our wedding day on film: part I
Almost three months ago I married the love of my life in front of the people who matter the most to me.
I was never the little girl who dreamed of the perfect dress, what kind of flowers I’d have, or what song I’d walk down the aisle to. Growing up, I never thought about what my husband would look like or where I’d like to go on a honeymoon. Hell, I didn’t want to get married at all. I’d always said I’d never get married because I used to believe that there wasn’t only one man who could fulfill all the intricate parts of my heart and soul. But then I met Perry. Not only did he completely satisfy all the needs of my crazy heart and my wild spirit, but he filled in all the cracks of my being that I didn’t even know were so damn broken.
Still, I didn’t care about getting married. We loved each other and that was enough for me. But then after almost a decade of being together, he got down on one knee after we watched Gregory Alan Isakov play to a sold out show in Asheville and I said yes. A million times, yes.
That led to our wedding day, the best day of my life. And our friend and brilliant photographer, Katch Silva captured it all on 35mm film.
Katch came to our Airbnb on the morning of our wedding and captured our love before the day unraveled. We sipped coffee and kissed our dogs as the light went from blue to gold. We slow danced in the sun and took in the calm together.
Kala Noel, the incredible artist that designed my wedding dress sent me a beautiful crown she’d made of dried flowers. If you’re looking for an intentional artist to create the look you want for your wedding day, she is a dream.
Katch captured us getting ready together and my favorite photo is the first one of Perry grinding our coffee with a drill. It was one of the first previews Katch sent me and she said, “This is so you guys.”
I did my own makeup because I barely wear any as it is and I wanted to look like me on my own wedding day, y’know? I wanted to be able to look back on these photos for the rest of my life and recognize myself.
What a babe. That’s my husband, y’all.
I love his smile here. What a beautiful moment. Katch didn’t miss a thing.
I wanted a two-piece wedding dress so that I could switch out the top or wear the top after the wedding, plus I loved the free feel of a two-piece.. Kala Noel made me a secondary top and it was the perfect addition to my pre-ceremony wear.
It’s hard to see the incredible detail here but the ring I’m holding in my hands is a wedding present from Perry. He carved it himself in our Rhodes Wedding Co. workshop. It’s shaped like a book and on the spine he hand wrote Everything because that’s what we are to each other. Kala Noel also stitched a tag into my wedding dress with the inscription Everything and our wedding date. It’s a beautiful, sentimental touch.
The day went by so fast and I’m so grateful to have these pre-ceremony shots from Katch. There were so many little things that I missed and being able to relive these moments through these images is like stepping back in time.
We chose to get married on my Grandma Linda’s property in Farwell, Michigan. Growing up, we called it “The Old Place.” It sits on thirteen acres in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere that has a population of less than a thousand people. Dad used to drop us kids—my brother and me—off at The Old Place and we wouldn’t see him for three months. I hold those summers close to my heart. Running through the wildflowers, eating raspberries from Grandma’s garden by the handful, and singing old hymns and Jesus songs by the bonfire felt like the true essence of what it meant to be kid. Grandma’s property felt like Eden, like it had been unmarred by the chaos that was our life in the dust of California. It still holds this quality for me and I couldn’t imagine getting married anywhere else.
I love this shot of Perry going through his vows. My beautiful songwriter. All of his words carry a melody.
We were meant to have our little reception in the grass under a crisp autumn sky, but the clouds came in and the day went gray and wet. Everyone had to pull together in a frantic rush to clean out the tools and equipment out of the barn. It’s over a hundred years old and had just about a hundred years worth of stuff in it so it was quite a task.
My heart overflowed with gratitude to see my family come together and work so hard for us. We probably should’ve had a plan b put into place, but neither Perry nor I are plan b kind of people. We just go with the flow and on this day, the flow took us into a dusty old barn with tools lining the walls and an old ‘72 Saab parked among our dining tables.
I’d seen a lot of couples do first looks with each other, but I knew that wouldn’t be something that Perry and I would do because we’d want to spend the morning together. Katch suggested doing a first look with our family and I absolutely loved the idea. Perry helped me into my wedding dress in the old barn that I used to play in as a kid. It felt special and transformative, like I was stepping into a new chapter by stepping into my dress. Thank you Katch for knowing me and understanding how special this would be to me.
I love how much everyone is smiling here. You can’t see my face, but I’m smiling, too. I also love Perry’s stance in the one above, like he’s stepping back and admiring. The way he looks at me—I’ll never get over it. I’ll never take it for granted. I’ve found a gift in him and he has helped me see myself in a way that I’d never thought I would.
These few of Mom embracing me feels like a dream. This moment almost didn’t happen. I was so close to losing her back in April when she went into cardiac arrest and fell into a coma for five days. Those five days next to her bedside praying for her life were the hardest days of my life. I thought about how we wouldn’t be having a wedding if she didn’t pull through because I couldn’t imagine celebrating anything without her. In the third photo she is saying, “My Moo Moo,” which were the first words she’d said when she woke up from her coma.
And this one of Dad. His beautiful face and giant hands. I’ll forever be a Daddy’s girl.
This is Emma, my brother’s baby. I call her my magic girl because of her incredible power to fill my heart with pure joy with one look at her smiling face.
The embrace and the laugh on my ninety-year-old Grandma’s face. This woman was bombed by the nazis when she was fleeing from Belgium to France, out-lived three husbands, and spent her best years raising me. She’s terrified of flying and yet she still made the trip from southern California to Michigan to celebrate my love. I wouldn’t be where I am without her.
My brother did our ceremony and kicked it off with a joke from The Office. I was in tears I was laughing so hard. Sibling love, is there anything like it? I wouldn’t have survived my childhood without my brother’s fearless spirit by my side. He is the strongest person I’ve ever known and so much of what I know about strength and bravery I’ve learned from him.
I love the image above of Mom and Perry walking down the aisle together. That dark sea of beautiful hair.
See, what did I tell ya? The way he looks at me. It is everything.
In the second photo above Dad had just said, “You’re beautiful, you know that?” and the tears fell like sheets of storm rains down my cheeks. I cried the whole way down the aisle. I’m not much of a crier in general unless I’m watching “This Is Us” and I mean, c’mon. But on this day, I cried more than I usually do in an entire year.
I walked down the aisle to “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis. I grew up listening to this song with my Grandma and my Grandpa Steve. He’d sing it to me when I was a little girl and he’d let me put bows in his hair. I have so many beautiful memories attached to that song. For one of our first Valentine’s Day together, Perry surprised me with a rendition he recorded of the song because he knew it was one of my favorites.
This one with my hand around his back and my Grandma bawling in the background, I feel it so much.
Dad prayed over us and our love and my stepmom sang a beautiful song from her heart.
Me looking at Dad. Perry looking at me. So much love here.
Perry cried through the whole ceremony. His dark wet eyes staring back at me in the rain. A perfect moment that I’ll keep forever.
Mom told the story of how we met back in 2006. The day she met Perry she told me, “That’s the one you’re going to marry.” I didn’t believe her, but I should have.
Perry was my saving grace that summer. We were about two weeks into our summer on Vans Warped Tour. With over seventy bands, it was the largest traveling music festival in the States, stopping at over forty cities in a seven-week stretch. I was slinging merch for a record label and Perry was in a band. We were both wide-eyed, filled with big dreams and ambitions.
I’m exactly sure what state we were in when we met, but I know it was in the south somewhere, Texas, Georgia or maybe in one of the Carolinas. But what I do know for sure is that we were inseparable the rest of the tour.
This next series of photos with my Grandma Linda are some of my favorite photos. I’ll be eternally grateful to her for letting us use her beautiful property for the wedding. She takes care of all thirteen acres by herself and she is eighty years old. What a woman. She’s an inspiration and I am constantly enamored by all the good she puts out into the world.
After the ceremony we held each other and cried because we wished my Grandpa Pete could’ve been there. We lost him back in 2012 and yet it feels like just yesterday.
From the moment we’d decided to have a wedding I knew I wanted it to be a DIY, zero-waste wedding. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending tons of money on myself just for one single day. It felt wasteful and self-absorbed and honestly, I just didn’t see the point. Everything we had in our wedding was either made, purchased second-hand, or purchased with future-use in mind.
Dad made the tables and they are now being used in his backyard for family and church get-togethers.
The hanging flowers were picked from a field off a dirt road by my stepmom and dried to make the bouquets.
The silk and lace was purchased on sale from a fabric store in my town and my stepmom now uses it for photoshoots.
The dishes were found at thrift stores all over Michigan and North Carolina. I now use them on a daily basis.
The hanging lights are now draped around our wraparound porch lighting our evening dinners.
The floor pillows are used all throughout our house for seating in the living room, window seating in our bedroom, and seating in Perry’s music room.
The tiny vases are old milk bottles that I bought from a thrift store in North Carolina and now used for flowers and sprigs of mint and sage around the house.
The cake block was purchased from a beautiful wood shop in Asheville and we use it for photoshoots for Rhodes Wedding Co.
The cake was made by my stepmom because she is good at absolutely everything. She played a huge part of the planning of the wedding and did most of the decorating. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her.
The candles were made by my incredibly crafty and talented sister-in-law, Angel. I’ve lined the windowsills in our dining room with them.
The wood arbor was loaned to us from Dad’s church.
My jacket was purchased second hand from Oregon and I had a brilliant artist out of Joshua Tree paint florals to add to its story.
The food was made by my stepmom and my Grandma Linda and the leftovers were given to the people from her church for a potluck.
Perry made the notebooks for our vows.
The boots I wore are from an amazing vintage shop in Asheville called Honeypot vintage.
The only things we purchased new was my dress and Perry’s suit, both of which we bought with the intention of wearing more than once. And money that goes to an artist who is following their dreams and putting their all into their art is money I am proud to spend. I feel the same way about our floral design, Fatima of Studio Terrain. She is an incredible and intentional artist and I knew she’d add the perfect touch to our intimate wedding. She designed the floral for the wood arbor for the ceremony, my bouquet, the flowers for Perry’s hat, and all of the flower crowns. After the wedding my stepmom and Grandma Linda collected all the flowers and made bouquets to give to the elderly women in their community.
These next few photos are the hardest for me.
Before my Grandpa Pete passed away I recorded hours upon hours of audio of him telling stories. I often listen to them when I’m going for a walk and it feels like I’m walking with my Grandpa again. I took a short minute-long clip about his love for my Grandma Linda and played it at the wedding. Everyone was in tears and my heart broke into a million pieces.
When I had this idea to have a little piece of Grandpa there I hadn’t imagined it so sad and mournful. I’d imagined it happy and joyful, but it didn’t feel that way. It only reminded of us of how much we were missing from our lives and I felt awful for making everyone cry. It’s just, I wanted to hear my Grandpa’s voice on my wedding day. You can hear the clip below. The other voices in the clip are mine and Dad’s.
After our crying fest I had to get everyone smiling again. I surprised Perry with a Gibson J-35 and just look at his beautiful smile. He was so shocked and so happy and it made my heart so very full. He sang “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis—the song I walked down the aisle to.
After everything we ate s’mores and sang hymns by the fire just like I used to do as a little girl. The perfect ending.
If you made it this far you’re probably sick of seeing my face so I’ll leave you with my words.
When you’re planning your wedding, just remember, it doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want it to be. I did exactly what I wanted to do. I invited immediate-family only because for me, those are the people who raised me, who knew me to my core, and who understood the great love I’d found in Perry. I didn’t want to spend the whole day in ‘host mode’ and miss Mom’s laugh or the way Dad’s grey eyes filled with tears or how beautiful Perry looked. I wanted to see my two Grandma’s smile and laugh together, after reuniting after over twenty years. I wanted to hear Dad laugh his big laugh while he shared old stories with Grandma Fields, his ex-mother-in-law. I wanted to see my brother and his wife cuddle up by the bonfire with baby Emma in their arms. One of the most rewarding things from our wedding day was seeing my whole family reunited again and now with Perry at the center of all of it, it felt like home.
Stay tuned for the next blog of photos from Katch Silva. We shot two mini-couple sessions during the day of our wedding, but I felt they deserved their own blog to really shine. Thank you Katch for these memories. I’ll hold onto them forever.