Southern Weddings

This beautiful beach wedding was coordinated by Penelope from the {Amelia Island Plantation}.  Catering by the Amelia Island Plantation and fudge favors by {Fantastic Fudge}.  Yum!  Bridal party attire by {J.Crew}.  To check out all the shots, click over to Scarlett Lillian’s {Blog}. 

The weather on our wedding day was: The most beautiful Florida day we could have been blessed with, as if God painted the canvas to match the rest of our design….
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? Classic Americana Beach Wedding
Favorite design element of your big day: I loved that the overall simplicity (J Crew attire for the bridal party, shells, starfish, sea grass, white votives, steel drums, close family and friends) is what created the most perfect beach wedding. Both indoors and out.
Describe your wedding flowers: Timeless. I love the wild daises that grow in the south and I especially love when you see that patch near the east coast, the ocean in the background, with the sea grass setting off the bright white and yellow color of the daisy. We used that picture to create the bouquets and centerpieces adding the shells, lemons and limes to tie in that ideal fresh look. Even my three pound yorkie, Cletus, wore a daisy necklace around his collar.
Describe your wedding cake: Quintessentially classic. We kept traditional details like the tiers, the white color with dainty edges but added the clean details we had incorporated elsewhere – lemons, limes, daisy blooms and shells.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: We couldn’t decide between these two:
The music: the sound of the steel drums on the most beautiful beach evening was like something out of a romantic movie … and my cousin and her husband playing acoustic guitar and singing the song that seemed to explain our relationship so unequaled, “God Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts. The pictures of Brian with tears streaming down his cheeks and the minister holding us close, are some of the most dear.
The bringing together of two families: symbolized by the minister when he mixed the dark Tennessee soil, brought from my childhood home by my parents, with the white Atlantic sand at the wedding ceremony on Amelia Island, Brian’s childhood home.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? A destination wedding can be somewhat stressful especially when your fulltime job has you working 80-90 hours a week. What could have been enough for a bride to have a breakdown was solved when Brian and I decided to seek the help of Penelope; a best friend’s wife who lived on Amelia and had taste I knew would work well with mine. It was great to solve the challenge before it became a problem and Penelope and my mom worked hard together to narrow down choices so that I only had a few options with each wedding category that needed a decision.
Scariest moment? This is such a girly scary moment but the rest of the day seemed so painless, so effortless it was scary in the moment. I had not tried on my dress since it had come back from the last fitting that was weeks prior. I had been in Florida for the week before my wedding – eating my favorite foods like shrimp, key lime pie and the good stuff. So the first step into my dress, with my bridesmaids, I am laughing while sucking in at the same time and holding my breath. Also, praying the dress would still fit as perfectly as I’d remembered, weeks prior.
Funniest moment? Scarlett Lillian, our photographer, takes the most astonishingly creative pictures. It was one of the first qualities that first drew us to her. She had us taking some great bridal party group pictures like with jumping, running, sitting. Well, one of the groomsmen split his pants from the funky position he was posed in. And he had forgotten his undergarments. We insisted he keep taking pictures. It sure did help create genuine smiles on everyone’s faces in the last few frames.
The most unexpected event on our wedding day was: The seamlessness with which everything flowed the entire day. Brian and I looked at each other on the terrace outside the reception as the night was drawing to a close and both agreed, we couldn’t have imagined a more perfect beginning to start the rest of our lives together.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: exhilarating, time-honored, romantic
What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Enjoy the time, be grateful for each day of anticipation and even when time won’t allow you to focus entirely on the special day. Find a little something, a detail you can make all your own: the gifts we gave our guests, the sand pails filled with items representing the island, Brian and myself (sand dollar shaped chocolates from local Candy store, green tea bags, photo albums with an inset seashell and one of our engagement photos to hold the rest of the pictures from their trips to Amelia Island) were something I worked on personally with my part time planner Penelope. It helped me feel really involved and they were such an awesome addition to the setting we had already created.
Best advice or most memorable comment someone made to you during the wedding celebration. I don’t believe there was one most memorable as Brian and I sat amazed at our dinner table as guest after guest stood up to affirm via a story, a toast, a few words. This was exactly what Brian and I knew, we were meant to be together. How cool to have those closest to you personally give their blessing as well.
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? A baby! Before we reach our first wedding anniversary we will be blessed with a new addition to our family. The future is no further than tomorrow as each day we wake to a new experience, a new feeling and a sense of hope for our little one to arrive healthy in the late spring…
Other details you want us to know about your wedding: The Amelia Island Plantation was the site of our wedding and reception and the wedding coordinator and team were a pleasure to work with on helped us with recommended florists, our menu, our cake and everything else. Our minister, Jim Tippins, was also amazing and instantly bonded with our families. His added special details that included bringing the soil and sand from our hometowns, and the water ceremony, incorporated our love ones into our celebration just as we had wished. Scarlett Lillian – what can I say? You will not find a photographer who captures the emotions, the passion, the love felt, not only by the bride and groom but by everyone who attends in their pictures.

Congratulations to Sarah + Brian! We wish you happiness and joy as your family grows to three!