We were so excited to bring all of Jaycie and Walter’s ideas to life! Their wedding was the most perfect Spring day at The Farmhouse.
How did you meet your significant other? How did he/she propose?
We met during our freshman year ‘welcome week’ at Temple University in 2016. The first day Jaycie moved in, she connected with a girl named Alison on her floor. Alison invited a few of the girls to go to a volleyball game to meet up with a few friends she knew from high school. Those friends coincidentally were Walter’s suite mates who invited him to attend the game too.
We quickly became friends and then best friends. We took a few classes together our second semester which made us even closer friends, we genuinely felt like two magnets trying to fight off the pull because we were worried about the implications for our friendship. On April 6th, 2017, before finishing our first year of school, we decided to stop fighting fate and officially became a couple. We graduated as college sweethearts and a little over two years later, on September 18th, 2022, Walter proposed at Dalton Flower Farm.
Plants and flowers became a hobby for us during COVID, it felt like the perfect spot.
Why did you choose The Farmhouse for your wedding? What were some of your favorite things about the venue?
We chose the Farmhouse because we simply couldn’t imagine picking any of the other venues we had been looking at. We remember pulling up to the property and being amazed by the giant trees and landscaping in general. It was fall, when things start to die, but we remember the greenery holding on and still being enjoyable, which made us excited to see what it looks like for spring weddings because we could tell a lot of thought and effort goes into their greenery. When we actually started touring the inside of the space, Jaycie couldn’t get the gold mirrors and similar details out of her mind. It felt less like a business and more of an experience. We didn’t feel like we were snapping our fingers at people while explaining the vision; the entire time, we felt the Farmhouse staff was incredibly descriptive, welcoming, and excited for us, not trying to rush us out so they could talk to the next couple to beg for their business.
The honesty of the venue was also greatly appreciated. The venue informed us how a ceremony would go if the weather was not cooperating and how the space would transform from ceremony to reception if indoors was necessary. The venue honored everything we originally had signed on for even if they made changes, they honored everything that was included and that specific price from the moment we signed on. The staff was incredibly friendly and even helped us set up last minute flowers the day before the wedding and put them all in specific spots that we wanted, which was fun to do all together. We never felt like they were trying to take over our day. They were taking what we wanted and just adding their professional touch and experience to really tie everything together.
The venue space, way in which we were embraced by staff, and the general price point of the Farmhouse makes it unique. Weddings ARE expensive but we genuinely feel the Farmhouse’s inclusive packaging was the most realistic option, particularly for having been 24 and new in our careers when we started the wedding planning process.
What was one of your favorite moments on your wedding day?
One of Jaycie’s favorite moments was right before the ceremony officially started. I remember being a little nervous prior to walking out to the ceremony space and deciding to do a a group “yay” with the girls, something we like to do when we are all together and trying to encourage or hype ourselves up. The crowd and groomsmen, who we couldn’t see, cheered back at us, which in the moment felt really sweet and encouraging. I found out after the fact that Walter was even more nervous than me and he didn’t realize there was a built-in slight delay rather than a 4:00 sharp start. He told me that hearing us all cheer “yay” grounded him and made him less anxious and more excited because he presumed we had been cheering each other up all morning. He was excited for whatever energy the girls were about to bring. Our group cheers leading up to the moment Walter and I locked eyes will forever be one of my favorite moments. I thought I was going to be a sobbing, emotional mess but I felt full of energy, love, and life as I walked towards him.
Walter’s favorite moment was getting to see Jaycie walk down the aisle, as well as reading our vows to each other. It felt like an eternity that day not getting to see Jaycie, and seeing as I was unaware we were not starting at 4 (totally could’ve been my own fault and forgetting), it had me pacing. But once I heard that music start, I knew all the planning and preparation we had put into the day was going to make it the best night of my life, and it surely was. Our vows were also incredibly special because while they were unique, we had very similar themes despite never talking or discussing our vows with each other at all despite both wanting to say one similar sentence. The sun was peaking out beautiful at this specific moment which just made the moment even more special.
What song did you choose for your first dance? What other special details did you include on your big day?
The days leading up to the wedding were just as special as our wedding itself. A few of the bridesmaids were able to go to Dalton Farms, where we got engaged, to pick flowers for our floral arrangements. All of the flower arrangements were hand picked and later put together by a few of the bridesmaids, the bride, groom, and placed on tables by the entire bridal party. Doing our own arrangements was important because we love plants and wanted to be responsible for bringing our own ideas to life. Tulips and other spring seasonal flowers like a light pink rose ended up being the central point of our arrangements and we’re excited to have been able to center our arrangements around what was locally in season.
We chose Never Tear Us Apart by INXS. Our most special details were the involvement of Purcy Jackson and Wolf, our cats. They were included as our signature cocktails, cake toppers, and big head cut outs.
If you had one piece of advice for future couples, what would it be?
Follow your intuition during your planning process rather than doing what you think others want you to do. It’s about you and your love, not making everybody in the world or your life happy. As you transition into a new chapter with the love of your life, it’s important to prioritize building the structure or framework for the life you want to live together as a pair. Other people close to you matter, but during this particular moment, choose yourselves!
During our wedding week and weekend, the pair of us had created a shared note on our phone where when we had a spare moment, we would both fill in “glimmers” we wanted to remember. This included both the big, important moments but also the silly little mundane that we may have otherwise forgotten about if it wasn’t written somewhere. We encourage all couples to do something similar. The week, the morning of, and your wedding itself will go so incredibly fast. We blinked and all of our planning and wedding itself became memories rather than something we were simply looking forward to. We recommend telling the people closest to you leading up to your wedding to note or remember all of their glimmers so that when you connect with them after the wedding to debrief, you have glimmers to add on! We now have a little glimmer journal filled with 10 pages of wedding highlights built by ourselves and loved ones.
Absolutely make sure you stick with your partner the entire night. We stuck together for probably 95% of the night outside of bathroom breaks and short stints with other people, and ee could not have been happier. The night was about us, and we were extremely happy we stuck true to keeping it about us rather than focusing on everyone else.
VENDORS
venue || The Farmhouse
photography || Stone Weddings If you want documentary style photography where you don’t have to pose 10,000,000,000 times with everyone and miss out on your own evening, these are the people to go with! Kseni and Geoff are absolutely incredible! They are some of the most down to earth people we have ever met and were willing to capture every moment we wanted in exactly the fashion that we liked!
wedding cake || Desserts by Dana has some incredible flavors that we had no idea we could have for a wedding cake. Walter is not a big cake person, but we both fell in love with the orange creamsicle cake that they offer! And they do personalized designs to make the aesthetic that you want!
accommodations || Hilton Christiana was a great and very spacious hotel. The rooms were clean, the hotel management decorated our honeymoon suite to make it romantic, and they are very accommodating for everything we needed! Only wish was that their shuttle took more people so that we didn’t have to worry about getting our own shuttle bus, but that was relatively minor.
transportation || First Charter School Bus. The Hilton hotel bus only carried 15 people at a time and only did 3 trips, so we needed another shuttle bus, and the school bus option was great! It was an awesome experience, and they were on time with getting our guests from the hotel to the venue as well as being on time at the end of the night to bring our guests back to the hotel.
MUA || makeup was led by Medeira Becker at Fusion
dress || Anthropologie, Jenny Yoo
suit || Men’s Wearhouse is definitely the easiest place to rent a suit for a bridal party when everyone is not living in the same spot. It allowed everyone to go to whatever location is closest to them and just let them know the name of the groom and they were able to pull up exactly what each groomsmen and parent were supposed to wear, sized them up, and gave everyone their suits a week before the event to verify that it fit.