I’m so excited to share the wedding of our clients, Jolene and Eric, with you today. And, lucky for us, Jolene is here to tell us all about it!

“Eric and I met in the very first class of our very first day of college. We both went to VCU to study Photography and Filmmaking. I noticed him right away because he spoke up a lot in class and spoke very intelligently. Also, he was very cute and tan. He spent most of his summers in high school as a life guard. We became friends and spent a lot of time together watching movies and staying up late working on school projects. By the second semester we were dating.”

“I wanted to keep the feeling of our wedding simple, summery and gardeny to match the location, but still elegant to match the affair. The ceremony site, a rose garden pavilion at a botanical garden, was so gorgeous that I didn’t really need to decorate at all, a huge plus. The reception site, the visitor’s center of the botanical garden, already had a strong theme and color scheme which was a bit of a challenge. I had to try to compliment the space rather than compete with it. I choose a color scheme of mainly fuchsia, dark orange, light pink and sage green with some reds and whites thrown in. Very warm and summery!”

editor’s note: Jolene’s bouquet, made by Flower Girls, was not only absolutely stunning, but the herbs Joie and Kristi mixed in made it smell divine.

“We wanted to incorporate some sort of ritual into our ceremony similar to the traditional unity candle, but a little more unique. We decided to have a rock ceremony. Each of our guests found a small polished river rock on their seat. During the ceremony, our officiant (my uncle) explained that the stones represented each guest’s unique individuality and their presence at our wedding. He then asked that everyone take a moment to make a wish or blessing for happiness and goodwill for our marriage. The stones were then collected in burlap sacks by our ushers and then poured into a vessel. Eric and I added our own jade stones thereby symbolically joining our friends, family and two separate lives into one. Now, we have a beautiful reminder of our wedding day and everyone there on our mantle.”

“We were able to add a lot of personal detail to our wedding without spending a lot of money. My parents were a huge help. My mom would scour discount stores for items like beautiful polish glass vases, a bird cage to hold cards from our guests, a simple plant stand to hold our rock ceremony vessel, and a poster frame and easel for our seating chart. Then my dad would paint the items to match the color scheme of the wedding. My dad also made our wedding and grooms cake stands with some plywood, spray paint and dresser knobs for feet.”

“Since Eric and I have a background in the arts so we decided to save some money by making a lot of the printed material ourselves. We bought some fancy paper from a local scrap booking store and using our home computer and printer, designed and printed everything from our table numbers to our programs to the gift tags on our favor bags. It was fun and easy and something we could together.”

“We had a lot of kids attending the wedding so we decided to make them little goodie bags to keep them occupied. We included little Dover activity books like paper dolls, suckers in the shape of bees from Wythe Candy in Williamsburg and travel size Doodle Pro drawing pads.”

“Our favors were koulourakia, a traditional Greek cookie, handmade from an old recipe from Eric’s YaYa.”

“We also put together a ‘Commitment Capsule.’ My great-uncle handmade a beautiful box made from recycled wood from various home projects. Inside the box, we put a bottle of wine and letters that we wrote to each other. We plan to open the box on our 25th anniversary and read the letters over the aged wine.”

Even the beer was in the mood! “The Love” beer by Star Hill breweries.

Jolene and Eric left to the sounds of noisemakers and horns. It was a good time. Loud and rowdy just like any good exit should be!

Thank you so much Jolene and Eric for sharing your wedding with us! And a big thank you to Worthington Photography for sending all of these gorgeous pictures!

{photography by Worthington Photography; flowers by Flower Girls; planning/coordination by Merriment Events; cakes by A Cake to Remember; Venue – Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Rose Garden and Visitor Center}