Robin is flat out one of the sweetest people I have ever met. She is a genuinely beautiful person, inside and out! It was such a pleasure to be part of her and Stu’s wedding at the lovely Hoffman Haus. It was really cool to see Robin’s personal style reflected in her wedding, through rugs at the ceremony from her home, to rocks from Stu’s family ranch as the place card and table numbers. Check out how these two pulled of a chic hill country wedding, with just a touch of boho elements and the hill country wedding catering vendor reveal below!

Shout out here to Cartewheels Catering! The first to make the catering vendor list and my absolute favorite local catering company. The staff are always kind, responsive and professional. They come with shirts tucked in, and smiles on! The food is always a 10 in the taste department, and the presentation gets an 11 out of 10. I’ve seen them make flowers out of cabbages for charcuterie and fill tiny droppers with homemade rosemary maple syrup for their mini chicken and waffle appetizer. Need I say more? They put a sign on everything that is typed and cute, and I never see ugly chaffing dishes, just beautiful serving pieces that I want to steal for my house.  They are always on time and follow the schedule to a tee. They go above and beyond to serve the bride and groom in the planning process and on the day of. Cartewheels is definitely the best of the best when it comes to food! Check out their vendor profile here.

Talented Hill Country Vendors here:

Event Planner: Hill Country Bride, Photographer: The Nichols, Catering: Cartewheels, Venue: Hoffman Haus, Flowers: Wendee Sawran, Cake: Sophie’s, Invites: Minted, Linens: La Tavola Nuovo Champagne, Hair & Makeup: Weddings by Celissa Rae 

The first photographer to make my list of amazing Hill Country wedding vendors is Lori Blythe! Known for her clean, airy and flirty photography style, Lori is a sweet soul and a talented hill country wedding photographer. Her clients rave about her professionalism and creativity. Her warm personality and posing techniques make her clients feel comfortable allowing her to capture natural magical moments. You’ll see her work popping up all over my website, but I’d though I’d share our most recent shoot we did this past spring at Enchanted Rock. Check out the post below for Lori’s pretty photos and my inspiration narrative for the shoot, featured on Adorn!

My inspiration for this shoot came when Lori and I were taking a hike out at the beautiful Enchanted Rock State Park, and noticing how the islands of Greenery (Pantone’s 2017 color of the year) made up of cactus, yucca and wild grasses stood out so dramatically against the pink granite landscape. The wanderlust-inducing scenery inspired this edgy, modern, southwest shoot with romantic and feminine details.

The Green Room floral put together the perfect bouquet to add a feminine touch to the harsh landscape. She used air plants and succulents, suited to a desert shoot, and popped in just a few white ranunculus to soften the feel. I chose an elegantly minimalist Sarah Seven gown for our model. The simple, clean lines of the dress supported the modern feel of the shoot.

The Kendra Scott earrings in rose gold mimicked the pink granite rock, and the rough shape and texture fit well with the natural rock surroundings. The Pendleton blanket we used was an early inspiration, as the colors and feel of the shoot developed. This blanket, the “Harding”, gets its name from a story when President Warren Harding and his wife came west to dedicate a portion of the old Oregon Trail.  At the ceremony, local Cayuse and Umatilla chiefs presented the first lady with a shawl similar to this blanket. We brought it along to adorn our model with, and the feel worked out so beautifully! Enchanted Rock gets its name from Native American legend, so it seemed appropriate.

Celissa Rae did an excellent job conveying our natural, but modern look with the model’s hair and makeup. The up-do was appropriate to the neckline of the dress, and she styled her hair to the perfect balance between edgy and romantic. The quote from Emily Bronte, beautifully drawn by artist Hillary Petit, was another early inspiration for this shoot. Her words of “whatever our souls are made of” next to the textures of linen, rocks, and greenery become all the more tangible. Lori Blythe Photography captured the vision of the shoot entirely in the frames of greenery against the pink granite, the dress and the ribbons caught in the wind, and the rim light around the figure of the model between the boulders! Check out her vendor profile on my featured vendors page!

Mary Kate and Chad were such a fun couple to work with this past summer. They have a brand new baby girl, Katherine, who attended most of our meetings and was the center of attention! Mary Kate is the Spa Director at the Four Seasons in Austin and Chad is the Executive director of the Hill Country Film Festival. They have thrown and attended a lot of parties and wanted their wedding to be an elegant affair. They envisioned a classy, well styled party, in the intimate destination setting of Fredericksburg, and chose all of the best vendors to make it happen.

The Venue
As soon as they got engaged they knew the perfect place to host their wedding would be Hoffman Haus in Fredericksburg. They had the pleasure of hosting several Hill Country Film Festival events with Hoffman Haus in the past and knew the quaint charm, dedicated staff, and downtown location was the ideal setting for their wedding weekend.

In the tradition of the Bride’s family, the ceremony was held at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Candles adorned the aisle as 4 flower girls carried fresh garlands to the altar.
Stephanie Nash of A Heavenly Harp provided the elegant and romantic ceremony music.

The Fashion
Mary Kate wore Badgley Mischka and looked stunning. The subtle elegance suited her perfectly. Those sassy shoes are Jimmy Choo, of course! Her bridesmaids also wore Badgley Mischka sequined dresses, rented through Rent the Runway. The gents wore this great combo (that I’ll take the credit for suggesting) of navy suits and black ties, rented through The Black Tux. Hair and makeup thanks to Brandy Pate and a talented friend.

The Florals
The couple chose the amazing Sprout Floral for the arrangements and centerpieces and they did not disappoint! The girls carried olive branch inspired lush greenery bouquets to keep the gold dresses from being too formal. The greenery runner and clear vases on the head table gave it a really organic feel.

The Color Story
We chose a neutral classic pallet of gray and navy, with hints of blush, and pops of gold. Chad wasn’t crazy about the idea of golds and sequins, but I think he liked it after seeing it all come together so elegantly. Mary Kate really liked these gold pillows, they were a little surprise I added in at the last minute.

The Paper Designs
Mary Kate picked a great suite from Minted for her invitations. A slightly more modern font, with blue lettering and a white background. The font of these almost reminds me a little of the movies… how appropriate!

The Eats
Cartewheels Catering provided their usual outstanding service and presentation. The chicken and waffle bites were my favorite! They are sooo tasty and equally adorable. Yes, that’s an individual sprig of rosemary and dropper of maple syrup ON. EACH. ONE. Whoa, the details.

Sophie’s did an excellent job on the tasty cakes. Mary Kate and Chad designed that TCU cake themselves!

The Favors
I was so psyched when Mary Kate decided to use Quintessential Chocolates for her favors. I found this amazing chocolate place not too long before her wedding and suggested it. Once you have them, you will never eat regular boxed chocolates again! They are made right here in Fredericksburg, so it was great local treat.
The other item was these adorable koozies. They so badly wanted to include their one eyed dog Billy in the wedding, but it wasn’t practical for the weekend (having to manage a dog and a kid). So they had his face put on the koozies and his name became the hashtag for the weekend! #billyapproved

My Favorite Moments
Benjamin Garrett did a great job with these photos and captured some of my favorite moments on camera. One of them is the photo directly below. While he was shooting he almost fell into the coy pond and his assistant captured their faces. It’s was hilarious!

Amy (Sister of the Groom) gets the winning award for being most dramatic.

My second favorite part of the evening was when Benjamin took them out for some photos in this lovely evening light. It was a little break from the crowd where they got to be sweet on each other and absorb the moment. Plus, Chad emphatically explained his gratitude for me keeping his gin and tonic constantly refilled. Ha ha. He had a few of them by this point.

lyellphotography.com

I am the husband of a wedding professional.  There is some power in the admission.  For any of you out there who are husbands, you were at least the husband of a wedding professional once in your life.  Why?  Because most brides love planning their weddings.  Not all, but most.  And for most of us, during the time of our engagement, our brides lived and breathed weddings; decorations, guest lists, invites, attire…oh my, the list could go on and on!  Don’t you dare roll your eyes though, gentlemen!  The unattended details were best left with her I assure you.  Had she not lived out her passion with such reckless abandon, you might have been the one picking out the color of icing on your cake.  So for her passion, be grateful!

Truth is, however, I have more to admit than just being the husband of a wedding nut.  This one is a little more difficult, so give me a moment to take a deep breath of courage…

I enjoyed helping in the planning of our wedding.

Okay, that one wasn’t easy.  But it had to be said.  Why? Because I care about my wife’s passion for weddings. And what’s more, I care about your future as a husband, and your present moment as a wedding planner, whether you wanted the role or not. I did enjoy helping with the planning.  And if you think it is a compromise of my so-called man card, I assure you I can likely ride a horse better than most of you, have thrown my share of hay bales, have fired a few rounds from my 30-30 Winchester, and have done enough to earn the right to not be a “girly man”.  But honestly, I don’t care whether you’re a guy who likes to knit sweaters or you make a part-time occupation out of beating up hippies.  I care about one thing as I’m writing this blog. I want you to love your wedding. Live in this moment in a way that you will never forget, and love your bride for the rest of your life.  To that purpose I make my contribution to Hill Country Bride.

Now, that being said, it is also true that there were many conversations during our wedding planning where I felt like I was listening to the eighteenth verse of a twenty-verse song, and I had the melody in my head but was no longer aware of the words.   This was especially true regarding the small details of our table decorations. Each table was custom designed by my wife with various candlesticks, books, antique items, and other retro décor.  They looked amazing.  But really, being asked to have an opinion on the matter was like being asked to count the blades of grass in our yard.

On the other hand, there were aspects of our wedding that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I am a musical person, and I have a deep love for music.  So I gladly took on the responsibility to put together the DJ, set up the playlist, take requests from the guests, and make sure the dancing and music were on point.  I managed to get one of my lifelong best friends to write a song telling our story, to perform it at the wedding and the reception, and to have another best friend accompany him on a guitar that I once owned. It was beautiful.

In one of my pre-wedding bright shining moments, I had this genius idea to order an array of cupcakes for display at our reception instead of a traditional wedding cake.  I truly thought I had created an original idea that would forever change the annals of wedding tradition.  Little did I know, Pinterest thought otherwise.  Yes, my idea must have been conjured by countless other brides and grooms who were happy to post their pinterestolosophy for all to see.  But if you ask me, I thought of it first.

There were some shaky moments in our wedding planning.  At one point I thought we might lose our engagement over port-a-potties.  I’m not kidding.  You see, our wedding location was on a piece of ranch land owned by my parents. The house was on septic, and my family was terrified the system would overflow if guests used the house facilities.  They insisted on having a portable toilet.  What did I care?  Us guys will gladly free the pee anywhere there is some grass and a shrub for privacy, and even those are open to compromise.  My bride, on the other hand, was equally insistent that her guests adorned in elegant attire would not climb into a port-a-john in the Texas heat.  I was soon the diplomat in a nuclear arms race between parents and bride.  I wasn’t sure whether to go to war or flee to Canada.

But here is the deal to all of you brothers in bridal battle, you can love your wedding. Why? Because there are things that you love to do. Maybe you love leadership and management.  Take the initiative to be the facilitator of the wedding volunteers.  Perhaps you enjoy manual labor.  Come up with an item you can build for the wedding décor, or help out with the landscaping of the wedding site.  Have an artsy edge to you?  Come up with a creative location for guest photos. Some parts of a wedding tend to feel boring to us guys. Instead of griping, come up with a plan to make them exciting.  For example, I think that a guestbook full of signatures is a complete waste of ink and bookshelf space.  Why do I need the autographs of my wedding guests?  Now, what I would love to have is pictures of everyone that I’ll look back at and laugh at their goofy haircuts and outdated styles.  So instead of a guest book, we had a friend photograph our guests with a Polaroid, and then they wrote us a note next to their photo in an album.  Much cooler than a boring old autograph book!  But I came up with that idea because I wanted to make the wedding fun for me. Turned out the ideas was fun for everyone.

You might be surprised at your capabilities.  There are characteristics in you that your bride absolutely loves, otherwise she wouldn’t have said “yes”.  What are they?  Now ask yourself how you can use those characteristics to help make your wedding unforgettable, and uniquely suited to you and your bride.  Don’t make the mistake of seeing your wedding day as “her deal”.  Instead, think of it as the one party in your life where you get to invite all of your favorite people on the planet and do whatever the heck you want to do.  Trust me, you won’t get many more opportunities like that.  Don’t miss it.