Jacksonville Golf & Country Club Wedding

Katie and Aaron’s wedding was very unique. Don’t get me wrong, every wedding is completely different, but normally the bride (and/or the groom) come in to book me and see my work. But not in this case.

Katie’s mom had been referred to me by another bride of mine (previous blog) for the year. And since Katie & Aaron live in W. Virginia and were having the wedding here, Katie had her mom and her sister, Gretchen, come and pick out everything–down to the cake flavors!

I think the dress was one of the few items Katie did pick out herself and it was GORGEOUS. She got it from Love, A Bridal Boutique out at the beach. Locally owned and operated, they have some gorgeous stuff.

After the dress was finally on and they were getting ready to head down the aisle, I caught this above shot of mom, Katie and Gretchen. So sweet.

One of the most unique aspects of the wedding was this quilt, made by the groom’s grandmother. Made from 1,200 pieces, she also handmade the country’s bicentennial quilt that traveled the US and abroad and I believe may still be at the Smithsonian.

Here is the plaque that was with it. Everyone who attended was encouraged to sign it. Hopefully you can read it ok.

Katie had a couple of laughing/funny expressions during the ceremony. I’m pretty sure this is probably right about the “obey” part. You can see the groom is laughing too.

And you know how I feel about a crying groom–love it!

They did a prayer circle around the bride and groom during the ceremony with some of the relatives. I had never seen that before.

I see many candle lighting and sand ceremonies, but never have I seen a couple build a cross together. The cross was in pieces and they each put a piece together alone and finished it together, while the pastor spoke about the parts of the cross and what they were doing.

This was a really nice touch and aspect, I think, for a religious couple. I think Katie said she found the idea online somewhere.

They got married in the middle of the day and the sun was beating down so we looked for some shade for their family photos, and a porch at the Jacksonville Gold & Country Club worked out beautifully.

And Katie with her mom:

Their cakes were by Metro Custom Cakes–yummy!

They had a gorgeous simple cake for their cake with an intricate design embellished on it. And then for the groom’s cake, he works in a coal mine and loves basketball so Metro combined the two for their cake.

This is a shot of the couple coming in and seeing their cake. I think it was the groom’s first look. I know everyone was in awe.

They had a very laid back reception with no dancing or anything like that.

This was Katie’s something borrowed and something blue. Her mother got it from an auction. It’s GORGEOUS. And it looks just like Princess Diana’s engagement ring.

When I met with Judy & Gretchen about Katie’s wedding, they told me all these details they had planned for the wedding including “I do” on the shoes. Katie didn’t really know about ANY of it. On the wedding day I came in and noticed that the shoes didn’t have the writing on them and they said they had run out of time. I noticed “I DO” written on a box with this type of sticky tape almost and mentioned to Katie that maybe we could pull it from there and use it on the shoes. She quickly went to work and it worked out awesomely!