Real bride Brittany said I Do to groom Joe in a vintage-style beach wedding that made us envious! Her luxe lace wedding dress with custom illusion lace sleeves played up the classic and romantic vibes she has also envisioned for herself. We love how Joe kept his style chic with a black tux and bow tie. White flowers and gorgeous burgundy bridesmaid dresses adding the color cues for this vintage wedding.
The engagement story
After we finished breakfast with Joe’s family at a beach club, he asked me to go for a walk on the beach. I hesitated, wondering why he didn’t ask anyone else to join, but he insisted they would meet us down there. As we walked further down the beach, I spotted a giant heart made of red roses in the sand – 100 to be exact. I immediately stopped in my tracks asking him what it was for. He quickly answered, “Don’t worry about it.” He led me closer to them and eventually brought her to stand in the middle of the heart. At that moment, I finally put together what was going on. After five years together my college sweetheart got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. After I gathered myself, I looked over and saw my family, who I thought was in out of the state traveling, there to surprise me. Joe made sure my mom, dad, and sister were all there. Joined by our families they spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying and all went out to dinner that night. I am the hardest person to surprise and I was totally in a state of shock.
Finding the wedding dress
When I set out to find a dress, I truly didn’t know what style I was looking for. I knew I wanted two things, elegant lace illusion sleeves, and a beautiful long train. Once I started trying different styles on I decided on a fit-and-flare, mermaid style. Living in South Florida, it was extremely difficult to find a dress that I had envisioned with long lace detailed sleeves. I knew I had found the right designer when my bridal boutique said Martina Liana would allow me to customize the top and back of my dress and allow me to have the elegant sleeves I wanted. My seamstress at the bridal boutique hand placed and individually sewed on Martina Liana lace onto the illusion sleeves. The end result was my dream dress, completely customized to what I wanted.
The Big Day
After getting engaged we set out to plan the wedding of our dreams. We envisioned a classic and romantic wedding. We made a list of the factors that were most important to us and that would impact our decision-making. The biggest one being the amount of out-of-town guests we knew would be in attendance. When selecting our hotel ballroom venue our decision was easily made by the fact guests could stay where the reception would be, not to mention the beach was just steps away. Another thing that was important to us was having a band, we wanted our guests to have fun and dance the night away.
When it came time to styling our wedding, we wanted to create a classic theme with traditional touches. We both attended and fell in love at Florida State University so we chose burgundy, gold, and ivory as our colors, which naturally paired with our fall wedding. For flowers, we chose white flowers with lush greens and hints of creamy neutrals.
When we think back to our wedding, one of our most special moments was when we were sitting next to each other at our sweetheart table in our love seat sharing our first meal together as husband and wife. We were truly able to soak in the moment and cherish our time together. We took a moment to look around the room and appreciate all of our friends and family who were there to share in the celebration of our marriage.
