Southern Weddings

If you’re checking back after Part I of Sarah + Kevin’s magical North Carolina wedding, we’re guessing you were enchanted with the fairytale details as we were.  After a romantic evening ceremony in the forest, the newly-weds celebrated under the tent at The Garden Retreat amid charming centerpieces from Blossoms at Biltmore Park and a captivating, three-tiered confection from Tiffany’s Baking Co.  Subtly sweet mouse + bird details plus a kid-friendly puppet show made for a storybook ending to the happy couple’s Southern I-Do’s.  Don’t forget to check out our newest contest and show us your love for SW!

Our favorite detail of the wedding was: I think one of my favorite details was a puppet booth made by my brother and father to entertain the children during the reception. The kids were given forest animal finger puppets as their favors and were then invited to use the forest scene puppet booth all night!
Describe your wedding flowers: We wanted to use fiddle heads in our flowers because they are an important symbol in New Zealand culture representing new beginnings. Blossoms at Biltmore Park did a great job of incorporating them along with lots of different white, gold, and green flowers, ferns and grasses that went beautifully with the forest theme.
Describe your wedding cake: The wedding cake was decorated with sugar Moon-flower vines wound around the cake and over the gorgeous antique gold borders (also made out of sugar). To keep with the forest theme, little carved wooden mice were peeking out from under the leaves. The cake was topped with a hand-carved wooden Cardinal to represent North Carolina, where I am originally from. The four-tiered cake was delicious!  Kevin’s groom cake had a New Zealand theme with a hand carved wooden Kiwi topper surrounded by sugar fiddleheads and ferns. His cake was chocolate with chocolate hazelnut filling covered in chocolate fudge icing
What was your favorite design element of your big day? I think antique frames are perfect symbols for a wedding because they conjure up feelings of family, memories and tradition. I had fun finding ways to incorporate the gold vintage frames into everything from invitations to the details on the wedding cake.
Were there any wedding traditions or new ideas you included in the wedding? My grandmother, mother and aunts each gave me a penny sewn into blue material to keep in my wedding shoe for my something blue and as a good luck token. For my something borrowed, they  gave me a handkerchief embroidered by my great grandmother’s bridesmaids for her wedding. The same handkerchief had been carried by every woman in my family on her wedding day. I felt honored to be able to carry it as well.
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future?  We have returned to London and plan to stay here for another year. Kevin fell in love with the mountains of North Carolina while we were there for our wedding and I remembered how much I missed them. We are now planning to move there as soon as we leave London!

Congratulations, Sarah & Kevin!  Enjoy your last year in London and your move back to beautiful North Carolina!

I don’t think I’ve ever started a post by focusing on the wedding cake before, but there’s something about Courtney + Andrew’s three-tiered confection from Fatty Patty’s Cakes and Café that makes me smile.  I just love how the bright, full blooms surrounding each tier perfectly match the bridesmaids’ Nouveau Flowers bouquets.  Bold, colorful flags, bright serapi blankets and gold ceiling decorations transform the Seaside Lyceum into an ultra-festive venue perfect for the couple’s Cinco de Mayo-inspired reception.  The cute chalkboard menu paired with the Dine by Design fixings round out this Florida fiesta.  Now that we’re all in a festive mood of our own, it’s time to start looking towards the weekend!  Happy Friday from all of us here at SW!  

Describe your wedding flowers: The only flowers in the entire wedding were the flowers the girls carried, which were the same as the flowers on the cake. I wanted each bouquet to make its own individual color statement. Since they were going to be the only flowers in the church, they really needed to pop. We did rustic bouquets of apple green hydrangeas, purple stock, orange orchids and hot pink dahlias. In contrast my bridal bouquet was just a simple bouquet of ivory garden roses. We didn’t have any flowers at the reception, so decided to use simple candles and succulents on top of colored linen runners that matched the colors of the bridesmaids’ flowers). Since we had a family style dinner, we couldn’t have a huge floral arrangements on the table.
Describe your wedding cake:  We had a Mexican Chocolate cake with Kaluah butter cream alternated with a layer of tres leches cake with key lime butter cream. The outside of the cake itself was a vanilla butter cream that was finished like an old-fashioned cake. The pop of color came from the flowers alternating between the layers.  I loved that the flowers on the cake matched the bridesmaid’s flowers.
What was your favorite design element of your big day?  I loved the lounge our designer created on the lawn. It was gorgeous with all the colored papel picalo and the lights. It quickly became the place everyone wanted to hang out in during the reception. I also loved all the candles used during the ceremony and later at the reception. They added a very romantic vibe that made it feel even more vintage Mexico.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: I loved the lanterns hanging from the ceiling of the dinner tent. We collected them all year and I loved that they all were unique and slightly different. I also loved our seating cards or, rather, tiles. We had everyone’s names and table number written on traditional Mexican tiles. When they were all put together on the table they created a fun, colorful pattern that made the table looked tiled!

Congratulations, Courtney + Andrew!  We love hearing about the happy endings of college sweethearts!

If I didn’t really believe each bride was truly unique before this contest, after reading all your wonderfully original and ultra-personal plans for your big day, there’s no longer any doubt!  From our classic and relaxed ladies to our vintage and modern gals (and all you lovely hybrids in between), I had so much fun reading about how you’re going to make your weddings distinctly your own.  And now, without further ado, I’m pleased to announce the blushing brides who embody the classic, relaxed, vintage and modern in all of us!  Of course, this little experiment would not have been possible without the support of our fabulous vendors: Twisted Crystals, Stella & Dot, Bel Canto Designs, MGMart, Julianne Smith, evie s. and La Plates!

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The Classic Bride:  Like Sex and the City’s Charlotte York, Nicole R. is all about tradition, timelessness and simple elegance.  Opting for anything monogrammed, engraved or sophisticatedly understated, and a fan of classic, minimal jewelry (think diamond studs and her grandmother’s pearl necklace), Nicole is the type of bride who has dreamed about marrying her Prince Charming since she was a little girl.  (Sigh!) 

The Relaxed Bride:  Hoping to marry her honey where the couple first met at Cosi’s sandwich shop in NYC, Klau is, without question, a relaxed, low-key and no fuss girl.  This self-described “chilled-out bride” and her fiancé plan on inviting only fifteen or twenty of their closest friends and are looking forward to a fun, stress-free affair, which is especially fitting considering the groom proposed to his bride with a Mickey Mouse ring at a local Burger King!

The Vintage Bride:  Dramatic halls, gold chandeliers, marble floors and romantic balconies come together as the design inspiration for the lovely Kayla’s black-tie wedding.  With her elegant champagne, bronze and ivory color palate, this vintage bride evokes the sophistication, romance and grandeur of times past.

The Modern Bride:  Weddings don’t come more modern (or fun!) than Bowie Bride’s offbeat LA bash!  A mixed wedding party (yes, men serving as bridesmaids and ladies standing up with the groomsmen), a civil ceremony officiated by a judge and city buses rather than limousines are only a few of the things that make this non-traditional affair super fun and totally mod.

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Congratulations to Nicole R., Klau, Kayla and Bowie Bride!  Each of our iconic brides will receive a custom gift set complete with products from Twisted Crystals, Stella & Dot, Bel Canto Designs, MGMart, Julianne Smith, evie s. and La Plates!