Hey y’all! Planning a wedding in the middle of a worldwide pandemic has its challenges, but these vendors went above and beyond to deliver the absolute best experience possible for us! I wanted to highlight my top 5 vendors that we used to make our wedding day and reception so memorable.
Venue: Cooper’s Ridge
Selecting Cooper’s Ridge as our wedding venue was the best decision that we made throughout the whole wedding-planning process. Brandi met with us several times leading up to the big day(s) to make sure everything was perfect. Cooper’s Ridge is a relatively new event venue in Mid-Missouri. They have 38 scenic acres with open fields, a couple lakes, and a huge event center with a beautiful rustic feel. We fell in love with the outdoor ceremony site with handmade benches and a small lake behind the arch. They also have a ton of gorgeous decor that you can rent for a small fee. This was a huge bonus in my eyes because I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on decorations!
Photographer: Amanda Musselman Photography
The one piece of wedding advice I received when booking vendors was that your photographer is the most important vendor you will have. Twenty years down the road, you probably won’t remember how the food tasted, what songs people danced to, or what shoes you wore. But you will remember how your photos turned out (and you’ll probably have them hanging on the walls still too!). A good photographer can make any setting look beautiful with the right lighting and posing. Amanda went above and beyond to capture the most amazing photographs from our ceremony and reception. She made us feel relaxed and comfortable in front of the camera and captured all the joy we felt celebrating our love!
Photo Booth: Blue Diamond Events
I was actually super nervous about booking a photo booth for our wedding. I absolutely love taking photos, but I wasn’t sure if our guests would be as excited to use it. The photo booth was probably the biggest hit of the night and everyone LOVED IT! We booked the Diamond option with Printing so that guests could take the photo strips home with them as a little souvenir to remember the night.
Menswear: The Black Tux
One difficult aspect of planning a wedding during a pandemic was that a lot of stores that rent out groomsmen apparel were closed. Luckily, Matt had used The Black Tux when he was a groomsmen in a wedding a year ago and loved the experience. All of Matt’s groomsmen agreed that the rental process was super easy and the sizing accuracy was very impressive (especially since you order everything through their website online).
Flowers: Amazon
Another unexpected obstacle of planning a wedding during a pandemic was that a lot of florists weren’t able to guarantee what types of flowers they’d be getting delivered the week of our wedding. Because of this, we decided to buy artificial flowers and arrange them ourselves. Not only did this save a ton of money, but we were able to use them again two months later at the reception. You do have to be careful when purchasing artificial flowers because some can look really tacky. We purchased all of ours from Amazon and were so impressed with how real they looked and how easy they were to arrange! If you want to see which flowers we purchased from Amazon to make these arrangements, click here!
