Today’s wedding is oh-so-fun! The inspiration for their day came from Anna’s mother. Anna’s mother + father met on Beech Mountain in North Carolina. Her father worked at The Land of Oz (a theme park based around – you guessed it The Wizard of Oz!) and her mother would visit the theme park frequently. Her parents had many fond memories of that time, and her mother would always talked about The Land of Oz (the park is now closed and only available for private events). Once she found out Anna + Brandon were engaged, she immediately thought how perfect a wedding at The Land of Oz would be. With a little investigation, a wedding at Oz was planned! The day was full of fun odes to the movie, popcorn, balloons and of corse a walk down the yellow brick road. :)
From the lovely couple: Although we went into wedding planning with the firm belief that the wedding is for the family and the marriage is for the bride and groom, we also wanted it to have a personnel feel. Since Brandon is a graphic designer and Anna loves to craft, the wedding planning was a chance for us to work together to create something beautiful. In the end the wedding wasn’t about the two of us, but our families uniting – the marriage will be about us.
Our Musical Choices
Anna crafted her pretty bouquet herself!
Our Favorite Memory
Pulling it off. It took a lot of long distance planning and design work. We always wanted a non-traditional, fun wedding and we could not have imagined a better location. There was a tornado room, a yellow brick road, carnival food, and balloons...and that was just the ceremony. We knew we would be together forever and would have gotten married any time any place, but man did we have fun at our wedding!
So many fun photo ops here!
We definitely underestimated the support and love that would be shown during our wedding. If you look at our advice suggestion, you may devise that we did not hire a day of wedding planner, and thought we could do it all ourselves. However, at the 11th hour we were exhausted and just wanted a wedding break. That is when our family and friends rallied and took care of everything on the day of the wedding… so we could relax and be spoiled. The entire event was bursting with love and it truly was the best day.
Our Advice
Hire a wedding planner! If you are the crafty sort that wants to do a lot of the design work, that is great. But things need to get done the day of the wedding, so having a friend or other person to set up and give direction would have been nice.
Wedding Vendors
Photography: Brett & Jessica // Wedding Dress: Olga's Bridal and Formal Couture, Raleigh, NC // Bride's Shoes: Kelly & Katie, "Dahlia" pump // Bridesmaid Dresses: White House Black Market // Hair Stylist: Hair Cut 101 // Makeup Artist: Hair Cut 101 // Groom Attire: Indochino // Paper Goods: designed by Brandon // Catering: Jackalope's View // Music: Carl Griewisch // invitations: designed by Brandon // bluegrass band: Brian Hicks
