The sparkly, winter gorgeousness continues with Molly + Ben’s romantic and warm Christmas reception. String lights and candles decorated the barn, which was even complete with a fully decorated Christmas tree! Just in case guests started to feel a bit of that winter chill, hot ginger toddies were served in addition to the Southern food fare at the buffet station. Molly kept warm in a white fur stole. I must say, it looks quite fab as the newlyweds made their way through confetti and into their horse-drawn carriage! Thanks again to Meredith Perdue for helping us get in the Christmas spirit!
See all the photos from Molly + Ben’s wedding in their Real Wedding Gallery!
What Southern details or traditions did you include in your celebration? Our ceremony was held in a church, my dad walked me down the aisle and Ben and I said traditional Christian vows. I wrapped a monogrammed handkerchief made out of my mom’s wedding dress around my bouquet and wore her veil. Ben’s dad was his best man. Ben and I exchanged wedding gifts the night before and then took communion in the ceremony.
What was Southern about your wedding? The barn is the oldest surviving early twentieth-century fair exhibition hall in North Carolina. It was built in 1917 for use at the Sandhills Fair, one of the major country fairs in the Southeast from 1915 through 1925. We had a Southern station at our buffet table which included barbecue sliders, mac and cheese, fried green tomatoes and more. We served hot ginger toddies as well. Our cake was an almond pound cake.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? I would probably say choosing a date. It was hard finding a time that worked for everybody. Originally, we didn’t want a winter wedding; we worried about our guests being stressed with it being the week before Christmas. In the end, I think everyone had a great time and a lot of our guests said that the wedding helped get them in the Christmas spirit! Plus we got to spend our first Christmas together on the beach in Mexico!
What is the one thing you are most happy you splurged on? For the wedding weekend, we rented two cottages for our wedding party, one house for Ben and his groomsmen and one for me and my bridesmaids. It isn’t often that all of our friends are together in one place, so this was really special and worth the cost! As for the actual wedding day, I would probably say our getaway vehicle which was a horse and carriage! It was magical and a perfect exit for a wedding held during the holiday season!
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? There are two moments that really stand out in our memories. We were both really anxious about standing in front of everyone at our ceremony so we decided to see each other before our ceremony. Our “first look” eased our nerves and was a very quiet, intimate moment and a gentle reminder of the true meaning of the day! We also took communion together in our wedding ceremony which we felt was a very special, humbling way to begin our marriage.
What advice do you have for folks currently planning a wedding: It’s easy to get distracted by all the details so we had to remind ourselves that although we were planning a wedding, more importantly we were planning for a lifetime together. It really is true that money can’t buy the things you will remember the most about your wedding. Regardless of the type of flowers you have or what your cake looks and tastes like, the wedding day is a holy, special, joyful occasion; try to enjoy every minute of it!
Photographer: Meredith Perdue // Second Shooter: Graham Terhune // Planner: bride and bride’s mother // Ceremony venue: The Village Chapel // Reception venue: The Fairbarn // Florist: Aldenaye // Wedding Cake Baker: Sweet Fi’s Cakes // Caterer: Mark Elliot // Rentals: Richmond Rentals and Sales // Bride’s Dress: Priscilla of Boston, Vineyard Collection // Hair Stylist: The Spa at the Pinehurst Resort // Bridesmaids’ Dresses: Champagne dresses by Anna Elyse, black cocktail dresses were bridesmaids’ own.
Meredith Perdue is one of our fabulous Blue Ribbon Vendors!
That is so funny and neat – but I can’t very easily bury a bottle of bourbon in a church sanctuary!
Haha! I’d have to agree, Madelynne! I’m not sure that’s the best idea.
My future sister-in-law told me of this tradition and I have since insisted that we do it for our June 9th wedding! Our reception is being held outdoors, on my mom’s Tennessee farm, so I need all the help I can get, superstitious or not. We also plan on drinking a bourbon and coke cocktail after we’ve dug up the bottle in our monogrammed Mason jars! And our party favors for our guests will include mini Jack Daniel’s bottles in the Mason jars, it’s all about a theme, right?
Hello,
Did you have your wedding yet? Did the Bury the Bourbon work? Also, did you bury it 1 calendar month before or 4 weeks before?
Thanks!
One other thing: According to Wikipedia :) Although Jack Daniel’s whiskey generally meets the regulatory criteria for classification as a straight bourbon, the company disavows this classification and markets it simply as Tennessee whiskey rather than as Tennessee bourbon. So we are going with Wikipedia’s classification for our Tennessee wedding and burying the bourbon – Jack Daniel’s!
Wish I had known about this on my wedding day! It rained cats and dogs! Probably would have had to “bury” (read: under a bush and not in dirt) it at the country club reception, as the church did not allow any alcohol on site ;-)
Rest assured, plenty of bourbon was enjoyed that evening!
Oh, I’m sorry it rained on your wedding day! I’m sure it was still beautiful!
This is such a cute idea! I’m going to try the reception site option too since I don’t feel right burying bourbon on the church grounds. Hopefully it will still work for a South Carolina wedding! ;)
We did this for my sisters wedding though our understanding was that you should chose a day that you want the weather to be like and then we buried the bourbon. The hardest part was deciding which day was the best weather and thankfully it worked!
Being that the reception was in my parent’s backyard there weren’t any issues with being allowed to do it. However, we never dug it back up! In all the craziness it is still in the garden.
Love the idea of photographing the event as well as digging up the bottle and drinking it in celebration!
Glad to hear it worked, Julia! That’s all that counts, right?!
I love this website! My fiance and I are both southern, as well our whole families live below the Mason Dixon. We are going to do this for our September 1st wedding!
We are having an outdoor ceremony on June 9th and I am so nervous that it is going to rain. When I read about this tradition, I just knew we had to do it! Just last weekend my fiancee and I went to our ceremony site in Charleston, SC and buried a bottle of bourbon. Now let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it works!!
Oh how fun! You’ll have to let us know if it works! Fingers crossed for you!! xx
Our wedding was June 9th and thanks to the bottle of bourbon we had fantastic weather!! Bright and sunny skies with a little breeze and cooler than normal in Charleston for June. We were esctatic and had a wonderful wedding day!
And then the next day it was overcast and raining off and on So in my opionion, the tradition works :)
[…] Ulmer Studios via Green Wedding Shoes | Burying the bourbon: Jodi Miller Photography via Southern Weddings | Drinks: A Sweet Pea Chef | Hostess with the Mostest | Whole Foods Market | Outdoors: Paige […]
We love your post and we have included it in a roundup of Southern traditions. We linked it back to your post. ;) Check it out here: http://belleandbeauantiquarian.blogspot.com/2012/11/10-southern-traditions-that-yall-should.html
[…] Southern folklore says that if you bury a bottle of bourbon at the site where the bride and groom are to be married, then it won’t rain on their wedding day. According to many believers, this must be done exactly one month before the wedding, the bottle must be completely full and it must be buried upside down in order for it to keep the rain away. […]
Please help. We are supposed to be burying the bottle today. Today is 31days before our wedding. But it’s raining :-( can we do it tomorrow since it technically will still be one month away?
Hi sweet Rebecca! My vote would be to do it tomorrow! :)
My daughter Chessie is burying a bottle of bourbon today for her April 12 wedding…its rainy and windy today will let you know how it worked in a month…
There is a poem that accompanies the tradition of burying the bottle. Have you heard of it? I’m searching for it.
It worked for us in Virginia this past August!
[…] y’all know, I normally talk about Southern wedding traditions – from the sweet to the kind of wacky! Well, today’s tradition is not necessarily associated with weddings, but it still features a […]
[…] to wedding weather woes–whether it stormed on your big day or you’re getting ready to bury the bourbon, unpredictable weather is a nerve-wracking factor that every outdoor bride has to endure at some […]
[…] We buried a bottle of Woodford upside down at the ceremony site, and the boys dug it up just before the ceremony. They toasted the occasion with the bourbon they had just retrieved–the bottle ended up empty, so I’m glad I didn’t bury a bigger bottle! New to this Southern tradition? Read our post on it here! […]
I was the photographer at a wedding where they buried the bourbon and… it worked! The rain was horrible leading up to the wedding! That whole week seemed like it would lead up to a site that was water logged or we would be boating in! On Friday, the rain finally stopped around noon but it was calling for more the next day. When we showed up for the rehearsal, everyone was in rain boots and the bride had full confidence that the 3 inch deep puddles would be dry on Saturday. When we arrived on Saturday, it was dry! I will never doubt this southern tradition and plan to do this when my daughters marry!
Hello,
I am wondering how specific do you have to be regarding the ONE MONTH rule.
Example: Our wedding is Saturday Oct 4th. Does that mean we bury September 4th (Which is a Thursday) or 4 weeks before (would be September 6th a Saturday like our wedding)
-Christina
My wedding is October 4th as well and we will be burying ours tomorrow, September 4th. Our venue has had 26 weddings and it only rained once. That was because they didn’t bury their bourbon!
We do not have a wedding at Walnut Way without burying the Bourbon! We are at 100% sunshine since we began having weddings. Our couples have fun with the tradition by having a picnic. If the couple is from out of town I bury it for them and send photos. It is frequently the first photo in their wedding album and digging it up is the last. We have had weddings that couldn’t have their rehearsal due to rain and the next morning the sun came out. Other weddings have had the rain begin the following day. Walnut Way
[…] The ceremony was held at St. James Church in Dover KY and the tented reception was held at Potato Hill Farm. The Farm is actually owned by Brian’s family and provides a Rustic and Farm style accommodations. I also experiences a Sourthern Wedding Tradition of Burying the Bourbon […]
When I was a kid in west Texas, a family friend found a bottle of bourbon buried on their property. It was over 100 years old. Nobody had a clue why anyone would bury bourbon underground. As an adult when I moved to the Carolina’s I learned it was a tradition. Looking back, most of the settlers that came out west were from the Southern states. So as far as I can say, the tradition has been around for over 100 years.
We’re having a destination NYE wedding in Hilton Head and of course they’re predicting ‘storms to end the year’ down there. We still may bury the bottle on a nice sunny day where we live just for the heck of it and see what happens. Anyone else try this for their destination wedding?
Do you dig up the bourbon bottle and drink it after the wedding?
Yes Van! Drink and toast!
We did this a month before our wedding (9/19/15) we buried a new bottle of Jim Beam upside down at our wedding ceremony site. It looked like it was going to rain ALL day up until I walked down the aisle at 4:30. The skies opened up with the sun shining down on us. The reception was tented and we had perfect “fall”cool (low of 65) weather for the rest of the evening/night. We’re convinced it was due to our dirty bourbon that we dug up before we went to join our guests at the reception.
The only thing we did different and I forgot to mention is that we saved it for our anniversaries. We’re gonna have a drink with it for big anniversaries: 1,5,15,20,25,30,35, etc
My husband and I buried our bourbon exactly one month to the minute from the start of our ceremony and it worked like charm! For our summer wedding this month, we had unseasonably cool temperatures and clear, beautiful skies! This is definitely a tradition to hold tightly to!
[…] they buried a bottle of bourbon at the ceremony site one month before their wedding. According to Southern Weddings, “Southern folklore says that if you bury a bottle of bourbon at the site where the bride and […]
[…] the bride, Ashley tells me get ready for diggin’ up the bourbon, I was stumped. Come to find out it’s an old Southern tradition and I think this one falls […]
We are planning on doing this, but cannot gain access to the venue until a few days after the day that would be one mom. Hopefully, it still works! We have had issues with rain or our engagement photos and my bridal photos already, so keeping the rain away on wedding day is huge!
[…] to the lone oak, it was a photography dream. After Chelsea + Cory’s intimate ceremony and digging up the bourbon, (which worked because the sky was cloudless and blue) we headed to the Shawano Park Pavillion to […]
We are planning to do this tradition, however we hit a road block! We knew we couldn’t bury the bottle at our ceremony site, as we are getting married at a church, but our reception venue has said that we can not bring outside alcohol onto the property. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we might be able to alter the tradition (read: get around this rule) and still participate?
So my kid wants to use Fireball instead of bourbon. Thoughts?
Haha! You can certainly bury whatever you want, but whiskey might not work as well as bourbon, at least according to tradition :)