Blush & Gold Rustic Wedding Loveliness ♥

"Our wedding day was especially wonderful for James and I because it was the first time we had seen each other in months due to his training at The Basic School for the Marine Corps in Virginia," shares Andrea. "I personalized our wedding by hand-making most of our wedding's decor. They were created to tell the story of how we fell in love."

Love Story: We met at Penn State University in 2010. We lived in a townhouse style apartment- I lived in K23 and he lived in K22 (these were the names of our signature drinks as well). Jamie proposed to me in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. On our way to dinner one night, we spotted a footbridge with a stream underneath. Jamie asked me to take off my heels to climb down a cliff of rocks so we could walk in the stream together. Before we reached the bottom, Jamie was on the rock below me and reached for the ring in his back pocket and proposed to me on the rocks.

Bouquet: My bouquet was filled with flowers in pale blush and creme, featuring gold spray painted babys breath. On my bouquet, I had a necklace of seashells- my grandfather made the necklace for my grandmother while he was overseas in Guam by stringing seashells he dove for in the ocean onto his dog tag chain.

Bridal party Styling: The bridesmaids wore rosepetal pink long chiffon dresses and gold jewelry and shoes. The groomsmen wore gray tuxedos with blush ties and vests. The best man and brother of the groom wore his Army uniform.

Wedding Ceremony: The chairs lining the ceremony aisle were hung with mason jars with lace and burlap wrapped around and flowers inside. The first seat of my front row was a memorial chair for my grandmother, Lillian Knapp, who had passed away in June 2013- she played a major role in my life and will always be an inspiration to me. I grew up admiring her and my grandfather's love and always hoped I would find it for myself. Her seat had a framed photo of her hung with ribbons and a bouquet of her favorite flowers- red roses. We had two special readings by our good friends: "The Blessing of the Hands" and an excerpt from the Book of Ruth. I walked down the aisle to "Hallelujah" by Vitamin String Quartet. We had a unity hourglass into which we both poured a different color sand.

Wedding Guest Book and Seating Chart: Our wedding guest book was a large wooden ivory monogram of the letters, A, C, J (my first name, our last name, his first name). Our seating chart was made by me- it was two large gold frames with escort cards clothes-pinned onto ribbons of our color palette.

Wedding Reception: The floral decor featured gold candelabra topped with a cascading display of ivory tulips, pale peach roses, blush peony, champagne spray roses, and babysbreath & berries spray painted gold. I handcrafted a lot of the decor- including our gold sparkled wedding table numbers, seating charts, ceremony programs, a chalkboard sign that reflected our love story, 3 string art pieces of our initials, a card chest with the words "thank you" hanging on the inside when opened, a directional sign displaying where we're from, where we met, where we got engaged, and where we got married (Pasadena, MD) on top. Our cake topper included our dog, Teddy, and Jamie's figure was customized to match his Marine Corps uniform.

Wedding Playlist: Our playlist included a lot of country songs. We entered to the song "Black Betty" by Spiderbait and our first dance was to "Give it all we got tonight" by George Strait- sung and played on the guitar by our friend Charlie. I also danced with my grandfather to his favorite song that reminds him of my grandmother- "My One and Only Love" by Frank Sinatra