Today’s fabulous featured wedding comes from Tara Swain of Tara Swain Photography.  Tara Swain is an East Texas and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas based wedding photographer.  Tara has been so sweet and accommodating to GSS and we have truly enjoyed working with her on this feature.

Kristen and Frank were married on November 11, 2011 at the Hickory Street Annex in Dallas, Texas.  How cool is that date (11.11.11)?!  (Frank wanted that date so he would always remember their anniversary!)  Kristen was kind enough to answer a few questions for us:

How did you and Frank meet? We met through mutual friends at a bar called “The Flying Saucer“.  It’s amazing really that we didn’t meet until we did because we’ve had a lot of the same friends a couple years before we actually met. Which means we happened to miss each other at parties and strangely enough at the “saucer”.   And I won’t make it too long, its been a long running joke that was brought up many times at the wedding, my nana told me for years while I was living with them that I would never meet a nice boy at a bar.

Side Note:  Did you notice that the design on Frank’s wedding band is a fingerprint???  Here’s the story behind that: Frank’s ring is my finger print. It’s actually my entire first finger, I wish we had gotten a better picture of what I call the “top” to his ring with the swirls of my fingerprint. But the thought is that my finger is wrapped around his. It was actually a surprise, he didn’t get to see his ring until our “first look” pictures before the ceremony.  LOVE!!!

How long have you been together? We have been together going on 4 years now

We LOVE these signs!  They are absolutely TO. DIE. FOR.  Where did you get them?  Our beautiful signs were made by my uncle and myself.  I’d say for the most part, that since a lot of work went into them, it was a family effort. But the two of us did most of the work on them . As I said before, with my grandparents owning the Uncommon Market, they actually had the frames that I painted and then we turned them into chalkboards. They gave us one of the frames for a gift so we can always have it in our home

How did Frank propose? I am not an easy one to surprise, I will tell you that.   He wanted so badly to surprise me.  Every Wednesday (whether we were together or not, so for the past 5 years or so) we go to the saucer for “glass night”.  When you go, they have a beer of the night and you get to keep your glass.  A group of us go every Wednesday and we collect glasses and it’s a time we can all hang out.  On random Wednesday, September 1 to be exact, we did our usual thing and went to the saucer. I never thought anything of it, just because that’s what we always did on Wednesday. Well, when they brought our glasses out, turns out mine was just a bit different Frank had a glass made that said marry me. Took me a while to realize that my glass was different, he had already started talking when I realized what exactly was going on.  And the rest is history

What sold you on your wedding venue? My grandparents own a big antique store in the design district of Dallas called The Uncommon Market. So my entire life, I’ve grown up around unique items and things that are generally just “old”. So we knew we wanted something different, and Hickory Street Annex was perfect for us. The building itself I feel could stand alone without much decoration, which was very important for us.

Your dress is gorgeous, where did you get it and how did you know it was “the one”? Everyone who knows me, knows that I am not a “dress girl”. I still don’t even wear make up. So I was terrified of the dress process. I happened to find my dress online and wanted to go try it on. It really was the only one that I felt was really “me” in looking online and through magazines.  It was a Melissa Sweet Fern dress and we got it at Priscilla of Boston that sadly is closing its doors after more than 60 years It was the first one I tried on and the only dress I’ve worn that I didn’t want to take off.

What was your “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue”? My nana has a gold coin that she wore in her shoe during her wedding and every girl in our family has had in in their’s, this served as my something old and borrowed.  My something new and blue was my garter which was an amazing Etsy find.

How did you choose your wedding color palette? As you probaby saw in some of the pictures, my sister and Grandad found an amazing sign in Europe that they gave to us for a Christmas present. It is an old pub sign that amazingly enough says “the Flying Saucer”. We took colors from the sign and used it as inspiration for our palatte.

Do you have any advice for bride and grooms that are in the planning process? Don’t be afraid to go against the norm. I was told time and time again that I wasn’t a “traditional bride”.  I hated to hear that because other than our decor, maybe we were very traditional.  But do what makes you happy. We had a very comfortable wedding, it wasn’t super structured at all.  I used to bartend at Southfork Ranch during weddings and I learned what made guests happy and what made guests bored. We have had tons of compliments on how “easy going” our wedding was for everyone.

What song did you dance to for your first dance? We had Ricki Derek and the Vegas Six as our band. I have some serious love for the old crooners. I’ve been a Sinatra fan since before I can remember which is exactly who they are. I’ve heard Ricki Derek be called the Frank Sinatra of Dallas. Loving so many of his songs it was hard for us to choose. Our “real” song he actually didn’t have on his playlist which is “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” by the Platters (which I will tell you we snuck a dance to while we were getting ready for the reception when it was playing on the ipod) but for our official first dance with guests we danced to “It Had to Be You” we found it very fitting for the both of us.

What was your favorite part of your big day? It is so hard to nail down a favorite part.  But our entire reception was just perfect.  Every toast that was done, ALL the dancing, our amazing band.  Our goal was to have a celebration of bringing two families together and to celebrate our love for each other…and thats exactly what we had.  A big party of family and friends with good drinks, fabulous food, and amazing music.

Vendors:

Venue: Hickory Street Annex 

Dress: Melissa Sweet “Fern“

Cake: All desserts were made by friends and family

Floral: Brianne Denton with Blue Lotus

Linens: BBJ Linens

Catering: Glory House Catering

DJ/Band: Ricki Derek and the Vegas Six

Videographer: sadly none

Wedding Favors: My father and I made all the jam you saw in the pictures. Which it took a long time to make 144 jars of jam, but by far my favorite party favor!

Invitations/Wedding Stationery: Bella Figura

Event Planner: The Bride herself (Along with her amazing family!)

Thank you so much, Tara, for sharing this amazing wedding with us!  Please stop by her website and blog and show her some love!  And thank you, Kristen, for taking your time to answer our questions!  We wish you and Frank a lifetime FULL of love, laughter, and happiness!!!  May every day be better than the last!

If you have an engagement, wedding, day after, or anniversary session that you would like featured- Please send it to us at submissions@groomsoldseparately.com.  We HEART submissions!

Invitations/Wedding Stationery: Bella Figura

Event Planner: The Bride herself (along with her amazing family)