Ask A Bride Pt 1: Ashley's Memphis Wedding

Hello SASsy Friends, I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July holiday. When planning a wedding, everyone seems to have endless and usually unsolicited, advice for brides to be.  For brides, it can be quite overwhelming, but the best way to get advice is to ask others who've recently been down the aisle.

This week, you will meet two very different brides Ashley and Danielle.  Both ladies were recently married in two very different style weddings.  These ladies have survived the trip down the aisle and were excited to share their advice with The SASsy Report.

Our first bride is Ashley, who had a beautiful wedding in June of this year.

SASsy: Hi Ashley, could you please share with us your favorite part of wedding planning?

This question is rather difficult since I found wedding planning to be harder then I originally thought it would be.  My favorite part was probably creating my wedding board on Pintrest that allowed me to keep track of all the beautiful things I saw and ideas even though I wasn’t able to use them all.

SASsy: I believe you live in DC but your wedding was in Memphis.  Was the long distance planning difficult, if so how so?

    I am from DC originally but moved to Memphis a month before I got engaged.  I decided to plan my wedding in Memphis instead of DC for a few reasons 


 I thought the stress of wedding planning would be too much to do from a distance, and since I currently live in Memphis I wanted my friends and family to have the opportunity to see where I live now and what my new life is like.  


SASsy: What criteria did you use when selecting vendors?

    I got recommendations from people that I thought had good taste and I used vendors that were responsive.  I was extremely surprised by how so many people in the wedding industry were not responsive to phone calls, emails, and voicemails.  The vendors I used were were easy to get in touch with,  and more importantly, stay in touch with.



SASsy: What were the theme and colors of your wedding and how did you incorporate them throughout the wedding?

    I didn’t have colors in the traditional sense. My bridesmaids wore a grey/silver dress, my flowers were white and green, and we have silver/grey accents.  I wanted to keep things neutral and elegant without feeling like there was a particular “theme.”

SASsy: When shopping for your gown, was there a specific style you were looking for?


I actually designed my gown myself.  I knew what I wanted my wedding gown to look like but wasn’t sure if I would find it.  My earliest criteria were sweetheart neckline and mermaid silhouette.  On my first trip shopping I swooned over a Lazaro mermaid and a trumpet Pronovias. 


 On my second trip shopping, I drove to Atlanta from Memphis to go to several stores.  However, the drive took longer than I expected and I missed all of my appointments except for one.   My bridal consultant asked me what I wanted my dress to look like, and I pointed to three different parts of three different dresses.  


They said they could make the dress how I wanted it and voila. I had found my dream dress.  The final product was a sweetheart neckline, mermaid silhouette  with tulle extending beyond the dress, with a low v-back.  

SASsy: Was there one specific aspect of the wedding that was more important to you than others, if so what was it?

FUN!   At the end of the day, I wanted everyone to drink, laugh and dance all night.  We played a lot of contemporary music instead of just Motown and top 20 hits that you get at most weddings and people were on the dance floor with a drink in their hand the whole night.

SASsy: I heard you came up gave out BBQ rub as a wedding favor.  That’s one of the most creative favors I’ve heard of!   How did you come up with that idea?

Wedding favors are tricky because it’s not really an area you want to spend a lot of your budget on, but if you are going to spend any money on wedding favors, you want it to be something that your guests will actually keep and not just throw away.  


Memphis is known for its dry rub, I love to cook and my husband loves to eat BBQ.  I figured it would be a cute idea and something people could actually get some use out of.  I was able to get cute jars from Michael’s at a great price and a friend’s family owns a catering company that I got the rub from.  It went over well with the guests and I’m really glad I did it.


SASsy: Did everything go according to plan, or were there a few unplanned moments that made the wedding even more enjoyable?

I had a hair catastrophe two days before my wedding and ended up getting my hair done three times before it was right, I got 4 emails the day of my wedding from people who RSVP informing met that all of a sudden they would not be in attendance, and the church didn’t have the communion ready during the ceremony and we had to wait for someone to run and get it and bring it in the sanctuary.  


In the grand scheme of things, none of that impacted my day and things were wonderful.  Just be prepared for problems to happen, but don’t let them detract you from the point of the day - starting a life with your spouse and the love of your friends and family.

SASsy: If you could do anything differently, what would it be and why?

I would have given myself more time.  I got engaged at the end of September and got married the first weekend in June.  Because of the holidays, I only really had about 6-7 months to plan a wedding for 150 people.  If I could do it over again, I’d give myself more time because I thing I would have enjoyed planning my wedding more if I didn’t feel so rushed.


SASsy: What advice you would you offer other brides to help them through the wedding planning process?


Give yourself enough time to plan so you don’t feel rushed and overwhelmed.  The process can no doubt be overwhelming, but giving yourself time to savor the moments and made thoughtful decisions is important.  


Also, wedding planning is a dictatorship. You are the dictator. That doesn’t mean you need to be a crazy bridezilla. It does mean that you are going to get a lot of input from everyone around you and it is important to remember that it is your day so do what you want.  


I would like to thank Ashley for helping out with the blog this week.  If you have any questions or topic suggestions, please leave comments and they could be featured in an upcoming edition. And be sure to check out Part II of our Ask A Bride series on Thursday!


Connect with The SASsy Report:
Twitter: @TheSASsyReport
Pintrest:http://pinterest.com/thesassyreport/