Part 2 of Carolyn and Alan's Autumn Wedding Day!

My favorite part of the ceremony was "the wooden box." The bride and groom both put a letter of love to each other in the box, along with a bottle of wine... and with their closest friends, they nailed it shut during the ceremony. The idea is that later in their marriage, when things get a little tough or if they have a moment they feel like giving up, they have to open the box, read the letters and drink the wine!!!!! Isn't that beautiful! I am considering making my own box like this!!!

In early October, I had the privilege of shooting this beautiful mountain-top wedding at the Blueberry Villa Winery in Banner Elk. Carolyn Clark, today's stunning bride, is an avid blogger and DIY wedding star writing for yahoo, wedding bee and various other blogs, vlogs and who knows what else- this girl is busy! You can visit one of her sites, Serendipity and Spark, to see her latest creative finds, DIY projects and personal moments of spark.

I love Carolyn's classy old fashioned style...

Sometimes I imagine having a daughter and her possibly curly hair or dark eyes, and her rain boots that I will buy her… and then suddenly I am imagining myself, in my 4 year old body picking flowers and singing in our old walled-off back yard, in my quiet little world of prancing in the spring. I wonder what she will go through- if she would cry in the car because her little feet just wouldn’t point in ballet class, or if she would come home crying from school because somehow the boys in her class found a way to make a sexual innuendo out of her name.

I remember being obsessed with bouquets as a little girl. Every spring I would make a “bouquet” of flowers- just like the brides had, and I would bring them inside with their branchie bugs all over them. I remember once sneaking under the line of single ladies at a wedding and rushing the women to grab that bouquet with my little puffy sleeves and “part-long” hair, and the bride reluctantly giving the throw bouquet to me, and my mother being mad in the car that I stole some chance for a real girl to get married. But I just wanted a bouquet of flowers so bad… the kind they used to make with those old white handles that all the 80’s flowers were pushed in. Today, weddings are much too cool. Ambience, soundtracks, designer dresses, wedding blogs, Do-it-yourself projects, perfectly monogrammed napkins or vintage table clothes… but sometimes, just sometimes after my 1,000th beautiful wedding, I miss that old gymnasium reception with potluck meatballs and punch served in granny glasses- sometimes out of a plugged-in fountain.

And then I think again of my daughter and what her name would be, and I imagine such a beautiful girl with that name, and her mysterious self working as a 20-somethings in a coffee shop, and her quiet world of going home to a tiny apartment and sitting in a clawfoot tub drinking merlot listening to the squeaks of the floors above her, pondering a boy, or the lack of a boy and writing poetry in her head while listening to George Winston… as I am now… listening to George Winston…
And then I imagine the handsome man she will meet, and how he will do many things to woo her and how she will be unsure at first, but maybe his smile is sweet…
And then I think to myself, “my she has a lot to do in her life…” and then I realize I am her but I also want to be her… brand new, a lot to live, tiny apartments and college, dreaming of one day, instead of being in one day and still dreaming of one day.

And as I ponder all this, with my candles, music and sweet tea beside me, my husband walks in and says, “smells like farts and perfume in here,” and then I realize I will probably have a baby boy who says things just like that.

To view the rest of this wedding visit the nouveau store!