Rachel & Taylor’s November Wedding at The Nest

Last year on November 16th, Taylor & Rachel tied the knot here at The Nest! Their day was filled with beauty, joy, and lots of fun! For Rachel and Taylor, details mattered as did sharing the things they love the most with their family. Read below to get a peak into their love story and all the fun ways they made their wedding feel fun and personal to them!

N | How are you doing with almost 1 year of marriage under your belt? 

R | It has definitely been interesting entering our first year of marriage in the middle of a global pandemic. What a blessing we were able to have our wedding before all of this hit! I can’t image going through what 2020 brides are having to deal with. I think in a strange way, Covid has actually been blessing for our first year of marriage. With everything being so uncertain this year, we’ve really had to lean on each other in all our decisions which has brought us closer together in ways that we wouldn’t have experienced outside of 2020. Even with all the uncertainty of “what’s next” over the last six months (and even still now), we have been able to connect in deeper and deeper ways everyday. It has been the sweetest gift having such a patient, kind and caring partner to take on this year with!!

N | How did you two meet? 

R | “I wrote our story on our home page of our wedding website! I copied it below as well:  It all started three years ago at a small office in Bedford, Texas… Rachel’s first day working at Magnolia. Just as she was wrapping up her first-day training, in walked Taylor Fall in his cowboy boots and flannel shirt. This country boy caught Rachel’s eye immediately. He asked her out that afternoon, and sparks flew instantly…. Just kidding.
They spent three years without saying much more than “hello” and Taylor’s favorite line, “Adios, muchacho!” It took a matchmaker to get these two together.”

“The owner of Magnolia’s construction company got the idea to set the two of them up. He told Rachel that Taylor asked for her phone number, and she should expect a call from him that week. He then told Taylor that she was awaiting his call. He’d separately told each of them that the other was interested in dating even though neither of them had said anything to even hint at this.

Later that week, Taylor showed up to work and, much to her surprise, asked for Rachel’s phone number. They met that Thursday night at Farina’s, a small Italian restaurant on Grapevine Main Street, and talked for hours.

From their first date in Grapevine, Texas, to their engagement in the National Redwood Forest in San Francisco, California, to booking their wedding in Ponder, Texas, the two have been dating almost two years now, and are ready to start their forever!”

N | What did your process look like finding all of your vendors? 

“I had a five step process for this:

1. I got an idea of what kind of vendor I wanted on Pinterest. A lot of my vendors were specific to some of my Pinterest posts! 

2. Then I reviewed The Knot’s recommended vendors (with price filters in place). 

3. I compared them to your recommended vendors on The Nest. 

4. Once I compared these two vendor lists, I pulled three to four vendors to pull quotes for and interview over the phone. 

5. After the phone interviews, I would do an in-person interview with my favorite vendor before signing a contract! I really felt like the in-person interviews are what made me confident in finalizing these vendors. This was especially important for my planning service and florist. These two vendors were (in my mind) the most important to bring my vision together! My first florist quote was almost $18k and by interviewing multiple vendors, I was able to get my cost down to only $7k without making any compromises on my flower choices! After meeting with the owner of Southern Charm Event Planning, she matched me with one of her planners, Dacotah. I felt like because of our initial meeting, she was able to find me a perfect match for my planner. She 100% understood my vision and made my job so much easier!

I was so happy with the companies I chose and I clicked with each of them really well!”

N | When it came to planning your wedding, what were some unique ways that you incorporated your story into your guests experience? 

R | “We are HUGE foodies. One of our favorite decisions to date is choosing food trucks for the dinner! We picked two local food truck vendors: Heim BBQ (a Ft Worth staple that Taylor loves) and Easy Slider Dallas (their strawberry goat cheese burgers are some of my favorites)! I loved how much more relaxed this made the dinner. And we both liked that it was something different! Each guest had a bigger variety of food to choose from and it was all fresh and hot. It wasn’t like the usual wedding dinner of lukewarm chicken or fish served with a salad that no one really wants to eat. We had a lot of great feedback from our guests on this too! “

“A few small, personal details that we wanted to include: 

     Taylor hand collected each of the antlers we used in our centerpieces over the years at his deer lease. He was so excited I found a cute way to incorporate these in the decorations! It’s the small victories for the boys in the wedding planning process. 😊

   We are huge dog people and, while he wasn’t physically present in the big day, we did name our signature drink after our sweet little lab puppy, Major! We had these cute prints created on etsy for our margaritas named the “Major-ita”. A lot of guests thought it was super cute!”

N | What is one decision that you remember you were really glad you made in the planning process? 

R | “This is going to sound really bad, but the best decision I made was learning to use the word “no”. Weddings are unique in that so many loved ones are involved in the planning process and everyone wants the chance to give their opinion and input in all the details. I am a huge people pleaser, so this was a huge struggle for me. I am extremely thankful for Taylor continually reminding me (probably daily- lol!) that I didn’t have to please everyone in the planning process and that it was okay if every person didn’t love every decision I made. We ended up having a day that was 100% what he and I wanted because of this. And everyone actually ended up appreciating my decisiveness and leadership in the process. I took the time to talk things through with each of our family members to learn what mattered most to each of them. By doing this, I could tell what was important to each person and was able to find some compromises to give everyone a “win” while still keeping the overall vision what I wanted! I got a lot of “thank yous” at the morning after brunch! 🙂 “

We love you Taylor & Rachel!

Wedding Vendors

Photographer | @theteaguesphoto 
Bridal Salon | @aandbe_dallas 
Dress Designer | @ruedeseine
Bridal Alterations | @alteredforthealtar 
Band | @icehousebandusa
Make-up | @etoillyartistry 
Florist | @blushingtonblooms
Wedding Planner | @southerncharmevent
Cake Baker | @legacycakes
Food Truck | @easyslidertx & @heimbarbecue 
Dessert Bar | @buttermilkskypieshop
Charcuterie Board | @cococharcuterie
Bar | @hdliquidcater
Hair | @dv8thesalon
Linens | @bbjlinens