Who to choose, who to choose....

Once we decided to get married at Sean's church (Holy Family Catholic Church in Brentwood), we needed to decide where to have the reception. The first place we visited was Lillie Belle's in Historic Downtown Franklin.

Lillie Belle's is a historic Queen Anne style Victorian house that was built in 1892. They serve lunch and host teas, baby and bridal showers, rehearsal dinners and wedding receptions. If you want you can even getting married at the house. While it is quite charming, in the end, it was not the style that we envisioned for our wedding. http://www.lilliebelles.net/index.html

The next site that we visited was CJ's Off the Square which also located in Historic Downtown Franklin. While CJ's was much more our style with it's indoor art gallery and outside tent with garden, it was not large enough to host all of our guests. http://www.cjsoffthesquare.com/

Sean's mom works for Saturn and told us about the local UAW hall. We agreed to check it, but to be honest, I was apprehensive about anything called a hall. In the end, we were pleasantly surprised. The "hall" was very open with high ceilings and a large dance floor. It also has beautiful chandeliers and sconces along with walls. Plus, we got a great deal which allowed us to put the extra money toward the lighting I really wanted.

Now that we knew where the festivites would be taking place, it was time to start with the many other factors. At the top of my list was finding a photographer that was a mix of creativity, modern and fun. After doing a lot of researchand some recommendations, I narrowed our choiced down to three. Our first appointment was with Whitney and Peter Carlson of Dove Wedding Photography. Instantly, I was drawn to them and their style. They are this young, artsy, down to earth married couple. While Peter mostly handles the business affairs, Whitney and Jenn our the actual photographers. The other cool thing about their company is that Jenn resides in Atlanta, so they cover a wider area than just Nashville.

After our meeting with them, I took a day to think it over and decided to book them. We did not even meet with the other two photographers that I had on our final list. My gut was telling me to go with Dove, and so we did. Not only did they end up shooting our wedding, we also did an engagement session with them last May. I was so thrilled with that single experience, that I also decided to do a bridal session.

Today, I am so very thankful that we chose Dove. Not only do we have some amazingly gorgeous photos that we will treasure forever, I also feel that we made some new friends. There will definitely be more to come here in regards to Dove because they were one of my favorite, if not my fave, wedding vendor.

Please check out their site. http://www.doveweddingphotography.com/ If you visit their blog and scroll down a few posts, you will see some photos from our wedding day. http://www.doveweddingphotography.blogspot.com/

In my next post, I will post some of my fave pics that the extremely talented Whitney and Jenn captured. Until then, be full of love; joy and peace.