Rhian and Kyle had a perfectly glorious day for a wedding- after all the rain this spring, it was so wonderful to see the sun! Rhian is so amazingly beautiful both inside and out! And to watch Kyle with her, well you can tell he is beyond smitten with her!

Ceremony Venue  The Renaissance Hotel          Reception Venue  The Renaissance Hotel

Gown White Vera Wang             Design Parker Events

Cake designer Cakes by Angie           Makeup Amanda Hopcraft

Entertainment D’land Entertainment

Ok so we met through my brother, he and my brother were best friends and I was up from south Florida visiting my family in Jacksonville.He was home from FSU for the summer and we all decided to go out for drinks and something sparked a little different that night. From that point on I found myself making every excuse to spend as much time in Jacksonville as I could : ) At the end of summer we took a cruise together before he moved back to Tally, and I think we both knew after that, this was definitely something different……

He proposed by surprising me with a cruise for my birthday. The cruise left out of the port of Miami so we drove down the night before. ( the whole story is a little lengthy but comical) I’ll give you the whole version but you can abbreviate it for the blog if you want : )
I had a suspicion that he was going to propose on the cruise but I ended up working late the day were were heading down to Miami so we didn’t end up getting there until after midnight, we finally pulled into the hotel and went to check in only for them to tell us we didn’t have a reservation there! we were exhausted and he was in a less than good mood at this point, actually he was in such a bad mood any proposal suspicions I had quickly dissipated! We drove around for like 45 minutes trying to find the actual hotel where we had a reservation, finally checking in after 1am, I was exhausted and he wanted to walk around the hotel! I reluctantly agreed……. The hotel was beautiful we were right on a Marina it was very private and romantic, he said to me I don’t want you coming on this cruise as my girlfriend, I turned around and he was on one knee!!! After many tears of joy and phone calls to our parents we ordered a pizza and popped a bottle of champagne in our room.

I was so excited to get right into the planning details I had a zillion of them in my mind! I immediately knew that glamorous had to be a huge part of whatever I went with!! I was also a big fan of the vintage look that is so popular right now, so I didn’t have a true “theme”, rather a feel I wanted every detail to reflect and glammed up vintage feel. more sparkle than lace but still classy and elegant. That is how I chose my color theme, I fell in love with the navy its so simple and timeless and very posh feeling. When I look back at my pictures in 20 years I still want them to look good! We were having a spring wedding so I splashed in shades of soft pinks and blush to soften the navy.

The best part of our wedding day…. Wow this is hard to pick one single part!!! I guess if I had to pick one it was the few minutes in the golf cart after the ceremony, we got to see each other and really take it all in for just a few minutes. Almost like a private little escape shared by just us! The whole day is such a whirlwind and we really got to cherish the moment!! The slideshow was a close second that was so fun to look back at all those old pictures!

I always want to remember from the wedding day how much fun it was to spend time with everyone, some of the people we hadn’t seen in years. It is a time when you are surrounded by everyone you love and everyone who loves you and that opportunity is so special and we are making a commitment to remember how important those relationships are to us and not let years go by. The flowers and the cake are important details but that isn’t what makes the day, its your family an friends!

If only I knew is actually advice my mom gave me the week before the wedding. The Saturday night before the wedding she called me late at night and she said, “next week at this time it will all be a memory” and I thought and said that’s a sad thought. She said I just want you to know how fast its all going to happen and no matter what happens this week and in the hours leading up to the wedding just enjoy the ride. Take it all in, enjoy all of it, don’t let little things upset you or stress you. I was the best thing anyone told me and I truly took it to heart. I tried to take in every moment and I was able to roll with the punches and I made the whole weekend so much more enjoyable! I can honestly say I enjoyed the whole weekend and let nothing upset me. You can’t ever get those moments and memories back enjoy every single one!

We went to Aruba it was AMAZING and perfect! Everyone was so friendly and the beaches are breathtaking. I would say our first week as husband and wife is a pretty awesome way to start the rest of our lives!!!