Welcome to Tidewater and Tulle.

Since I was thirteen, I have lived in Hampton Roads. Like all good locals, I went to Haygood Skating Center on New Year's, worked at Hungate's Arts and Crafts in Pembroke Mall after school and Virginia Beach Resort Hotel in the summer, and graduated from Bayside High. Over a ten year period, I saw lines of trees and sidewalks be transformed into Virginia Beach's Town Center (a still bittersweet memory that P.F. Chang's continues to soothe to this day), heard the news of Seashore State Park becoming First Landing, and experienced the breakaway from Richmond's 804 area code into our very own 757. And even after I went to college and grad school out of state, six years later, I found my way back home, taught in Portsmouth, got married in Williamsburg, moved into a tiny apartment with my husband in Chesapeake, and am now calling Williamsburg our home and workplace.

I love this area. I love that I can drive one hour and find myself in fields for miles or high-rises for blocks. I love that I can take visiting friends to Colonial Williamsburg, or if they were beach people, to Sandbridge. I love that our area is rooted in rich history and beautiful diversity.

With that unique landscape comes a unique wedding industry. Couples with visions of casual sandy ceremonies in Virginia Beach, of city scenes of Downtown Norfolk, or the crop rows of Suffolk. And add in all of the wedding professionals with their own unique styles to make those diverse bridal dreams a reality.

Tidewater and Tulle is one of those dreams made a reality. And I like to think today is our wedding day. In May, when the wheels started moving for this blog, I had a vision of the quintessential Hampton Roads wedding, and that vision is what you see today. If our area were a wedding, this would be it-- land and water, wood and cotton, blue and green, waves of ruffles, local cuisine, and historical nuances. These participating vendors' personal styles intertwined so effortlessly with the greater vision that when the day at the Hermitage arrived, we laughed and moved through each scene without skipping a beat. It was passion speaking for our craft, for our local resources, and for our clients.

Today's feature is a little bit more image heavy than what you'll come to expect, but we hope you won't mind after the gorgeous eye candy. We invite you to grow with us, discover and enjoy all of what our amazing area has to offer, and allow us to share dreams made reality. Brides and grooms, we hope to become your trusted resource for finding your dream wedding vendor team and diverse inspiration-- no matter if you're geek chic or romantic vintage. Vendors, we hope to help you connect with your ideal couples and build a stronger, tighter community with each other, local and beyond. And friends, we hope that you will all feel inspired by the stories and imagery that will grace these pages.

We are America's First Region. We are Tidewater and Tulle.