Southern Weddings

Saturday morning dawned crisp and clear, and I think I might have exhaled a breath I’d been holding since the year before, when we first decided to hold the wedding outside. On an island. Without a very good contingency plan. Of course, when I actually woke up, it was still dark outside, as I and my setup crew (Dad, boyfriend, sister, cousins) had a lot to get done before the 11am ceremony. Bless their hearts, Jenna and her sidekick for the day, Meredith of And Unlimited, practically arrived in the dark, too. And despite a tiny moment of panic when we got word that the ferry transporting guests to and fro ran out of fuel in the middle of one of its runs, the morning went off without a hitch!

But now, on to the details! The invitation suite was my pride and joy, designed by me with some help on the envelope liner from Fourth & Folded and printed by Clinton Press. If you’re curious about the whole process and my materials, you can read more about that here! My best friend, a senior at RISD, made the custom map, and we stuffed the welcome bags a few days before the weekend.

Kate bought both her pairs of shoes from Endless.

Kate + Cormac got ready in different cottages, and we strung each with navy and yellow bunting.

After some portrait fun with the gentlemen it was back over to the ladies’ side for the last pre-ceremony preparations! Kate wore the “Zuri” by Maggie Sottero from The Wedding Shoppe. Her hair and makeup was done by Shear Artistry in Boothbay Harbor, while the rest of us relied on ourselves or a family friend to get prettified!

Kate’s veil was by Simple Beauty Veils and our bridesmaid dresses were from J. Crew.

After portraits, it was off to the ceremony! Kate requested an evergreen branch in lieu of a ring pillow for our cousin to hold as he walked down the aisle, and we made fold out programs for guests to peruse as they waited.

My RISD friend also made the driftwood arch they stood under to recite their vows.

We had a cookies and lemonade table set up right behind the ceremony space for guests to mix and mingle… and fortify themselves for the walk over to the reception! The tags were also made by yours truly.

While most of the guests headed to the reception, the bridal party stayed behind for a quick set of portraits.

Next up? The reception! But first, a few words from the bride herself:

How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story. We went to the same small liberal arts college (Macalester College) in St. Paul, Minnesota. I played on the volleyball team, and Cormac was the student athletic trainer assigned to our team. When I told my parents about Cormac, I accidentally left out the “student” part – they thought he was a lot older!
Describe the proposal. Around our 7th anniversary, we had been wanting to go eat at a particular restaurant that’s over near where we went to school. We ended up going there on the exact day. Anniversaries had never really been a huge deal for us, so I suspected that Cormac didn’t even remember that it was our anniversary…and when I asked him during dinner, he played it off perfectly, acting surprised and suggesting that “since it was our anniversary”, we go walk down by the river (which is something we used to do a lot when we were poor college students). We sat down on a bench and chatted for a while. The conversation turned to what makes us happy, and he said “I know something that would make me happy. Will you marry me?” Of course I said yes. Obviously, he had known all along!
Three adjectives that describe the day are: relaxed, personal, and fun!
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: How could I pick one? Emily did such a fantastic job with all of them. My absolute favorites were probably the signs and the photo swing. Cormac’s was the pre-wedding wiffle ball game (and the fact that the ceremony was later held on the ball field!)
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: My mom and sisters flew out to Minnesota in January, something most sane people would NOT voluntarily do. I had done some looking beforehand, but didn’t really know what would look good on me and therefore didn’t really know what I was looking for. I was pretty sure that I would get a short dress, though, because the wedding was going to be outside and I’d be walking on dirt paths. At the first place we went, the second dress I tried on was perfect…except that it was long. I tried on a bunch of other dresses, and we also found a short one we liked. We went to the rest of the appointments that I had packed into the weekend and I tried on a ton more dresses, but we kept coming back to the two at the first store. Eventually, my mom and sisters convinced me that a long dress would be fine, and I ended up with the second dress I had tried on!

Written with love by Emily