This styled shoot at Front Porch Farms is just stunning… loving all the details and elements:  birds’ nests, burlap with ruffles {a twist on the country-rustic look}, lace {lace, and more lace!}, black wicker placemats, hydrangeas, wildflowers and wood.  Tiffani’s styling showcased a lot of our beautiful Front Porch Props as well {note the washboard “I do” sign, candy stand, whiskey barrels, farm tables, lanterns, and picture frames!}.

Dress:  The Bride Room

Florals:  Belle Fleurs

Styling:  Creative Design Events

Paper Goods:  Something Detailed

Cake Designer: Jo’s Custom Cakes and Catering, Inc.

Photography:  Hurst Photography

Venue:  Front Porch Farms

Models:  Chelsea Rochelle & Janee Proffitt

Our story begins with the help of our families. I know that sounds like some sort of arranged marriage, but that was the furthest thing from their minds. My father and Ben’s step-father had worked with one another for quite some time. One year, as a Christmas gift, my father hoping to help out Ben’s step-father with some much needed relaxation, bought a gift card to a spa as advised by my older sister, an aesthetician. Well, the thought was with good intentions, but Ben’s step-father couldn’t follow through. So the gift was passed down to Ben’s mom, and she too was a little hesitant. Not wanting the card to go to waste, Ben’s mom offered the gift to

him, and Ben, not being afraid to try something new, took her up on the offer. Little did Ben know what he was truly getting into and what offer he was taking up.

So to sum up a few years, Ben used the gift card to where my sister works, and they got to know one another. One night my sister told me about a guy she wanted me to meet; I got introduced to Ben, and we just hit it off from the start. It was a start, and I knew that it would be an end as well, the end to my searching for the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Throughout our years together, we spent some summer vacations with family in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. It became a special place for us and the fitting place for Ben to plan his proposal. One night after dinner, Ben asked if I wanted to take a walk on the beach. Not wanting to pass up some breath taking scenery I agreed, but it would not be the scenery that took my breath away. We made it down to the beach, and Ben talked about how this place meant a lot to us. He took my hand and commented about the ring he had bought for me from Kiawah the year before and stated he felt it was time that he gave me another one. He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. With tears of joy and between sobs, I said “yes”.

We chose Front Porch Farms for our wedding because we knew from our first visit it would be the perfect, memorable place to begin our lives together as husband and wife.

Date: October 22, 2011

Matt and Michelle met five years ago when they were neighbors in an apartment complex.  (Although, Matt attests they met previously in Cherry Hall on Western’s campus - Michelle says she doesn’t remember – Matt says he remembers watching her walking to class and always thought she was beautiful).

While they were neighbors Michelle would always peek out to see if Matt was on his front porch, and if he was, she would casually wander onto her front porch as well.  (She also hovered near windows when he was coming and going, trying to catch a wave from him).

One night, Michelle decided to take the plunge- she was going to invite Matt to hang out with her.  She was very nervous and came up with a silly reason to knock on his door: there was a car parked out front with its lights still on.  She took a big breath, sauntered across the hallway, and knocked on his door.  He opened the door and Michelle preceeded to warn him about the car out front with the lights and if it was his, he should go turn them off so as not to run down the battery.  Matt then replied, “You know I don’t drive that car, you’ve seen me in my white truck.”  Red in the face, Michelle asked Matt to come join her friends in her apartment, he came over with his friends and they’ve been together ever since!

We met through a mutual friend (Steve’s then roommate) in Nashville. I was playing music with her in the living room, as Steve was just coming from a long day at school…he was not amused that she had invited someone over (again). He finally came around and we became friends.

A few weeks later, I played my first ever show in Nashville at the Radio Cafe. Steve was in attendance and, though I didn’t know it at the time, he was recording the whole thing. I went to his house to pick up my guitar later (right before going home for Christmas), and he had made me a CD. He said, ”I figured you would want to play this for your family…I mean, it’s your first show in Nashville!” That really touched me, and I realized there was something more to Steve than just an awesome beard.

All the pieces just sort of fell into place after that…

April 2, 2011

Brent and I have known each other for a long time.  Our families have both been members of the same church for many years.  We both were very active in our church youth group, except that given the age difference we were never in the youth group together.

Flash forward to the Summer of 2007.  Brent had moved back to Nashville and I was working at our church as the Children’s Intern.  During Children’s Vacation Bible School several of the ladies at church began talking about Brent Byrd and how he was such a good catch!  My exact words were “No not never would I ever date Brent Byrd!”  (Little did I know what God had in store!)

Move along to August of 2009. Brent and I both began attending a new Sunday School class at church.  The class was made up primarily of young couples and a handful of single people (Handful= Me and Brent).  I noticed he was in the class, but never really thought twice.  He later admitted to seeing me in class one of the first weeks and thinking I had cute feet!!  Late one Saturday Brent messaged me on Facebook.  I will still never forget the mix of questions that were going around in my head…which throughly confused me!  (Remember, “No Not ever…”)  Chatting on Facebook led to him flirting with me at church (He still won’t admit it), and then on September 23 we had coffee at Starbucks.

That night at Starbucks I knew that Brent Byrd was something special!  We talked for hours, even as my roommates made a “drive by” to check out the situation, our conversation never ceased!  When we finally decided to leave for the night Brent hugged me not once, but twice.  I knew something exciting was beginning, but still counted it all as a friendship.

Things progressed at a rapidly slow pace.  We didn’t rush into things and we both actually kind of fought the idea of a relationship.

Around the New Year things began to move along a bit faster.  One night we were sitting in the church parking lot after Wednesday night church and it was different.  Both Brent and I knew that we were beginning to fall in love, and nothing we did was going to stop that from happening.

Soon after that, I left for Florida for several months for work.

It was February and I came home from Florida for a long weekend (keep in mind I had only been gone for 3 weeks)!  Things were different, in very good ways.

Spring forward…after I came home from Florida things were even more different.  Conversations of the future changed from “whomever I marry” to “if we get married” to then a little bit later “when we get married!”  We slowly began planning our lives together.    Brent continues to intrigue me each day with his love for Christ and leading worship.  We both love being able to do God’s simple commandment of telling other’s about Christ.

The summer came and went!  During this time we began looking at houses, rings, and talking about a Spring wedding.  Brent had his “unofficial/official” list of things that we wanted to do…get a new job (check), find a house/apartment (check), and THEN buy a ring (CHECK)!!!  He joked about buying a ring and a house in the same day.  Little did I know that the day we went to look at apartments before Thanksgiving(we decided there were too many transitions in our life to continue to make an official decision on buying a house), was the same day he purchased my ring!

The proposal was PERFECT!!!  It was us…which I loved!!  We had planned on eating dinner with Brent’s family on a Sunday night.  When that fell through Brent was still very eager to spend time with me that night (which I loved because I had already gotten to spend so much time with him over Thanksgiving…if you can survive camping at Target the night before Black Friday, I believe you can survive almost anything)!  We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings (In that parking lot months earlier I officially received the title of “Brent Byrd’s girlfriend”), then we got Starbucks (the sight of our first date and where secretly I thought he might “pop” the question someday), then we headed to Opryland Hotel to look at the Christmas lights.  As we walked in each area of the hotel Brent kept talking about this one waterfall that you can walk around.  As a child I remember trying my hardest to reach into the waterfall to get the tips of my fingers wet without falling in!  We were so excited when we found the waterfall.  Of course we both reached in to get the tips of our fingers wet, but this time I didn’t have to worry about falling in because Brent was holding my other hand and keeping me from falling in!  I began to walk about the waterfall to continue through the path when Brent suggested we sit on a bench for a couple minutes.  My heart did a little flip flop thinking that maybe he was going to propose, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  We sat and talking about silly things, serious things, and us!  Brent then asked me if I could really picture spending the rest of my life with him.  My response, joking of course, was “uggh I don’t know!”  And there in the Magnolia Gardens on a park bench that I had sat on many times as a child and dreamed up what God had in my future, Brent Byrd asked me to marry him!!!  And of course I said “YES!”

Location: Main House

Date: 2011-06-04

We met on the first day of orientation at Belmont University.

I saw Cayla walking across campus and we ended up in a seminar together. I saw her sitting down with a friend, and I sat down and introduced myself. She told me her name was Cayla.  There was some sort of mixer where everyone stood up, and when we sat again she was two chairs down from the seat next to me.  Not exactly a confidence boost, but I can’t argue with the results. She maintains that she was not trying to give me the cold shoulder, and she can’t remember why it worked out like it did.  We spent the remainder of that night searching for coins in a campus water fountain, cashing them in for some ice cream, and spilling our guts to one another on top of the parking garage overlooking this new city that was about to become our home.  It only took one short orientation weekend at Belmont to know that we were embarking on something special.

Once we arrived back in Nashville in August, we became friends and ended up dating shortly thereafter. We say that we started dating on October 4th of 2005, but that was more the day that we realized we had been together all along.  We dated all the way through college, had classes together and did plenty of research/papers/projects together, lived in the same apartment complex, and became very, very best friends. We absolutely loved our time at Belmont and had a wonderful time growing our relationship and ourselves while we were there. Even though we are very different, we have found that we love to cook together, garden, camp, and travel, but mostly I just love being wherever she is, and she loves being with me too.

I moved to Alabama after we graduated in 2009 to help a friend start a biodiesel company.  We had to be apart for eight months, which we thankfully survived.  When I moved back to Tennessee in February of 2010, we learned how to be a couple again.  It soon became clear that we needed to be together forever.  The cool part to us is, it wasn’t some sort of instant infatuation that told us that we needed to get married, but we grew together steadily over five years of joy, frustrations, love, pain, and everything in between.  In August of 2010, we both realized that whatever life there was to live, it wouldn’t be right if we weren’t with each other. I went to Mississippi to talk to her parents about marrying their daughter, but it is a decision that we made together, and it is most certainly the best and sincerest one we have made so far.

We became ‘officially’ engaged on November 13 of 2010.  The proposal was quiet but honest, much like our relationship.  She really likes our engagement ring, and it was made just for her.  It is a sapphire, in case anyone was wondering what that funny blue stone is. We are both beyond excited to get married–it feels like a very natural, comfortable, and beautiful ‘next step’ in our journey together.  We are looking forward to things like traveling all over, spending time with our families as a new family, and having a home together, and we plan on staying in Nashville for the time being. I love her so much, and she loves me.  I’m not sure what else we could ask for.  Our relationship is the perfect fit for the both of us, and we can’t wait to celebrate our commitment to one another amongst the company of our loved ones.  Our love story has been more than we could have ever dreamed of, and we are so excited to continue living it out together.

Date: 2011-05-22Adam and I met after college where we were working. I was a receptionist for a chiropractor and he was the trainer in the gym at the back of the office.  The Doctor that we worked for told my mom he had the perfect man for me! He hounded Adam to ask me out and always nagged me to go talk to him.

Well we gave in and Adam and I went on our first date… and have never stopped.

We laugh often about how we can think so differently but berlieve so similarly. Our faith in Christ is our bond and our joy. We are blessed to have two sets of great parents who have been married for over 25 years. Adam and I are excited to folow in their footsteps!!!

Blind dates hardly ever work out the way we hope.  For that reason, mutual friends made for a more casual first meeting for Justin and Stacey.  They met for the first time at a birthday dinner – unbeknownst to them, the mutual friends invited ALL COUPLES and then the two of them!  Stacey sat next to Justin towards the end of the night and the conversation was easy.  They went out for their first real date the following week and decided they truly enjoyed each other’s company.
As the relationship progressed, Justin and Stacey realized they shared a passion for European travel.  Shortly before their two-year anniversary, they planned their “trip of a lifetime.”  With both of them having friends overseas, stops were planned in Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and England.  The night before their anniversary, Justin proposed – in the market square of Brussels, Belgium!  Justin gets teased that the proposal was so grand that it will be tough to beat for the anniversaries to come!
Stacey found Front Porch Farms through another bride-to-be.  She took a trip with her sister out to the location and decided on the spot it was where she wanted to have the wedding.  Of course, Justin then visited and agreed it would be the perfect place.  Both Justin and Stacey are looking forward to their spring wedding and hope to find a house in Nashville soon where they can start their lives together.

Cade and I grew up in Nashville and met way back in ninth grade where we began a friendship that lasted throughout high school.  After college we acknowledged our feelings for each other and made the big decision to become a couple.

We discovered many exciting things about one another and our commitment grew strong.  Now Cade and I enjoy a
great life together, living in a home that we bought last year and acquiring a new dog every so often (two so far, Frieda and Star, and there’s Minnie, our little black cat).

Cade and I share a love of nature, family, food and simplicity, and we try not to let work get in
the way of our fun!  We look forward to our beautiful wedding this spring and can’t wait for the honeymoon in Costa Rica!

Title:

Our families’ relationships precedes ours. Our sweet grandparents and their children befriended each other in church years ago and soon became just like family.

Lucas and I have “known” each other our entire lives really. We would see each other at church occasionally and we were even in a couple of church plays together (A Christmas Carol) when we were about 10 & 11. Lucas was oblivious to the crush I had on him during this time because he was the “cooler older” guy.

Fast forward three years ago when we reconnected. I had just moved back from England after being there three years. Lucas and I hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in years! One day he added me on Facebook and we exchanged the normal pleasantries.

I invited to him to help me in the youth ministry I lead at our church and he agreed. That’s where our friendship took off like wild fire! A few months after our friendship had grown, we made it official and decided that we were quite fond of each other. Two and a half years later I found him on his knee beside me with a beautiful ring as we were having pictures taken by our friend. He nervously asked me to marry him and whole-heartedly screamed “YES!”

We are thankful for the friendship we have found in each other just as our families founded their friendship and we hope to follow in the steps of both sets of our Grandparents who have been married for over 50 years!

Check out Sydney & Lucas’ engagment photos on their photographer, Rachel Williamson’s blog