Saying that this blog post is going to have a special place in my heart feels like an understatement. A year ago, Mike and I met my parents and three friends at a small law office in downtown Clarksville to become husband and wife. It was short and simple and I wouldn’t change it for anything. But we knew right then that we wanted to do something special to renew our vows–to have a ceremony that all of our family and friends could attend and celebrate with us. So we started planning (one of my favorite things to do!!!).
Mike came up with a pretty awesome idea almost immediately. He wanted to rent a large cabin in Pigeon Forge, TN that could host all of our guests and provide lots of things to entertain us all. Guys, I never realized that there were so many big cabins out there! I can’t even tell you how many different ones we looked at before deciding on the Nottingham Lodge. It had just enough space for all of our guests without feeling like we were going to be too separated from one another or wasting space. And since we were having this vow renewal in March in the-weather-changes-multiple-times-a-day Tennessee, we wanted to have an area within the cabin to be able to host the ceremony in case of rain or cold. The living room in the Nottingham Lodge was perfect and I loved all the big large windows. I had to make sure there would be lots of natural light for photos, of course!
The photographer in me knew that I had to splurge on a few things for our special day: hair & makeup and gorgeous flowers. And I am so happy that I did! I’m more than a little challenged in the Primping Department and Heidi made sure that I felt beautiful and camera-ready. Also, I don’t think the ceremony would have been quite as stunning without all the florals around the fireplace.
I brought along all of my equipment to photograph our details of the day before the vendors started to arrive and I was locked away in a bedroom getting all girl-ified. I literally got up with the sun willingly (and for those of you that know me well, you know how much I love my sleep!) to make sure I had all the images I wanted to take squared away before guests started to arrive. We had people there from 4 different states! Mike and I were beyond grateful that we had so many people travel for our ceremony. And I want to give a VERY SPECIAL SHOUT OUT to Justin Hyder for photographing our portraits and ceremony! We would not have any of those photos without him. Thanks a ton, Justin!
After dinner, we changed into our comfy clothes and relaxed. We truly could not have asked for a better group of people to celebrate with. I only wish we would have had more time with everyone! Thank you again to all of you that came. Each of you have a special place in our lives together and celebrating our vow renewal was amplified a million times over by having you there with us.
XOXOXOXOXO
-Mike & Christy
Dress Store | WEDDING BELLES
Florist | CACHEPOT
Hair & Makeup | Heidi with FRINGE SALON
Venue | NOTTINGHAM LODGE
[…] are directly integrated into the day’s events! I couldn’t help but think back to my own vow renewal that Mike and I had back in 2019 when he came home from a military deployment. That weekend holds some of our favorite memories that […]