This colorful barn wedding from Simply by Tamara Nicole is bound to make your week brighter! I love the eclectic centerpieces, especially those bottle table numbers. And the record guest book is a genius idea for a music loving couple!
I’m originally from Nashville, and my husband is from Brooklyn, NY, but we love Seattle. We wanted the vibe of our wedding to combine those three places – PNW food and wines, signature cocktails and a full bar fit for New York and rustic/vintage, slightly preppy country decor. My mom described our wedding as “garden party meets hoedown meets the derby”. We also wanted it to be an all-day party.
I wore my mom’s veil from 1980 when she and my dad got married. She had borrowed her sister’s wedding dress, so this veil was the one thing she had designed especially for her wedding. I loved it – simple and elegant with a spanish lace border.
We wanted to have an outdoor ceremony to show our guests the beautiful Pacific Northwest summer (and get a few games of cornhole going during the cocktail hour.) Pickering Barn was a great location. Guest arrived at 5 and enjoyed signature cocktails/wine/beer in mason glasses in the courtyard before the ceremony. We had the ceremony and cocktail hour outside (it was hot… but worth it) and dinner + dancing in the smaller, wooden hay barn.
The most important thing to us was food and drink. Both of us work in the food & beverage industries, and we wanted it to be on point. At first we thought about doing something southern (a whole pig?) but we realized, our family and friends have had that. Instead, we went with a menu of seasonal pacific northwest ingredients, with a strong northern Italian influence (the head chef is from Italy) and a bit of South African (the owner of the catering company is South African). Most of our guests said it was the best wedding food they had ever eaten – it was basically really good food, not just really good wedding food. We wanted to eat family style; we didn’t want our guests spending time waiting in lines, and we like the casual nature of family style, plus the way that it forces people to talk to each other. It was absolutely incredible.
Color-wise, I envisioned soft pastels (pinks, greens, golds) with bright pops of color from the smaller accents. Seattle has really wonderful flowers that are in bloom in July, so I wanted to showcase those. I used my friend’s antique typewriter to type up one menu per table. It is almost 80 years old. Pretty beautiful, delicate touch. Instead of a guest book, we framed 2 records that were special to us and had guests sign the frames.
We weren’t that into the idea of wedding cakes, but we wanted Carly – our friend and the baker who got the closest to my North Carolina grandma’s style of cooking. We had sour cherry pie, summer peach pie, key lime pie, Coconut Cake with a hint of lemon, double dark chocolate cake, and a maple pecan cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh berries. For our table runner on the cake and pie table, instead of a runner, we laid out my great grandmother’s handkerchiefs that my mom had saved.
Photography | Ciccarelli Photography | Venue | Pickering Barn | Planning | Simply by Tamara Nicole | Desserts | Carly Anderson | Catering | On Safari Foods | Rentals | Pedersen’s Seattle | Invitations | Minted | Entertainment | A New Groove | Gown | Sarah Seven from The Dress Theory | Jewelry | BHLDN | Transportation | Beeline Tours and Remodel Tom
