Well, hello my sweets! I have a delightful wedding to share with you today submitted by Amanda Jayne Photography. Super cute couple, Allison & Keith, celebrated their day at The Hilliard Mansion in sunny Hilliard, Florida. I just love the bride and grooms style and the fun atmosphere they created for their guests.
From the Photographer: This outdoors relaxed southern wedding was a blast. Held in a small town called Hilliard Florida it stayed true to its roots. They had everything from a polaroid frame to take pictures with to a corn hole. The guest ate, drank, played, danced.. They just had a wonderful time. This was the most relaxed down to earth wedding I have ever photographed. Isn’t that what it should be all about? Having a wonderful time, not stressing about the small stuff, and being able to look back and say that was the best day of my life. I think my favorite picture in this album is the bride and groom leaning against the door talking to each other before the ceremony. They were so cute!
From the Bride, Allison:
How did you meet?
Keith and I met on the Naval Air Station Jacksonville on October 2nd, 2010. There was a battle of the bands being hosted by the Navy Band Southeast, in which I play the euphonium and trombone. Keith played guitar and sang in a Punk/SKA band called Konomi Code. After they played, I went up to the band and asked if they needed a trombone player. Keith said, “There’s practice Friday and a gig Monday. Welcome to Konomi Code.” We hung out for the rest of the night and started dating 2 days later. Music brought us together and it’s a very big part of our lives today.
What was your Wedding Planning, Inspiration and Style
We wanted to have a very laid back and fun wedding that really represented us. We had no idea what style of wedding we were even going for until we booked our ceremony and reception venue. The Hilliard Mansion gave us a lot of inspiration! Charming, outdoors, southern chic. I knew I wanted baby’s breath flowers, mason jars and burlap fabric incorporated somehow. In one of our engagement pictures with Amanda Jayne Photography, we sat in front of this yellow house with a teal/tiffany blue door. I instantly knew yellow and tiffany blue were our wedding colors!
What was your Favorite memory of the day?
It’s actually quite ironic. With Keith and I being musicians, the music was the very last thing we planned. Our buddy Shawn Lightfoot is a wonderful solo musician and we knew we wanted him to play for the reception. When the day of the wedding arrived, I had my hair, makeup, my dress on and it was about 30 minutes till the ceremony is supposed to start. Our wedding coordinator came running to me and asked what ceremony music I had planned. My stomach dropped. We had not planned our ceremony music! Luckily Shawn was close to arriving and he played the ceremony music. My favorite memory was having the wedding coordinator swing open the french doors to the stairs. And as I walked out to my wedding, Shawn was playing “Here comes the sun” by The Beatles on his acoustic guitar. He did not plan on playing that for my entrance, but it was the perfect song.
Do You have any advice for other brides?
Keith and I had a budget from the beginning. We wanted to pay for the wedding by ourselves. We tried to stick to $5,000 and ended up spending $6,000 with some help from our parents. It was really tough finding vendors at low prices! I looked at wedding after wedding where a lot of them were spending over $15,000 and some were even $30,000! It really discouraged me in trying to keep to our budget. My advice is to be flexible and have fun doing so! We got a discount on our venue for having the wedding in February, my dress was VERY affordable from David’s Bridal and we found our wonderful photographers on craigslist at a great rate! It was tough at times, but in the end, I had so much fun creating a day celebrating our love with family and friends!
