Pleasantries from a Mother of the Bride

What a joy to receive this in the mail today! It definitely is what makes me love what I do!

"Shannon saved our family! With the overwhelming task of planning our first daughter's wedding in six months. I knew we needed help. After meeting and talking with 2 other wedding planners, and feeling very discouraged, we met with Shannon. What a breath of fresh air!! We left that meeting feeling happy, relieved, and looking forward to the whole process.

Two things in particular about Shannon I really appreciate. Okay, three. Number one: she dresses, speaks, and acts like a professional. Her calm demeanor "unruffled" many feathers between my daughter and me. But don't let that fool you: when pushes come to shove say, with an uncooperative church rep, who was being very rude, Shannon was right there with mama bear instincts for her bride. Number two: She has great design and color sense: If we were stuck wondering which way to go on the reception tables, or the flower budget questions, she had really good ideas and suggestions. She was full of creative ideas, and shared them with us liberally. Number three: She and her assistants made the wedding day a relaxed and happy one for mother and bride! If there were any catastrophes, we didn't hear about them! We can look back to that day and still feel the "we're in good hands" aura that Shannon has. Thank you, Shannon, from the bottom of our hearts."

I definitely had a great team of vendors that helped to make this wedding day a true memory for the bride and her mother. You can check out who they were here.

Real Wedding: Corina and Nick

I began working with Corina and her mother in June for her October 9, 2010 wedding. Corina is one of the most prepared brides I have ever worked with and made sure every detail was covered perfectly! I think there were obvious challenges with having a reception in a park, in October, but we were fortunate to have beautiful weather, no rain, and great vendors!


Corina's fall colors consisted of ivory, red, and persimmon.

Red lanterns suspended from the tents and were lit at dusk to provide more intimate lighting for the guests.


I was honestly surprised that we accommodated 240 guests under 5 dinning tents, but it worked out beautifully! We utilized the Gazebo for the photo booth and scrapbooking table.

We utilized the Gazebo by placing the photo booth and scrapbooking table underneath.

Just some of the props available to guests.

The new take on the guest book: If you are having a photo booth at your reception, definitely make sure guests can take home a memento, but leave one for you too!

We knew we would be fighting off mother nature with a butter cream cake so we suspended netting from the frame of the tent to help us combat pesky insects.

The bride's father built a custom dance floor and platform for the 22 person head table. The head table was covered in ivory linens and topped with a pin tuck persimmon linen to compliment the color scheme. The head table each had a place setting with a gold charger and water/champagne goblets.

The bride chose to assign guests a seat. Guests were directed to their chairs and greeted with red or bronze chargers topped with the catering menu.

*Note* I was taking these pictures before everything was finalized. The knives and forks are not in their proper location! We also had to place the champagne flutes inside of the water goblets due to the gusts of wind!

There were four round tables that displayed large floral centerpieces (not shown). The four round tables were adjourned by 4 long tables to seat guests.

Square bamboo vases were filled with red carnations and an autumn candle was tucked inside for a beautiful scent and ambiance at dusk.

Tables were clearly marked by large balloons with the table numbers threaded through.

The escort card table was draped in an ivory stripe linen and topped with a red organza overlay. Trays filled with coffee beans drew guests in to find their name and assigned seat.

The cakes! Oh, the smell! The bride's cake was four tiers with french vanilla and spice cake in a butter cream frosting. It was topped with the bride and groom's initials and red Hypericum berries and "flame" Calla Lillie's by Siloam Flowers.

Miles Witt Boyer will have much better photographs than me, but the groom's cake was

traditional chocolate on chocolate and was topped with a Razorback snow globe and running razorbacks lined the bottom tier.

A big thank you to all of the vendors who helped make sure this event was a success!

Eventures, Antoinette's Cakes and Catering, Dancenhance, Miles Witt Boyer, Siloam Flowers. Market Place Grill Catering, and ASAP Rent A Tent.

Real Wedding: Casey White and John Shaw

John and Casey were married on an extremely hot (96 degrees) and humid (almost 90%), but beautiful summer day!

They were married at Old Main Lawn at the University of Arkansas with a 7:00pm ceremony.

The morning started off with Festivities delivering and arranging 275 white wooden chairs.





Jules Design built this beautiful wedding arch that included yellow Gerber daisies, white Lillies, and green hanging Amaranthus. Julie almost fainted when I asked she and her assistant to move the arch to "center the aisle", but it ended up beautiful!


Shepherd hooks lined the aisle and were adorned with raffia wrapped mason jars filled with white and yellow Gerber daisies.



We created a wide aisle to accommodate their l6 person wedding party as they walked from Inn at Carnall Hall to the ceremony.


John and Casey provided hundreds of labeled water bottles in large galvanized buckets on stands, also adorned with raffia bows, to help their guests enjoy the ceremony.


The bride's mother created and made each ceremony program that also doubled as a fan and shielded the sun.
The reception took place at Pratt Place Barn in Fayetteville. Wreaths of yellow Gerber daisies and green buttom mums hung from the double doors.




The color palette of yellow, moss, and white echoed on the lanterns suspended across the pulley system.

Their signature drink was served in raffia wrapped mason jars; so precious and refreshing!

The centerpieces alternated heights of metal lanterns and vases filled with gerber daisies.

Metal spheres contained a yellow floating candle and white hydrangeas at the bottom.

All a glow!

Shelby Lynn's Cake Shoppe in Springdale created this beautiful cake, which was accented with raffia.

Every groom in Arkansas has to have a Razorback themed groom's cake!

Boom Kinetic also help the party get going and stay going and Catering Unlimited fed the masses with food stations that included a taco fajita bar especially for the bride!

I'm anxiously awaiting the wonderful details captured by Beaty Photography and their photo booth!!