Southern Weddings

Erin from {Blue Eyed Bride} planned a fabulous reception with such great details. Reception Location: {Westin Poinsett Hotel} in Greenville, South Carolina. The reception decor is so fun and the guests look like they had the time of their lives!  Entertainment by {The Root Doctors}.  Cake by {Patty Cakes}, Pies from {Soby’s}, linens from {BBJ Linen}, For more on Erin + Todd’s gorgeous wedding visit fabulous photographer, Kelly Moore’s, {BLOG} and Erin’s {BLOG}.

Favorite design element of your big day: The Save the Date, invitations, and programs. We used the lace design on everything and had these amazing gold covers on the save the date and programs with that gorgeous design all over it. I also loved our candy buffet. My mom and her best friends spent the day setting up the candy buffet and it really became the focal point of the wedding!
Describe your wedding flowers: They were very structured and tailored. Just like me and just like the dress. I wanted clean lines and simplicity. My bouquet was all pink and white peonies and smelled wonderful!  We had various shades of pink roses and ivory roses for the reception centerpieces and bridesmaid bouquets. Libby Munn, our florist, created these incredible pieces for the ceremony by using tree branches in an urn and she attached huge white orchid blooms to the branches.
Describe your wedding cake: The cake was almond flavored with butter cream icing. It had one surprise layer of red velvet cake and tasted amazing! I wanted the cake to be really soft pink colored so it would contrast nicely with the gold walls in the ballroom.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: Todd’s grooms cake! We ordered white chocolate banana cream pies from our favorite Greenville restaurant, Soby’s. We had two huge pies sitting in scales of justice because Todd is an attorney. Soby’s created a couple hundred miniature banana cream pies for our guests to take. We heard later that people were taking them five or six at a time!
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? It was hard to plan a wedding that would take place 90 miles from where we live. It was also difficult not having my mom close by so we could sit and talk about it on a regular basis. I made frequent trips to Dallas for my dress fitting and they came to Greenville for our tasting with the caterer. I also had a really difficult time with the cake designer. I wanted so badly to incorporate the lace design into our cake, but we were never able to find anyone that could do it.
Were there any special family traditions you included in the wedding? Not really any traditions, but we included our family in every possible aspect of the ceremony. After my dad walked me down the aisle, my mom and Todd’s parents joined us at the front of the sanctuary and Somewhere Over the Rainbow softly played on the piano and my mom’s voice came over the speaker system. Our parents wrote letters and recorded them in sound studios to play to us at the beginning of the ceremony. It was such a special moment. My cousins sang in the ceremony and my brother was a groomsman. It was a completely family oriented day!
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? The last couple of dances. I know it sounds silly, but I had the most fun dancing at the wedding! We gathered with all of our friends when the band played Sweet Caroline and Hey Ya! I will never forget those last ten minutes and seeing everyone that I’ve ever loved in my life gathered around us and celebrating with us. It makes me so happy that we decided to go all out and have a big wedding for that reason. It’s a once in a lifetime kind of thing!
The most unexpected event on our wedding day was: The ring fiasco!
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Worshipful, romantic, and party!
What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Have fun with it. Make sure that you make yourself happy and your fiancé happy. It’s a special day and it’s for celebrating. The details fall into place. I’d also suggest to everyone that plans the wedding on their own to hire a day of coordinator. Just because you think you can do it yourself, doesn’t mean you should or that you’re going to want to. Get some help and let that person run the show on your wedding day.
Fun details: We wanted to incorporate food from South Carolina and Louisiana because I’m originally from Louisiana. We had shrimp and grits and crawfish etouffee. Everything was so good! We knew that the ceremony music was really important because it would be the best way to show our personalities during the ceremony. We chose Highland Cathedral for my processional and we recessed to Oh Happy Day! Our ceremony musicians were incredible and I’m so thankful that they really built up the drama with their music. The pianist played Someone to Watch Over Me, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and Nessun Dormaall beautiful love songs that are favorites of mine.
What is next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? We’re looking forward to visiting our friends all over the country and seeing what happens next. Football season is right around the corner and life stops for SEC football!

Congratulations to Erin + Todd!  We wish you a lifetime of happiness!