Bride Lilly shares her Charleston plantation wedding to Bobby!
One of my favorite wedding details to check out is how the bride and groom choose to create a guest book! I’ve seen some pretty creative keepsakes, but never had I heard of Lilly and Bobby’s idea! “Instead of doing a typical guest book, we decided to collect post cards from places that we traveled throughout our engagement and have guests write little notes or advice on them. My mother-in-law has them all and she is sending them to us throughout the whole first year of our marriage. It is a great way to extend the wedding fun throughout the whole year and we love being reminded of all the fun memories when we get one in the mail!” I absolutely love this idea! Not only are the postcards themselves keepsakes from their travels, but now they are full of love and advice from their wedding guests!
I’m so thrilled to hand it off to Lilly to share all the meaningful details of their day, and I know you’ll especially love the wedding favor that is now a family tradition!
Thanks to Rach loves Troy for these lovely images!
When did y’all get married? April 15, 2017.
How many friends, family members, and loved ones attended your wedding? 143.
Tell us the highlights of finding your wedding dress. I knew that I wanted to shop for my wedding dress at 1-2 places in Charlotte, NC and that I wanted to only bring my mom and my best friend to keep from having too many opinions. The first stop was Hayden Olivia and I thought it was such a beautiful spot – we felt so special! I tried on 7 or 8 dresses, but I knew I wanted a dress that had lace sleeves and I ended up choosing the 2nd or 3rd dress I tried on. I didn’t cry at first, but as soon as we put the veil on, I looked at my mom and started crying and we all knew it was the one!
My something new, borrowed, old, and blue: My something new was the earrings my husband gave me on our wedding day, my something borrowed was my mom’s pearl bracelet, my something old was the lace from my mom’s wedding dress that I wrapped around my bouquet, and my something blue was my mom’s garter from her own wedding.
Did you decide to do a first look? Why or why not? We decided to do a first look in order to save time after the ceremony for celebrating and mingling with our guests that had come from near and far to share our special day with us. We are so happy that we did this because it really helped to calm our nerves and it even gave us some extra time to take a few cute pictures with our sweet dog!
What were some of the most meaningful or special parts of your ceremony? Did you write your own vows? (If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line?) Have any special readings, traditions, or participants? Our ceremony felt so magical because it was set in the middle of the Avenue of Oaks with all of this beautiful moss blowing in the wind – it was such a peaceful setting. We both felt it was really important to write our own vows so that we could really make them unique to us as a couple. My favorite line from his vows was: “I will forever be your biggest fan, supporting your passions and desires, because I know that the world is a better place with you by my side.” His favorite line from my vows was: “I promise to build a home and a family with you that is full of laughter, patience, acceptance, and love so that our children can witness firsthand how wonderful life can be if you have your best friend by your side.” My cousin also gave a beautiful reading of “The Art of Marriage” by Wilferd Arlan Peterson. We thought the words really served as important lessons and reminders of the type of marriage we wanted to create together.
What was one way you saved money or cut costs at your wedding? Instead of doing a champagne toast for all of our guests, we brought a few bottles of champagne to have the bartenders hold on to just for us and our wedding party to use during the toasts. This was a great way to save money because often whenever the toasts start, people already have a drink in hand and the champagne goes to waste. But of course as the newlywed couple, we still wanted to have a little champagne on hand to celebrate!
What made you choose your ceremony and reception venues? Did they have any special significance to you? There were a few reasons that we thought Legare was the perfect spot for us. I am from North Carolina and Bobby is from New Hampshire, and we live in Boston now. I grew up vacationing in Charleston and it really felt like my home away from home. Once Bobby and I started dating, he would visit Charleston with me and he fell in love with it too. I knew I wanted to have a Southern wedding, and we wanted to share one of our favorite places with all of our friends and family. As soon as we saw Legare Waring House with its beautiful landscape and stunning oak trees, we knew we had found the perfect place!
What was your most memorable moment from your wedding day? My favorite memory is the feeling I felt when we were all seated at dinner and the light was just turning to dusk, and I saw all of our family and friends talking and laughing. Having my new husband by my side and seeing all of our favorite people in the same place getting to know one another was a feeling and a memory I will never forget.
Tell us your love story in one sentence. We met our freshman year at UNC on my birthday (of all nights) and our friendship eventually turned into something more because we were always seated next to each other in classes (both our names begin with H), and we also played on the same intramural soccer team. It was fate!
Tell us all about the proposal! Bobby proposed on a beautiful fall day in October 2015 when we were in town for UNC’s homecoming football weekend, which we’ve been going to every year since we graduated. We live in Boston now, and I had actually flown down early on Friday to meet up with a friend and have lunch on campus. I didn’t think he was arriving until later that night because he had been gone all week on a work trip. My friend and I were walking around campus and as we approached the Old Well, he came up behind me and surprised me! He proposed in front of the Old Well and I can barely remember anything he said because I was so surprised. The best part about it (other than the proposal) was that my parents and a lot of our friends were in town so we had the whole weekend to celebrate with them!
Tell us about some of the songs you used throughout your wedding and why you chose them. The songs that we used for the ceremony and first dances were really important to me because I wanted them all to have sentimental value. For the seating of the grandmothers and mothers, the musicians played “Your Song” by Elton John. I loved this choice because my dad used to play that song for my mom on the piano when I was growing up. I walked down the aisle to “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol (a personal favorite) and for the recessional we chose “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles because it had a great lively beat to it which indicated to our guests at the end of the ceremony that it was time to celebrate! For our first dance, we danced to “You and I” by John Legend which my husband suggested and I absolutely loved. And for the father-daughter dance, we picked “My Girl” by the Temptations. I’ve been dancing with my dad to that song all my life after seeing “Father of the Bride” with him and it only made sense to dance to it together on our wedding day!
What did you serve for your wedding cake or dessert? Why did you choose it? For our wedding cake, we wanted something classic, Southern, and a little unique. One of my favorite Southern desserts is banana pudding so when our cake baker offered that flavor as one of our choices, we had to say yes! It had real bananas and vanilla wafers inside it and was absolutely delicious. And the presentation of the cake could not have been more lovely with its classic white icing and beautiful sugar magnolia blooms. It was perfection!
What was your favorite detail from your wedding? My favorite detail was the favors for our guests. My mom baked homemade pecan chewies for each of our guests with the pecans from my great-uncle’s pecan farm. This was a nod to my great-grandmother who gave my mom and dad homemade pecan chewies on their wedding day as they were leaving for their honeymoon “so that they wouldn’t go hungry.” So we wanted to pass that same sentiment and tradition on to our guests!
What was your favorite thing about wedding planning? My favorite thing about wedding planning was all the special moments I got to share with my parents and my in-laws. Putting on my wedding dress for the first time with my mom, practicing the first dance with my dad, and making welcome bags with my mother-in-law were truly wonderful memories that I will always treasure. My husband and I also took dance lessons and it was a great way for us to make time as a couple during our busy week and just have fun together!
What was the hardest part about planning your wedding? The hardest part of planning our wedding was having to do it from afar. Since we live in Boston and the wedding was in Charleston, SC, we really had to rely on our planner and our family to help us stay organized and get through all of the logistics. We even picked out our venue by having my parents visit it and take videos – we didn’t see it in person until 10 months into the planning process!
What advice would you give to someone currently planning a wedding? It is very easy to get caught up in the details of planning a wedding and forget why you’re getting married in the first place. Make time for yourself, your family, and your significant other because those are the people that make this special time so memorable. Your wedding day goes by in the blink of an eye, and what you end up remembering the most are the moments you shared with all of the people you love and care about – not the little details that go into planning a wedding.
Photographer and Videographer: Rach Loves Troy | Planner: A.Caldwell Events | Venue: Legare Waring House | Florist: Tiger Lily | Wedding Cake: Sugar Magnolia Cake Boutique | Caterer: B. Gourmet Catering | Bar: MIX Bartending | Rentals: EventWorks | Lighting: Innovative Event Services | Ceremony Music: Classical Charleston | DJ: DJ Josh via OtherBrother Entertainment | Invitation Suite: Scotti Cline Designs | Bride’s Gown: “Estelle” by Modern Trousseau | Bridal Salon: Hayden Olivia Bridal | Bride’s Veil: Jennifer Leigh Couture Veils | Hair and Makeup: Paper Dolls | Bride’s Shoes: Badgley Mischka | Bridesmaids’ Dresses: “Annabelle” in Ciel Blue by Jenny Yoo | Groom’s Tuxedo: Loro Piana from Julian Style | Groom’s Shoes: Tom Ford | Groomsmen Attire: The Black Tux | Getaway Car: Lowcountry Valet and Shuttle | Wedding Nanny for Dog: Dog Tired
[…] One of our favorite venues of all time.. Legare Waring House! This venue just screams Southern elegance, and we’re so excited to unveil this wedding on our blog! We worked with our good friends from A. Caldwell Events, who without fail creates the most beautiful, Pinterest worthy weddings.. This one just so happened to be published in Southern Weddings Magazine! […]
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