Hi! I'm Taryn, a writer, designer and soon-to-be-bride from Atlanta, Georgia. Sit a spell with me and catch up as I plan the wedding of my beer-loving, confetti-throwing dreams to the wonderful Mr. Williford.On Videography
We’re not hiring a videographer for our wedding. I know. Please hold your gasps.
I’ve heard all of the advice. I’ve heard regrets from brides who didn’t have one. I’ve seen the relief first-hand of a friend watching her wedding video after her father convinced her—at the very last minute—that recording their wedding ceremony is something they could not pass up on. I totally get it.
With a bigger budget, I wouldn’t hesitate to hire an amazing videographer to capture the day. The things modern vendors are doing to the humble wedding video—it’s just amazing. I remember watching Mrs. Lioness’ wedding trailer from Three Ring Media in complete awe (they’re number one on my “if we had the money” vendor list). It’s so full of emotion, and must be such a treasure for them to have. A great videographer is worth their weight (plus the weight of all their crazy heavy movie making gear) in gold. I totally get it.
Coastal Video
Or maybe I don’t. Because, you know, we’re not having somebody record our wedding. At least not on video. We’ll have plenty of photos. Beautiful photos, thanks to my insistence on spending every possible penny on somebody to capture our day on film (er—memory card, but you get the idea). If the dollar amount on the “capturing memories” line of our budget was doubled, I wouldn’t hesitate to book an amazing video team. But I don’t want to scrape together a few hundred dollars for a mediocre videographer “just to have it,” as a few people have suggested.
Then again, maybe my priorities are out of whack. We did find room to hire a photo booth, which wasn’t originally in the wedding plan. Could have put that cash towards a videographer instead? Definitely. But every decision we’ve made for this wedding has had our guests in mind, first and foremost. Specifically, we want this bash to be a good time. Having all our friends and family together and laughing and taking silly pictures in the photo booth is going to be such a wonderful memory for them. For us. If past weddings are any indication, our circle of friends will have photo strips tacked to their refrigerators for years to come. You know what our guests won’t ever see? Our wedding video.
Robot Booth
Frankly, I don’t think we’d ever watch a wedding video either. Maybe once, when we first got it. And I would probably burst with joy. Then a few short days later, it would be regulated to the back of our TV console to be covered in dust. Maybe we would dig it up again in 20 years, when our children are curious. Maybe. I’ve never seen my parents wedding video. In fact, I don’t even know if they have one. Nobody ever talks about it. But you know what they do talk about? The memories. The uncle who thinks he can dance. The cousin that had too many glasses of wine. And if they’d had one, I’m sure they’d have stories about the fun they had in the photo booth.
I don’t want anyone to try and convince me we need to film our wedding. I’ve had so many wonderful memories in life, and almost none of them were captured in photos. Even fewer made it to video. That doesn’t make them any less special or important. If we had the budget for an artistic wedding documentary, I would have written that check like yesterday. But we’ve made a decision not to hire a videographer just to have some video. For us, there’s more value investing in great fun with great friends.
I’d love to hear how you decided for or against a videographer… spill it!
Surviving the Wedding Weekend as an Introverted Bride
I shopped for my wedding dress all by myself. The woman at the salon was surprised, too.
“Nope, it’s just me. No moms or bridesmaids.”
I sometimes forget that there are people who always prefer to be surrounded by people. I’ve been an introvert my whole life. Not that I’m shy. I just enjoy spending time alone. I need to spend time alone. I love spending time with friends and family, too. More than anything, actually. But I can’t do it all the time.
Softpedia
Introverts like to compare their frame of mind to the idea of a cell phone. Time spent with friends and family is like streaming an entire season of Orange is the New Black in one sitting: Amazing, but leaves you with an empty battery. Getting time to yourself after spending time with others is a relief—like finding an empty outlet at the airport—and gives you some time to energize.
I love our people, but having them around all weekend for our wedding is sure to be exhausting for me. I’m anxious about all the attention. Saying our vows, having our first dance, greeting all our guests. Part of me is excited to be in the spotlight at those moments. But it’s this kind of disassociated excitement, the same I feel when I imagine myself as a pop singer or host of a talk show. I can imagine myself in it, but it’s some other version of myself. A me who is more confident and well-spoken than I am. That girl can handle having everyone’s eyes on her as she walks down the aisle. But this girl I am today just hopes she can get to the coffee machine without running into somebody.
Pleated Jeans
I have to reconcile the idea that I won’t be a different person just because I put on a white gown. So part of my wedding planning prep has been a regimen of reading up on introversion. I’ve been soaking up whatever stories I could find from introverted former brides online, trying to gain some perspective on how to handle it—not just the ceremony spotlight, but all the interactions with friends and vendors leading up to the wedding.
My Wedding Weekend Plan
I’ve decided that my first strategy definitely needs to be carving out alone time for myself, even and especially the night before and morning of the wedding. I need to set aside some brief “no contact” time to be alone, then protect my small respite with the ferocity of a tiger.
For the purpose of clarity, I should mention that time spent with my familiar and understanding fiance functions the same as solo time to my internal battery. Which brings me to strategy number two: Having Roo around as much and as often as possible. He knows me better than anyone and over the years he has developed an astute sense of when everything is becoming too much for me to handle. I’m looking forward to spending the night and part of the morning alone with him to face down the nearing wedding chaos together.
With time set aside (with or without Roo) to recharge, I think the hustle and bustle of the wedding weekend should be a breeze. But I’d love to hear stories from other introvert brides. I know everyone’s experience is different, but if you found some tip to deal with everyone wanting your attention or some phrase that instantly puts you in the right frame of mind, please share!
Operation Guest Greet
I’m excited for the dress. I’m excited for the beer. But what I’m most excited for are the people. Rooster and I are thrilled that we’ll have all our favorite people in one place, here in the city where we call home. Our 100 guests will be traveling from near and far to be with us, so we want to make sure we get good face time with everyone and make sure they know how thankful we are to have them celebrate with us.
Mrs. Sword’s receiving line.
There’s more than one way to greet your guests, each with their own degrees of formality and intimacy, but there’s no wrong way to do it. Here are the most common strategies we’ve considered for Operation Guest Greet.
Reception Table Visits
During dinner and the early parts of the reception, the freshly married couple makes their way around to their guests’ tables to say hello and thank them for coming. You might even leave a spot or two open at the table to sit down and enjoy a course with your guests. The biggest problems with this plan are missing out on dinner and feeling rushed to get to every table on a tight schedule. For us, it would never work since we’re having a cocktail-style reception without assigned seats. Status: Impossible
Formal Receiving Line
I would venture to say this is the traditional way of doing things, and feels right at home for big formal weddings: Upon exiting the ceremony or entering the reception, the couple line up with the wedding hosts (the moms, usually, but you can switch it up) and their attendants (at least the honor attendants) and greet each guest walking in or out. It’s a great way to make sure you see everyone, but has the potential to take a long time (upwards of 30 minutes, so make sure there are refreshments at the ready). Our ceremony and reception are in the same space, so I’m not sure how I’d work out the logistics of this one. Plus a receiving line feels a little too formal for our bash. If we included the parents and the wedding party, that would be 14 people of our 100-person wedding, and that seems a little ridiculous to me. Status: Nope. Not for us.
Popsugar
Like everything else, a formal receiving line looks better on Kate Middleton.
Informal Receiving Line
If we did a receiving line at all, it would look more like this description from Martha Stewart Weddings‘ post on greeting your guests:
“Some couples interpret the receiving line casually by saying hello as guests leave the ceremony, when they pass through the doors of the church or synagogue, or when they move from one room into another if the ceremony and reception are at the same location.”
I like the flexibility of deciding to have a casual receiving line. Put the bride and groom in one high-traffic spot around the event and say a quick hello to each guest as they pass by. I might say that Rooster and I post up on the patio while everybody’s getting dinner and let guests say hello on their way by. This could work for us. Status: Maybe.
Mingling
Deciding to mingle along with your guests allows you to be spontaneous. The bride and groom work the room just like any other guest, making their way around to say hello to friends and family. Couples with a big guest list, a structured reception timeline or who are skipping on cocktail hour to take photos might run out of time to visit with everyone. But I think this strategy will work great for us and our hundred; our entire reception is basically like a 4-hour cocktail hour, with breaks only for spotlight dances and toasts. Status: That’s a bingo!
Dinofa Photography
Deciding to mingle also leaves more time for stuffing your face.
Give a Toast
Thank everyone for coming in one fell swoop by giving a toast with your new spouse at the reception. It can be done at the same time at the honor attendant speeches, or all by itself earlier or later in the night. If you have a massive guest list, this might be the only way you can address most of your guests and still find time to, you know, enjoy your wedding. But no matter the size of your wedding, I love when a couple gives a toast to say thank you—especially when it comes later in the night after they’ve had a chance to relax and truly enjoy their guests’ company. Status: Let’s do it.
We’ll definitely do a bit of each from columns D and E: Mingling and giving a welcome toast. Knowing the weekend we have planned, our reception style and the close quarters of our intimate venue, I think we’ll get plenty of face time in with our guests spontaneously. Our cocktail reception encourages mingling, and by skipping on wedding events like the bouquet toss and cake cutting, we’ll have fewer interruptions to our night. We’re also having a welcome reception (Our “Meet and Greet”) the night before with all our guests invited, so that gives us two nights of mostly open time to visit with everyone.
I’m on the fence about having an informal receiving line. I suspect we’ll be able to chat with each of our 100 guests without setting up a specific time and place to do it, but I don’t want to miss out on saying hello to anyone. Plus posts by Mrs. Bracelet and Mrs. Sword (she has some awesome receiving line tips) are making me feel like it could be a really fun time!
I’d love to hear experiences from the hive from your own weddings or weddings you’ve been to. What’s a good way to greet your guests and make sure they feel welcomed and appreciated?
A Dessert Idea that Just ‘Pop’ped Up
Getting married at a brewery has its perks. The biggest plus so far has been being able to visit Monday Night Brewing with friends or vendors pretty much whenever we want. Rooster’s stepmom was in town for the holiday weekend, so we took her over on Saturday to see the brewery during their tasting session, where we spent a few hours sitting on the patio in the gorgeous weather chatting about our wedding plans over some cold brews. Saturdays at Monday Night usually have a festive atmosphere, with crowds of craft beer fans enjoying cold drinks, yummy street food (it’s a good day if the Doggy Dogg cart is there) and good conversation. And last Saturday, there were pops. The King of Pops.
King of Pops
If you’re not from Atlanta, let me catch you up. King of Pops is a popsicle cart that dishes out some seriously good pops. It started with three paleta-loving brothers and one tiny cart on the corner of North Highland and North Avenue, and in just a few short years King of Pops has become an Atlanta institution. They’re well known for their delicious flavors—Banana Puddin’ and Arnold Palmer are my favorites—and have now expanded with pop carts at events and on street corners all over the South (keep an eye out in Richmond, Charlotte, Charleston or Savannah) and mail-order pop deliveries to everywhere else.
Miss Banana Puddin’ pop in all her wafer-marbled glory.
I don’t know if it was the beer at the brewery Saturday or what, but as we sat down and went over wedding planning on the patio next to the King of Pops cart, Rooster and I both had the same idea: Why don’t we serve popsicles for dessert? King of Pops is a fun local treat, and since most of our guests are from out of town, it’s yet another way to show them how we have fun down in Atlanta. We’re already catering dinner the nontraditional way with a food truck on the patio, it could be fun to set up the popsicle cart right next to it and have amazing gourmet pops instead of a dessert bar (which was our first plan).
King of Pops at a wedding shot by Altmix Photography
We mused on the idea for a while, eventually coming up with several reasons why it’s the best idea ever, and a few concerns about whether it’s truly the best choice for our guests. Because we’ve had King of Pops before and know how great the pops are, we would both be stoked to see them served for dessert at a wedding. But we want to make sure our guests are just as excited as we are. Here are the pros, cons and non-concerns we came up with:
Pro-Wedding Pop
- It’s totally “Atlanta,” and we’re definitely trying to infuse a lot of local flair.
- It’s nontraditional, and that seems to be our thing. I would love people to walk away from the wedding and feel like it was unique and honest to who we are.
- The pops are so yummy, and everyone can find something they’d like. We’d definitely have to have Arnold Palmer, Banana Puddin’, Mango Mojito and Key Lime Pie flavors up for grabs.
- The flavors and the local source helps reinforce our Southern menu.
- Hiring a cart and attendant will be so much easier to pull off than organizing our own dessert bar, and probably be less expensive overall. I felt a weight come off my shoulders when we threw around the idea of serving King of Pops.
- Did I mention they’re crazy delicious? Oh I did? Moving on…
King of Pops shot by Altmix Photography
Add cute photos like this one to the ‘Pro’ column.
What Doesn’t Matter
- I really won’t miss having a cake or cake cutting.
- The King of Pops folks are professionals. These pops are served up from a cart by an attendant and are always totally frozen, so I’m not worried about any melty serving logistics.
- We won’t be assigning seats in our unstructured cocktail-style wedding reception, so it wouldn’t be out-of-place to have a cart where guests can walk up and get their dessert whenever they’re ready.
Cons and Concerns
- I asked a few strangers on a message board, and they think popsicles sound messy, especially for guests in semi-formal wear. Since I’ve had King of Pops a bunch before, I know they’re not messy at all, but I don’t want our guests passing on our only dessert because they’re worried about drips.
- It could be too cold for pops in October. I mean, I wouldn’t turn down a key lime pie popsicle when it’s 65-70 degrees outside, but others might. Popsicles definitely feel at home for a summer wedding, but will it work in the South in the fall?
- Is it filling and sweet enough? Because of the minimum order, we’d have enough to serve two pops per person, but it still might not be the kind of thing that satisfies a sweet tooth, especially if guests come expecting a big hulking wedding cake.
We don’t have room in the budget to do both popsicles and a more traditional dessert bar, so we’re really weighing our options here. What do you think? Would you be excited for popsicles at a wedding? Or would you be put off by the potential for messes or a chill in the air?
When Hens Cry
I don’t know if I’ll cry on our wedding day. We’re sure to have some emotional moments. Among them: Our first dance to a really meaningful song and Roo reading the vows he wrote. I’m sure I’ll be touched beyond words, but will I cry?
In general, I’m totally a crier. I cry when things are sad. I cry when I’m happy. I cry when I’m overly stressed at work, and sometimes, I cry when I’m having a fat day and feel like nothing fits. And now thanks to those ASPCA commercials, I cry at the sheer mention of Grammy-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan.
BCSPCA
When we talked pre-engagement about the hypothetical moment Rooster would pop the question, we both agreed that I would probably turn into a ball of tears. But I surprised both myself and Mr. Rooster when I stayed totally dry-eyed through his proposal at Walt Disney World. I just did this weird happy/surprised/pouty thing with my lips, like I couldn’t believe what was happening. But no tears. At all. Not even a glassy eye. Kind of like this kid, but nowhere near as cute.
Daily Cute
It took me 7 pages of Google Images to find an example that captured my proposal face so well.
While I don’t really know how I’ll react on our wedding day, I do know one person that will be crying for sure: Mom Hen. She’s known to effect waterworks at the drop of a hat. Roo and I had our engagement photos taken just before the holidays last year, so we gifted our parents framed photos of us at Christmas. Mom Hen was bawling, y’all. She flooded the Mississippi when we gave her a photo, I can’t even imagine how much she’s going to cry on our wedding day.
So I don’t know which Miss Hen will show up on our big day: The one who takes after her mom and cries for stray dogs, or the one who managed to keep it together while her fairy tale came true. But just in case I am a waterworks that day, I’m investing in industrial strength mascara. I don’t need Miss Hen to turn into Miss Raccoon-Eyes. Not all of us get to look as good as Beyonce when our makeup is running.
Hello Giggles
Did you cry on your wedding day? Any advice for staying dry-eyed? More importantly, what’s your favorite waterproof mascara?
