We love a good wedding! The creativity of brides always astounds us, and today's wedding feature is no different. Step into a palace transformed from a construction zone for Julianna and Hackler Mills' special day. This wedding is what dreams are made of! We are thrilled to feature Julianna Mills and her spectacular wedding. Thank you, Julianna, for joining us today!
SI: What are some of your favorite/special memories of your wedding day?
JM: Our wedding day could not have been more perfect for us. I will never forget looking at the crowd during our ceremony and feeling so overwhelmed with gratefulness that we have so many godly influences supporting us. The Lord has been so good to us and we are forever thankful. My husband, Hackler, is the best electric guitarist (I’m not biased at all), and I enjoy singing so having live music was a MUST for us! We had our closest friends and family sing/play and they exceeded all of our expectations! In my opinion, the most special song of our ceremony was our recessional song. Before I moved to Arkansas, I directed the choir at my home church and am extremely close to my youth group. I wanted a way to include all of my friends, so they sang “This Will Be An Everlasting Love” as a choir and did an incredible job.
Our ceremony songs were:
• From the Ground Up- Dan + Shay
• When God Made You- NewSong
• Always Be Your Baby- Natalie Grant
• I’m Sure It’s You- Sheléa
• I Promise You- Michael Bolton
• Here and Now- Luther Vandross
• This Will Be- Natalie Cole
We had an incredibly talented LIVE painter attend our wedding, and it is something we will treasure forever! Robert Towson is so kind and pays attention to each detail (which I LOVE)!
I saw a trend on social media where the couple would buy personalized glasses with their wedding date & initials at the reception for each guest to take a picture with. My Aunt Ginny MADE all of the glasses and they will be a fun keepsake for many years to come! My sweet cousin, Brienn Adkins, spent the entire evening taking pictures of every guest who attended our wedding. We love how it turned out!
Something I was 100% sure about concerning our reception was that I wanted a tall cake that was placed in the center of the room, and I wanted Two Sisters Catering to make it! Two Sisters graciously agreed and blew my mind with how beautiful it turned out! They are the most talented and treated me with generosity beyond my dreams!
SI: Were there any funny moments or things that didn't go according to plan?
JM: I’m sure a funny moment to my friends and family was when they found out that I was determined to get married in our “construction zone new sanctuary” since our current building was destroyed by a hurricane in 2020. My parents took a huge risk by allowing me to plan to have my wedding in there, and there were so many times that I questioned if it was even worth all the stress/planning that had to go into it! I could not write this blog without mentioning Sister Tonya Moss and my angelic Aunt Robin from Carthage, MS. They and many others worked, not only days, but weeks before the wedding to try and make the newly sheetrocked, dusty, open sanctuary into a palace. I will attach pictures here for you to be the judge, but I think they transformed the place into everything I had imagined and so much more. I am eternally grateful for all the work that went into it and am SO content with my choice to have it in such a special place.
Thankfully, nothing (that I know of) went wrong the day of but there was a torrential downpour that lasted all day until our wedding started at 3:30 pm. We had planned for a grand exit out of the front doors of our new sanctuary but that, obviously, could not happen. We tried to take a couple of portraits outside since that was my wish and it covered the bottom of my dress with dirt😭.
SI: How did you find the perfect wedding dress?
JM: Lake Charles, Louisiana is my hometown and has a huge piece of my heart. I knew I wanted to support a local business but wanted to also enjoy the once in a lifetime dress shopping “experience”. I went to 5 different bridal dress shops and tried on over 20 dresses. I happened to find my dream dress at a small shop in Groves, Texas, however, I knew I wanted to buy it from “Vows by Victoria” in my hometown! They were able to order it and it came in within 3 weeks! My incredibly talented friend from my church, Gina Rabatie, not only made it modest, but added puff sleeves and thousands of feathers. It turned out better than I could have ever imagined and I am so blessed to have an amazing friend like Gina!
SI: Do you have any advice for future brides?
JM: I’m sure I could have been way more organized as a fiancée, but something that helped eliminate most questions about how we wanted our “perfect weekend” was by making a 20+ page binder of details. I designed it on Canva, printed it out, and gave it to my coordinator. I also sent out digital copies to my family, helpers, and bridal party. From what I am aware of, everything went smoothly and I am so thankful I had it planned out ahead of time so that I didn’t have to answer a million questions. Something I wanted to be intentional about was writing each and every friend who sent us a wedding gift a handwritten, personalized thank you note. I bought a gift tracker and wrote down the date, gift, name, and mailing address of each gift. As soon as our wedding shower was over, I spent all of my free time getting those out in a timely manner and have continued to do so. I haven’t done it perfectly and still have a few to write, but I would say that could be something you might not think about but is extremely important.
SI: Is there anything else in particular that you'd like to share about your wedding or your love story?
JM: My cousin designed us a unique wedding program for our guests to get to know us better and it has several “fun facts” about our story! Some include:
1. We attended 9 of the same conferences without noticing each other.
2. During our ceremony, we used the exact same carriage Hackler was pushed down the aisle in his Aunt Vonda’s wedding for my newest little cousin in our wedding!
3. My talented and hard-working groom BUILT me a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom brick home in 126 days start to finish…. Needless to say, he is the BEST😍
SI: Who was your wedding photographer?
JM: We couldn’t brag on our photographer enough! Mehgan Fairbanks with Fair Film made my day so stress-free and even served me and my husband dinner at our reception. She made sure every detail was perfectly captured and still managed to make it SO MUCH FUN! Since it poured rain all day at our wedding, she offered to take extra portraits of us in our wedding attire once we got back from our honeymoon. We took them at the same place I took my bridal photos at a plantation in Saint Francisville, Louisiana with Spanish moss and gorgeous gardens everywhere. Their website is www.fairfilm.co. We highly recommend them!