I am so excited to finally share my first post-wedding blog with y’all. I was writing wedding blog posts pretty regularly in 2020, but at the beginning of the year when we had little time left and a lot to do, things just got too crazy to keep y’all posted on. But now that things have finally settled, I can share with you all of the ins and outs of our wedding and I am so excited!
In order to keep organized (and keep your brain from being overwhelmed), there will be numerous posts over the next few months about individual parts of the day. Today we are covering the getting ready details for the ladies, and the next post will focus on the guys. Enjoy!
Once we decided on The Colony as our location, we knew we wanted to stay in a villa rather than a standard hotel room. This gave us so many luxuries, like a full kitchen, in-room washer and dryer, 3 full bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, a villa pool, and a great living/dining space. It really just made sense for us, and I am so glad we did it! We stayed in the Palm Beach Lately and Serena & Lily’s “Sisters Suite” (also known as Villa Lantana), which was beautifully decorated. It gave us the perfect space to get ready! (If you want to see a separate blog post on the villa, please let me know!) We had ample space to get hair done, do makeup, and we had a king-sized bed for getting ready pictures.
My Hair & Makeup
I definitely was nervous about hair and makeup! I would say I am picky, but only because I want to feel myself and I have some insecurities when it comes to hair/makeup that I wanted to make sure weren’t highlighted. I made the decision to have people I personally know do my hair and makeup, and I am so glad I did! While there were plenty of professionals in the area I could have hired, having people I knew gave me a lot of flexibility, saved money, and I felt like I could be more honest with them.
Our family friends, the Moyers, have known me since I was a toddler. Their youngest daughter, Eden, is 16 and is currently in cosmetology school! She started last fall and when I heard the news it had me thinking: what if I just asked Eden to do my hair for me? They were already planning on coming to our wedding, it would give her some great experience/photos of her work, plus she lives near us in Pennsylvania, so we could practice as much as we needed. I pitched the idea to Eden and she was so excited! I could tell her mom was nervous since Eden doesn’t have too much experience. But we took a day back home to practice so she could get used to my hair/my extensions, get an idea of what I wanted, and could see how long things would take. And while we totally switched our plans for the hairstyle the day of the wedding, she did a fabulous job and I genuinely loved my hair! She also helped my sister, my mom, and my one bridesmaid do their hair and did such a great job.
As for makeup, part of me considered doing it myself, but about two weeks out I panicked! So I texted my friend Ainsley, who lives in Orlando but was coming to our wedding in Palm Beach, and asked her if she’d be willing to help me out. She doesn’t do makeup as a career or anything, but she’s really good at it and does some fun looks on herself and her friends. Plus we are both Capricorns, so I knew if I critiqued her at all she’d know where I was coming from lol. She was also on board and we planned a day to do a run-through while we were in Orlando before the wedding. Once again, she did a great job! My makeup lasted all night and looked exactly how I wanted it to – not too glam but not too natural. I felt like myself!
Some of the products I used for my hair/makeup included pearl bobby pins from Hobby Lobby (couldn’t find online, this is a similar Amazon option), this lip color from Sephora (no. 13 – marvelous mauve), and this lip gloss from Sephora (no. 23 – karma).
Getting Ready Photos and Flat Lays
We took the classic bed getting ready photos, and I got all of us these matching night dresses from Toss Designs – they were so cute and fit true-to-size! I also got to open a gift from Grant while getting ready, which was a pearl necklace from Tiffany & Co. Of course, I wore it with my dress and it was gorgeous!
I made sure to take tons of items for our photographer, Shea, to play with when it came to flat lays. We did some of the more common items, like our invitations, but we also used some Disney pieces to commemorate our love of Disney and our wedding’s change of plans. I also didn’t love the boxes our rings came with to use for pictures, so I bought this one from Amazon that comes in tons of colors and is under $20. I also loved that it had two slots. Shea also used my pearl-soaked veil, made by my sister, for the background in some of the shots – I love how those turned out!
Product details: our custom art piece that we used for invitations and more is by Paige Spearin. Our invitations with the foil palm tree are from Minted. My Cinderella’s carriage ring dish is from the Disney Fairytale Weddings expo, the carriage ring box is from Arribas Bros. at Disney, and the embroidered pocket hanky is from Kassatly’s.
Our Jewelry and Shoes
Like I said before, I received a pearl necklace from Grant, so I wore that on our wedding day. My veil was made of tulle drenched in pearls that my sister put together for me – I am so obsessed with it, and so were the photographers! I bought my earrings last minute from Helzberg Diamonds; they were great quality for the price and just what I wanted. As for our rings, my engagement ring is the Tiffany Soleste cushion cut, my wedding band is the Tiffany Harmony, and Grant’s band is the Tiffany Essential Band (double milgrain).
My bridesmaids wore these adorable pearl and bow earrings from Nautical Notions – they are extremely affordable and something they can wear in their day-to-day life. As for necklaces, my girls were gifted these dainty pearl cluster necklaces from Adler Grier. I was initially hesitant for them to wear any necklace, considering their dresses were pretty busy, but these were absolutely perfect! When it came to shoes, I dug around on the Internet long enough to find some super affordable block heels on Nordstrom Rack – they were the perfect color and on sale for only $30, but they are no longer available.
I wore these AMAZING shoes from Sarah Flint. I really wanted a shoe I could wear again, and preferably ones that weren’t white. They are genuinely the most comfortable heels I’ve worn in my life. I didn’t break them in at all, and I never got a blister or bump after wearing them for 5+ hours! They have tons of great wedding shoe options, as well as work shoes and everyday shoes. The quality of them is amazing and I highly recommend them! While I did pay for the shoes with my own money, I do have a discount code for y’all to save $50 on your first purchase – SARAHFLINT-BAJAYMEK
Our Dresses
My girls wore a Lilly Pulitzer dress (the Levy dress), which was from the Holiday 2019 release. They matched our venue at Disney perfectly, but thankfully they still looked great at The Colony! My girls thanked me multiple times for having short dresses lol – definitely the right decision. The dresses also had pockets, which are always great in my opinion.
My mom found her dress at Anthropologie – they have a whole wedding store/line called BHLDN. We actually have a BHLDN store in Pittsburgh (Anthro is based in Pittsburgh), so we went into the store and found this dress in her size on the sale rack! It fit perfectly (my sister just made it a tad shorter), and I think the color and beadwork were great. Since it was on sale it is no longer available, but this one is very similar!
My dress was designed by Justin Alexander and I got it in natural silk. I am going to do a whole different post just on my dress because I have a lot to say lol!
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That is all I have for this post! I don’t want to make these too long or boring lol. Be sure to subscribe to my email list to get notified when I post one next! I am hoping to do one every week or so. If you have any questions or have a topic you want to see a post about, please let me know by commenting below or connecting with me on Instagram.
P.S. All photos are by the fabulous Shea Christine – she did such an amazing job and was such a pleasure to work with!
Cheers!
xoxo
Jayme
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