Happy Friday friends!! It's been a little while since I've brought you a JDE Brides post. So I'm super pumped to start the weekend off with my bride and incredible friend Julia sharing about her gorgeous King Family Vineyards wedding!
Introduce yourself! And your husband!
Hey there! I'm Julia Ogden and I'm an English teacher and have a small business called Water's Edge Design I'm also a JDE bride and my husband Justin and I got married just this past October at King Family Vineyards in Charlottesville, VA.
What's your love story? How did the two of you meet? How did he pop the question?
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| Rebecca Keeling Studios |
I might be biased, but I think our love story is pretty special. Justin and I actually met online! I had gotten over the ending of a long relationship and felt ready to get back out there. I just wasn't exactly sure how to do that! My friend convinced me to sign up on a free online dating site and things just kind of snowballed from there. I went on a LOT of bad dates, and a few good dates. Met a lot of great guys, who just weren't MY GUY. I even started a blog to catalog all of my adventures in trying to find the one. Months passed and I Was ready to give up. I went onto the online dating site to deactivate my profile when I saw that I had a message from a handsome guy with the most unbelievably cute dimples. It was sweet and simple and at the end of it, he asked if he could call me. He literally wrote "may I call you?" so old fashioned and sweet. I figured, why not....I'll give it one more chance. I gave him my number and immediately deactivated my profile. If he wasn't it, I was going to give this whole dating thing a break for a while.
That first date turned into two years together and on the anniversary of our first date, December 15th, Justin took me to go see the lights at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens...we walked around the grounds, got hot chocolate, and the whole time I could tell he was trying to get me to a spot where we could be alone. We saw this little path that lead through the woods to a gazebo, but it was roped off. We felt like rebels hopping over it and he lead me down the path to where it was quiet and secluded. He took my hand, lead me into the middle of the gazebo and got down on one knee to propose. Of course I said yes....more like yelled it haha...and he told me that our whole family was meeting us at a restaurant nearby so we could celebrate together. It was honestly the best day of my entire life.
What five words would you use to describe your wedding?
We started planning the wedding right away and I really wanted it to represent us and our personalities. Pinterest can be super overwhelming and unrealistic so I used it a little bit for some inspiration, but mostly thought about what elements we loved in our life. If I could choose 5 words to describe our wedding, they would be:
Romantic
Sentimental
Organic
Fair tale {I know that's two lol}
Warm
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| Elizabeth Henson Photos |
My favorite parts of wedding planning were:
1. How much time I got to spend with my mom and Justin's mom doing the planning.
2. Finding all of the beautiful pieces we would use for the decor. Styling is my favorite thing to do, so to do something on this big of a scale was so fun!
3. All of the site visits and tastings! It was so exciting to have everyone treat you like royalty and come on, free food and wine!? Sign me up!
4. Finding my wedding dress. I went with a small group of the women in my family and it was just so special to get to spend the day with them. It was a pretty magical moment seeing how emotional they got.
My least favorite parts of wedding planning were:
1. Worrying about the budget. We didn't realize it, but Charlottesville is the 2nd or 3rd most expensive wedding location in the US....THE US PEOPLE! We just love that area because we are UVA fans and I go there every fall with my girlfriends for a winery trip. Everything was so outrageously expensive and after we splurged on the venue, I didn't know how we were going to fit in everything else.
2. All of the tiny details that you have to make decisions about. It can get super overwhelming and you just wanna hands things off to someone else. {Enter Just Dandy Events to talk me off the ledge}
Where did you go for your honeymoon?
After the wedding, we stayed in Charlottesville at the sweetest little Airbnb. It was within 5 minutes of downtown and it even had the cutest goats on the property! It was so much more romantic and cozy than a hotel room and we have plans to go back every year for our anniversary. We left that Tuesday for our honeymoon in Ireland and it was an incredible whirlwind trip. We had so much fun exploring the little towns, meeting the nicest locals, and basically eating and drinking Guinness constantly. We got home and needed another vacation from the wedding/honeymoon excitement.
Who were your vendors?
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| Rebecca Keeling Studios |
Venue: King Family Vineyards
Coordination: Just Dandy Events
Photographer & Videographer: Rebecca Keeling Studios
Florist: Courtney Inghram Events
Lighting: The Lighting Professors
Caterer: Glorious Foods
Cake: Everything Emma
Styling & Decor: Water's Edge Design
Coordination: Just Dandy Events
Photographer & Videographer: Rebecca Keeling Studios
Florist: Courtney Inghram Events
Lighting: The Lighting Professors
Caterer: Glorious Foods
Cake: Everything Emma
Styling & Decor: Water's Edge Design
If you could do one thing different throughout your entire wedding planning journey, what would it be?
I don't think I would really change anything that happened in the wedding planning journey. I do wish our location had been a little less expensive, but it was exactly what we pictured and felt so very us, that I can't really wish we had gone somewhere else.
I don't think I would really change anything that happened in the wedding planning journey. I do wish our location had been a little less expensive, but it was exactly what we pictured and felt so very us, that I can't really wish we had gone somewhere else.
Do you have any advice for future brides?
1. Hire a coordinator...it is really hard trying to do everything yourself and you, at the VERY LEAST, need a day of coordinator. That day flies by and little things are constantly popping up. Like one of your tables collapsing in the middle of dinner lol! As much as you love your aunt or best friend, they might not always know how to handle these things. You need someone with experience.
2. Get ready at your venue or very close by your venue. We booked a house close by the venue for the bridesmaids to stay at, and for us to get ready all together that morning. Unfortunately, we had to change locations the week before and ended up at a house 30 minutes away from the venue. It made things feel a little rushed that morning and in all the craziness, we left my bouquet behind. Luckily someone able to bring it before the ceremony, but I didn't have it for all the wedding party pictures. It made me sad.
3. Take a deep breath, use Pinterest sparingly, and remember that your day is going to be perfect because you are getting to marry your dream guy/girl. Everything else is just icing on the cake. You getting stressed out and unhappy during the planning process is the opposite of what should be happening. Take your time, use your partner as a stress reliever and sounding board. Try not to take advice from too many people, everyone thinks they are an expert, but only you know what you really want. Just have fun with it and remind yourself that this is a really incredible time in your life. It goes by fast, so don't waste in with over-analyzing table cloth colors.
Such wonderful advice Julia!!! For a look back on some of my favorite parts of Justin & Julia's beautiful day, check out this blog post.
1. Hire a coordinator...it is really hard trying to do everything yourself and you, at the VERY LEAST, need a day of coordinator. That day flies by and little things are constantly popping up. Like one of your tables collapsing in the middle of dinner lol! As much as you love your aunt or best friend, they might not always know how to handle these things. You need someone with experience.
2. Get ready at your venue or very close by your venue. We booked a house close by the venue for the bridesmaids to stay at, and for us to get ready all together that morning. Unfortunately, we had to change locations the week before and ended up at a house 30 minutes away from the venue. It made things feel a little rushed that morning and in all the craziness, we left my bouquet behind. Luckily someone able to bring it before the ceremony, but I didn't have it for all the wedding party pictures. It made me sad.
3. Take a deep breath, use Pinterest sparingly, and remember that your day is going to be perfect because you are getting to marry your dream guy/girl. Everything else is just icing on the cake. You getting stressed out and unhappy during the planning process is the opposite of what should be happening. Take your time, use your partner as a stress reliever and sounding board. Try not to take advice from too many people, everyone thinks they are an expert, but only you know what you really want. Just have fun with it and remind yourself that this is a really incredible time in your life. It goes by fast, so don't waste in with over-analyzing table cloth colors.
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| IYQ Photography |
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The decor at this place is absolutely beautiful. In terms of decor, this is definitely a big step above a typical wedding venue. Chicago wedding venues are spacious, breathable, and absolutely glowing. They can bring in an open bar as well into this place.
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