Wedding Wednesday : Wedding Q + A With Lauren

Happy Wedding Wednesday friends! I hope this week brings you well! Today I have Lauren stopping by from Genuinely Lauren  to share her Wedding with you! 

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When did you get married ( Month, date, year)

March 14th, 2014

How did you meet?

We met at a 3-day country music festival in Arkansas on the very first night. Which is pretty funny because I'm from Illinois and Blake is from Missouri! Our engagement story is really something, too. I'll give you the shortened/cliff notes version, but here are the full details (http://genuinelylauren.blogspot.com/2013/11/surprise-im-engaged.html) for another read. We were in a long distance relationship and Blake was visiting me for a week before he went off to boot camp. I was going out to dinner at Chipotle with one of my friends where my roommate from the previous year, who also graduated and no longer lived on campus, showed up! Obviously I was surprised to see her and she pulled out a letter saying that I was about to go on a scavenger hunt that was going to change my life. So, we traveled around campus where at each set location was another one of my friends with another letter. The scavenger hunt ended at my sorority house where Blake proposed infront of all of my close friends and my sorority sisters that we're studying in the kitchen, haha. He definitely hit the ball out of the park on the whole process!

What was the one thing you were most passionate about?

I think the thing I was most passionate about was all of the decor. I'm very DIY and wanted to give all of my own personal touches to every inch of the ceremony. From the koozies, chalkboard program, our Mr & Mrs sign, the vases for the tables. That might've been the most fun of all the wedding planning!

What color bridesmaid dresses did you have?

I originally wanted to have a Tiffany blue for the dresses but since it was a little difficult to find that color in March and there we're different shades of it. So I went with navy blue since it was easier to find one singular color and I wanted all of the bridesmaids to choose their own dress.

How long did it take you to find your wedding dress?

It was actually the fourth dress I tried on! I found it at David's Bridal. I did research before I went and it was one of the dresses I picked out to try on but told the girl I was working with about it right before she wanted to go in a different direction of the other dresses I already tried on. What luck! I knew it was the one because I didn't want to take it off and had the biggest smile on my face :) 

Spill some deets that went on. We wanna hear drama:

Okay this one was my bad. I screwed up on not really asking two of my bridesmaids to be my bridesmaids. I talked to them about bridesmaids dresses before I even said I wanted them in the wedding. So I was a little insensitive on that end. And of course the day of the wedding our flowers weren't ready on time which more so stressed my mother out than it stressed me out. What's funny is that the same thing happened on my sister's wedding day two years before!

What was your color scheme, and what made you choose it?

Navy Blue and Tan. I really wanted to have a rustic feel. I originally wanted to do Tiffany Blue but Navy was more in season and matched well with Blake's Air Force dress uniform.

Did you do any DIY projects?

YES! Probably every inch of my wedding was DIY. Like I said, it was probably my favorite part of the whole wedding planning process and the wedding in general.

If you don't mind sharing what your budget was, and if you stayed on track or went over budget? 

Since we planned our wedding was in 6 weeks, due to Blake having to report to his duty station, I guess we didn't really have much of a budget. I was very grateful for my parents to contribute a lot to the wedding so I have no idea what the total of the whole thing was. I think it ended up being around $8,000-10,000. But I know the portion that Blake and I paid for (hotels for guests, vests for groomsmen, gifts for bridal party, decor, my accessories) was $3,000 and that was our own budget and stuck to!

What was your favorite thing about your wedding day?

All day! It started with breakfast with my family, got my "Bride Starbucks", mimosas and hair at my house, and of course got stuck in traffic on the way to the ceremony. But it was all absolutely perfect!

What was the most stressful thing about your wedding day?

My makeup took a little longer than I would've liked which made me stress about getting to the space on time and having enough time for pictures. Just the whole picture taking process stressed me out because there we're so many I wanted to do and the weather wasn't exactly accommodating for being outdoors.

If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?

I might have waited a month or so to do the wedding. Or to have our ceremony down here in Florida because it's absolutely dreamy. I really wanted to do an outdoor ceremony but March isn't exactly ideal timing a wedding in the North. But it still turned out to be everything I imagined even planning it in 6 weeks.

What's your best piece of advice for future brides out there?

My best piece of advice is to slow down. And I don't mean that in elongating the planning process or anything. I mean it in not rushing through the whole day. Take a minute, take a breath, and take the whole day in. It goes by way to fast and even my friends we're telling me to relax and not stress out about the little things. Because in the end, all you're going to remember is marrying your best friend and being with your friends and family. I was so blessed to have the support of everyone and come together in the short planning period we had and to make my dream wedding becoming a reality.

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Thanks so much Lauren! Your wedding was magical! I love the DIY projects and I think the color Navy ended up working really well! 
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Are you interested in showcasing your wedding on my series?  Email me for more information. Also, if you are interested in being a part of the Wedding Bloggers Connect database make sure to stop by and sign up!

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