The Wedding Guide: Essential Wedding Tips & Tricks for a Successful Event

Holy Guacamole! I’ve finally had time to compile The Wedding Guide! This includes a complete list of all the vendors we used as well as my tips & tricks for a successful event. You even get to see their wedding video. Get ready for an overload of beautiful pictures!

You might remember that I planned our daughter’s wedding. Every single detail. I did hand it off the last week to a wonderful planner to implement and run the event. After all, I had another duty – Mother of the Bride. I am grateful that Taylor and Jeff are letting me share this process with you. After all, it was their wedding, not mine. So I will keep all details to planning and selection. Their love story is not mine to share so I hope you will understand that this blog post is not personal.

All vendors selected are detailed at the bottom of this post so be sure to earmark this one so that you can use it as a reference guide when you need it. A couple of things to note: Taylor and Jeff got engaged in August 2017 and married in May 2018. I had a solid nine months to plan this wedding which was plenty of time. They are also high school sweethearts and had been dating 7 years by the time they got engaged. All to say, we were not shocked when Jeff asked for her hand. We spent a little time thinking about a destination wedding in the Texas Hill Country (Camp Waldemar) because this is such a special place for Taylor. After much thought, they decided on a traditional Dallas wedding with the ceremony at a church and reception at the country club. To get the Texas Hill Country component in, we shot their engagement pictures at Camp Waldemar.

And yes, it was on May 19, 2018 which was the date of a small wedding across the pond. How funny that the other Kappa Kappa Gamma chose this date as well. We laughed and embraced it by simply saying ours was the “Dallas Royal Wedding”. Taylor had a Bridesmaid sleepover at our house after the rehearsal dinner and all the girls watched the royal wedding when they woke up.

Lastly, a HUGE thank you to Pete, Laura and Gerald James, the wedding party and all the wonderful wedding guests, family and friends who joined us to witness this special union. I loved working with all of the vendors that I selected and highly recommend them. Be sure to check out my vendor list at the bottom of this blog post. Hint: Start your entire wedding planning journey by visiting Junior at The Garden Gate FIRST. He is a wealth of information and so helpful with the entire process!

I hope you find this Wedding Guide helpful. As always, feel free to leave a comment or ask any questions.

Enjoy!  xoxo- Tanya

P.S. You will make a budget and you will go over your budget. I don’t regret a cent that we spent. It was all well worth it and we would do it all again!

The Wedding Guide

Engagement ring and wedding bands custom created by J Pratt Designs. Click here to see details on the process.

Save the Dates and Wedding Invitations – Bell’Invito.   Click here to see how we created the wedding invitations. Details about the Save The Dates can be found here.

Getting ready together. All robes are from Soma. See this blog post about bridesmaids gifts.

Taylor’s wedding dress and veil – custom designed for her by Patti Flowers Design Studio. Blog post here with all details about how and why we used her.  Patti is hands on during the dressing process and you will see that in the wedding video. Plus, be sure to notice how well that dress moves during the wedding ceremony and reception.

Mother of the Bride dress custom designed by Patti Flowers Design Studio. Click her for the blog post about the process.

The moment the bridesmaids and house party first saw Taylor in her wedding dress. Watch this moment on the video too. Priceless! All dresses by Watters. Details here on how we made our selection.  Watters also created Taylor’s rehearsal dress. Click here to see the design.

OMG! Have you ever seen anything cuter? The boys ring bearer outfits can be ordered here. The flower girl dress can be found here.

When the workouts pay off. Details here on how I trained to get ready for the wedding in a short two months! 

All tuxedos from Culwell & Son. We opted for white pocket squares instead of boutonnieres. It’s a much cleaner look and doesn’t look like you are going to prom.

Taylor and Jeff DID NOT see each other before she walked down the aisle. All of their pictures together were taken immediately after they walked out of the church. Be sure to watch Jeff’s face when he first sees her walk down the aisle in the wedding video below. Such a special moment!

Transportation for the entire wedding party – Wynne Transportation

Junior at The Garden Gate created this beautiful hydrangea wall where guests would pick up their escort card. The reception was a seated dinner with dancing, photo booth and a lively after party. Calligraphy by Lana Prather.

Floral design – Junior at The Garden Gate. All rentals from Lawson Event Rental. Click here for how to incorporate rentals into your reception plan. 

We used this custom photo book as the guest registry. Click here for details. Taylor and Jeff love looking at the personal messages the guests left for them. It makes such a special keepsake.

Wedding cake and Grooms Cake – Dallas Affaires. Between both cakes, we offered three flavors the the guests.

Dance floor with custom monogram – DFW Dance Floors. Band for the reception – The Project. They were AMAZING and kept everyone on the dance floor the entire evening. Click here to see how we made this decision. We used Absolute Entertainment to book the band.

We opted for a full bar and had specialty drinks too honoring “HP” Highland Park High School and “BU” Baylor University.

Lighting design adds to your party. Absolute Entertainment is who did our reception lighting and they included subtle lighting during dinner and amped it up for the dancing and after party!

Late night food is a must for this party crowd. We had Shake Shack burgers served on trays and the waiters passed them around the dance floor. I’m pretty sure they were devoured in five minutes!

The BEST photo booth is MirMir. This is the first vendor I booked as soon as we secured our date, ceremony and reception locations. Their pictures print onsite as well as download via text. Your guests are going to share their pictures and these are AMAZING! Plus you will get a link to all the pictures from the evening. Reviewing them is hilarious!

Light up crowns, tambourines and cheer sticks all came out to the dance floor to add to the fun. These were ordered from Flashing Blinky Lights. We also had white flip flops in baskets around the dance floor for those ladies who were ready to ditch their high heels. You can get white flip flops here.

As guests departed, they could take some custom make cookies home with them. Custom cookies by Cookie Whipped.

photo: Caroline Jurgensen

Wedding Video

video: Summer Films

Wedding Resource Guide

Ceremony site: Park Cities Baptist Church

Reception site: Dallas Country Club

Bridal Gown designer: Patti Flowers Design Studio

Hair: Jessica Tigert / Make-up: Courtney Yarborough

Bridesmaids and House Party dresses: Watters

Groom and Groomsmen Attire: Culwell & Son

Photographer: Caroline Jurgensen

Videographer: Summer Films

Stationery, Invitations and Save The Dates: Bell’Invito

Calligraphy: Lana Prather

Floral: Junior at The Garden Gate

Wedding Cake and Groom’s Cake: Dallas Affaires

Caterer: Dallas Country Club

Band: The Project / Booked through Absolute Entertainment

Lighting: Absolute Lighting

Transportation: Wynne Transportation

Rentals: Lawson Event Rentals

Dance Floor with custom monogram: DFW Dance Floors

Photo Booth: MirMir

Late Night Food: Shake Shack

Light Up party supplies: Flashing Blinky Lights

Custom Cookies: Cookie Whipped

Wedding planner: Tanya Foster / Natasha Walton-Diaz

Hashtag: #jamesbound