From the Bride: Our wedding day was so special because I got to marry my best friend. When we met, it was a crazy coincidence that my father’s name is also James…as well as both of my grandfather’s AND James’ grandfather. It was like it was meant to be! We loved all our conversations and spent every second we could together. No matter how long we got to spend with each other, we always wanted more time. Now we have forever!

The day of our wedding was perfect! We wanted to have an enchanting, timeless, classic “love story” wedding and our vendors did an incredible job bringing our dream to life. We chose a venue large enough so we could have both the ceremony and reception in one (air-conditioned) space. Pink was my grandmother’s favorite color and it was important to me to incorporate shades of pink and red in our flowers. I was nervous because those colors can be kind of tricky to pull off, but we hired a florist we trusted and she designed the most beautiful flower arrangements I’ve ever seen. Walking into the venue was like walking into a fairy tale!

All of the little details were so much fun to plan and it made our wedding feel special to us. Since we had a “love story” wedding, we placed romance books on the tables and a typewriter near the guestbook. We had a Kissing Booth themed photo-booth too and everyone had a blast taking fun pictures! I love antiques, so we added little notes of vintage decor throughout the venue. For our toast, we had the caterer make the punch my grandmother used to make every year at Christmas. It was a nice, little tradition for my family to remember. To honor James’ father who passed away, we placed a piece of chocolate at each table setting because he loved candy! I also set his father’s old hat at the first chair as a surprise for James when he walked into the ceremony. The first dance we shared was to “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran. A long time ago, we faced a tough day together, but that night we danced to “Perfect” in our living room and I think we both realized everything would be okay as long as we had each other. Almost a year later, we danced to the song again on our anniversary and James knelt down on one knee and asked me to marry him…so of course it was the perfect song for us to share on our first dance as husband and wife!

Spending the evening with our family and friends was so important to us. We opted to have dinner at a table with our wedding party, rather than a sweetheart table, so we could enjoy time with our loved ones. We also had a close friend of James officiate the ceremony, making every piece of our wedding so meaningful.

Bride’s Advice: A piece of advice I would give is to take a few seconds throughout the day to just appreciate the moment. The day will fly by so fast and it’s something you never want to forget. I was so happy our DJ asked if we wanted to have a private last dance…it was something I had never considered and I’m so glad we chose to do it because it gave us both a chance to slow down and reflect on the most magical day of our lives.

Andrea + James' Hopkinsville Wedding!