pictures. I know we will once again be blown away! Thanks Ben and Whitney, I love you!

Linda Hudson, owner of Butterfly Bakery, was another vendor who came highly recommended. I knew exactly how I wanted the cake to look so it was just a matter of finding someone who could achieve the look while making the cake taste great! Linda did EXACTLY this! The cake looked and tasted amazing. In fact, when I returned home after the honeymoon there was still a bit of cake left and it was still tasting good 9 days later! Besides that, Linda provided exceptional costumer service. She was very prompt to get in touch or keep in contact. She even left her car running with the AC on to keep the cake from melting since it was such a hot day! Thanks Linda for delivering a great cake!

Since the reception was in a barn I knew we would have to do a bit of decorating to make things look classy and not too country. I had a very specific idea on how I wanted the lights hung and how they were to look. I didn't want the traditional christmas lights, or twinkle lights, but the large round bulb lights. Luckily, I found Country Elegance to help out with this. They did a great job with the lights and were able to pull my entire vision together with this look!

My husband, Evan, designed our wedding invites and we had them printed through Porridge Papers. We had the invites letter-pressed, which added a nice touch. Porridge Papers was great to work with and did an excellent job on the printing!

So that is my final wrap up and let me say for the last time, WOW! Thank you everyone for making our wedding out-of-this-world fantastic. It was truly a dream come true wedding!