Interviewing Bride: Luxurious & Intimate Winery Wedding

Vendor list at bottom.

BRIRO: What was most daunting about the wedding planning process for you?

L: I was stressed because we couldn’t pick a date until we picked a venue. It hit me after we got engaged that I’m a very type A personality, and I wanted to plan things out fully. I was staying up until 3am to plan, and I didn’t even know where to start. I knew I didn’t want to wait a full year to be married, and we got engaged in March. For location, we considered having an airbnb as a venue, but I wanted to have the wedding feel without tons of people, so after we picked our location it was a bit less daunting.

BRIRO: What location did you land on?

L: We found Kinshaven Winery, and after reaching out saw that Kasey Davenport (the venue owner & florist) was booked for the year, but since we were only doing 50 people she squeezed us in.

BRIRO: What made you go with a smaller guest list?

L: One of the many reasons we chose to go with a smaller guest list was because I care a lot what other people think, and I didn’t want to worry the whole day about what other people are thinking, or if something is going to go wrong.

BRIRO: How’d you decide who to invite?

L: Deciding who to invite was hard because my parents have friends that have known me since I was little, who they wanted to come. But what I did was I just started with immediate family, and originally wan’t even going to have bridesmaids because I have cousins and friends, so it would have been hard to choose. But I wanted to invite my closest friends there anyway so we thought, might as well have bridesmaids if they’re already going to be there

BRIRO: You chose to have a wedding planner for your wedding, what was that searching process like?

L: I found Kasey online, and she had so many good reviews. I reached out to her before I looked at venues and she said she could only do the wedding if it was at her winery, and she could do the full blown wedding planning because it was such a small group. Because I can get stressed over details, having a wedding planner was super helpful, I didn’t have to worry about timeline or anything day of. It was helpful to have someone who knew what they were doing and knew the venue so well. She knew that we wanted to stay at the lower end budget wise, and did a great job at helping us have an event that fit our budget but was also luxurious feeling. It was the small details, like being able to have nicer dishes since the guest list was so small, that I really appreciate.

BRIRO: What was your goal for the bridal party?

L: we didn’t do a maid of honor or best man because we didn’t want to put responsibility on people who weren’t in Walla Walla and didn’t know the area. It would have been stressful for them to have to be responsible for certain parts of the wedding that they felt they couldn’t help in. This was my outlook on bridesmaids, I wanted to make it as lest stressful as I could for them. I”ve heard of a lot of brides that are so picky and what I tried to focus on was knowing that they were my closest friends and I wanted them by my side. I searched a searched for hours to find a website that had different styles and different sizes that they could pick from. I didn’t tell them how to do their hair, nails or get their makeup professionally done. I let them get whatever shoe they wanted — and I heard I was being a chill bride. But I just knew that I was spending 5 months planning something and once the weekend got here I just didn’t care about the rest. I had them bring neutral pajamas they already had for the getting ready, and I just focused on them being chill and comfortable, with their personalities showing through. The morning of, I remember I started cleaning, and they all just pitched in because they knew it was something that would help calm my nerves. My mom was like, were you really cleaning?

BRIRO: What was something you were glad you invested in for media?

L: I don’t regret hiring a videographer, I loved having a video! I waited a long time for it, and once I got it, my whole family was obsessed with it. It was hard to make that purchase since you don’t see anything for so long, but it encapsulates your day and takes you back in a different way than pictures do. You hear parts of the day that you’d otherwise forget, people’s voices, how everything looked — it really is all your senses. I remember people mentioning they regretted not investing in video, so I thought, I’m just going to go for it!.

BRIRO: What would you have spent less on possibly?

L: One thing I feel like we splurged a lot on was food, because we were focusing on the intimate family dinner aspect of the night, and didn’t have dancing. Looking back, I was so hyped up I barely ate. I think we could have spent less on the food, found something cheaper and it would have been liked just as much. I’d really recommend all brides to make sure they get food in them, not just a snack, but a full meal before, because the build up is so much and you’re just going going going, that when dinner comes you might just feel like you can’t eat.

BRIRO: What helped most the morning of?

L: I know I keep saying this but the morning went by so fast. One thing I liked about the morning of, since only my mom and I and one bridesmaid were getting our hair and makeup done, we didn’t have to start getting ready until 11. We could sleep in, so we went to Walla Walla Roastery and got coffee, pastries, and watched the end of the movie we had started. It let me sink in and say, “wow, I’m getting married”. Having that first part of the morning where I could chill and breathe — it helped.

BRIRO: What was the most stressful part of planning?

L: Getting the dress was stressful for me. There aren’t any wedding dress stores in Walla Walla, but this is the day I dreamed of since I was little, getting to go out and find a dress. I wanted my cousins, aunts, mom and Kurts’ mom there too, and since I had family in boise I went there to look around.The first shop I went to everything was my budget or below, but things didn’t get there in 5 months time. I found one I loved, and they told me they didn’t know if they could rush it but they’d make some calls. I was honest with her and told her I had an appointment at another store, and she was so nice and said the other store was a really good shop. When I got there they told me I could take floor sample’s home, which worked well for the timeline. I tried on several, and there were definitely ones I would have loved to try on but they were outside my budget.

BRIRO: What were some of the external stressors you felt while planning?

L:There was a lot of external stress from places like tiktok for pre-wedding day beauty routines. I was just very aware of how much money all those things would be but I couldn’t help but wonder if I should be spray tanning and getting lip fillers or all these other treatments before the day of. Because of how much money I knew I wanted to spend on this, I just knew it wasn’t realistic to spend more money on things I didn’t need. I think there were lots of great places for inspiration, but a lot of them make me feel like I wasn’t doing enough. Especially when it came to bridesmaids, TikTok showed brides having these weekends that were thousands of dollars and getting lots of stuff for all their bridesmaids. TikTok really is very commercialized and you get inlfluenced to do things you don’t have to. I liked getting to choose the right people and know its about them and not the things. They didn’t care what they were getting, they were just happy to spend time with you.

BRIRO: What did you use for wedding website and invites?

L: I used Minted Weddings for my wedding website, and got my invites off them as well. The planner we had was certified so we got a discount through them. It had the guest list, invites, and wedding website all in one. It was nice to have it all in one place. This is obvious but I realized I had to send out invites per family, not per members so it was much easier to get that number down.

BRIRO: What did you especially like in terms of your families’ experience of the wedding?

L: One thing I really liked was that none of my parents and family had to do any work. Some people liked pitching in but since so many of our family and friends were flying in, we wanted to have rehearsal dinner somewhere that was not too expensive but also able to sit 20+ people. We were able to go to the Maple counter for breakfast, but we got separate tables, had a small rehearsal and then had the afternoon and evening to do what we wanted. I considered eloping, for me I wanted family to be a part of it, with smaller weddings, you can make it as small as you want, there's always going to be someone influencing your way of thinking, that’s the word, “traditional” it makes you think you have to do things a certain way, but that’s not how things are done, don’e let other opinions tell you what not to do, focus on your partner and what you want and making it your special day.

VENDOR LIST:

Venue: Kinshaven Winery

Event Planner: Kasey Davenport

Dress: Bespoke Bride

Veil: Bliss Gown

Signage: Pearly Paper Design

Bridesmaid Dresses: Selfie Leslie

Wedding Band: Mejuri

Videographer: After95 Creative

Photographer: Casa BRIRO

Wedding Website: Minted Weddings