Southern Weddings

{Casey Cunningham Photography} shared this fantastic wedding with our team and we knew we had to share it with our readers.  Not only is it Southern fabulousness but it also has a great story behind it of Margret + Andres combining their heritage to create one spectacular wedding.  Read on to hear how Margret used magnolias from her Grandfather’s farm in the wedding flowers, how Andres selected Spanish wines for the evening from his native Spain, Margret’s mom made the Pecan Pies for the reception and the list goes on. The reception was held at the {Charlotte Country Club} and the beautiful cake was baked by {For Goodness Cakes}.  For more photos click over to Casey Cunningham’s {Blog}.

How did the two of you meet? I was a junior at Davidson College when my best friend, Chiqui, announced that her brother, Andres, was flying from California for a visit. Andres and I hit it off instantly and began dating shortly thereafter, but distance and timing made it difficult for anything serious to emerge. Several years later, I went to visit Chiqui in Houston to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Andres and I reunited for the first time in over a year and the rest is history!
Describe the proposal: My little sister, Lee was visiting us in Houston in April 2008. Unbeknownst to me, Andres also flew in my parents from North Carolina so we could all “spend the weekend together.” Andres and Lee picked up my parents at the airport on Saturday evening, asked their permission, and took them to a restaurant where Andres’ parents were also waiting. I had been getting ready at his house when he returned to pick me up. He proposed at home and after I said “yes!”, we joined our parents and Lee for a celebratory dinner.
The weather on our wedding day was: Chilly, a bit cloudy, like a crisp winter day.
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? We wanted it to be elegant and reverent but also understated. We wanted to balance the luxurious romance of lace on lace and candlelight glow at the old historic church and at the reception with warm Southern hospitality, magnolia leaves from Grandpa’s farm, quail prepared to perfection, and favors of homemade pecan pies
Favorite design element of your big day: I loved our touches of dark red. It was the “bride’s color” and was only used for my bouquet, Andres’ boutonniere, rose petals around the wedding cake, and my favorite use – our red velvet wedding cake! I also loved the bridesmaid’s dress. I wanted something my bridesmaids would enjoy wearing and feel good in. Luckily, we were able to order the Saja dresses through our favorite boutique, Luna.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I went to at least 5 stores in Charleston and Charlotte with my mom and sister trying to find a gown. We quickly decided that the mermaid silhouette was perfect for my small frame. I have always admired Monique L’hullier’s work, so when I tried on her strapless Alencon lace mermaid gown, it was perfect! It just happened that my mom’s Alencon lace mantilla was striking over the lace gown; I was so happy to get to wear it.
Describe your wedding flowers: We used white everywhere with magnolia and other rich foliage with lots of different kinds of flowers – lillies, hydrangea, roses, Queen Anne’s lace, lilacs. The only pop of color was the deep shades of red roses and tulips in my bouquet, Andrés’ boutonniere, a scattering of red petals around the wedding cake and on our dinner table. All containers were silver, including family candelabra, and real beeswax tapers and votives provided a beautiful glow all evening.
Describe your wedding cake: White on white with cascades of sugar paste roses streaming down the cake. Red Velvet flavor with cream cheese filling! Elegant, beautiful and so delicious that every piece was eaten!
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: We wanted to acknowledge Andrés’ Spanish heritage. Our Director of Music, chose one Spanish composer for the Prelude and after the Seating of the Mothers, a beautiful soloist sang, acapello from the rear balcony, first in Spanish, and then English, “Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this Place”. We also loved that Andrés’ sister and my dear friend, Chiqui, was both a bridesmaid and lay reader.
Were there any special family traditions you included in the wedding? Andrés and the men enjoyed skeet shooting and barbecue on the Wedding Day at my Grandfather’s farm – just as my father and uncle had done on their wedding days. All the magnolia used to decorate the reception and church came from Grandpa’s giant magnolia, that was the backdrop for my parents’ wedding reception. My mom made all the reception favors, pecan pies, using my late grandmother’s recipe. The reception included a selection of Spanish wines and pan sautéed quail – cooked in a manner deemed awesome by all the Texans, including my husband!
Funniest moment? My cousin, Leah Marie, was enjoying dropping petals, then she turned around to pick up her “mess”….oh it was so sweet when the older Flower Girl, Hannah, encouraged her to join her in the walk down the aisle – hand in hand.
The most unexpected event on our wedding day was: Andrés’ ring was too large! Later, we would find that the highly respected jeweler had engraved and sent the wrong size.
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Reverent, joyful, true.
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? Living together in Houston! For two years we have been splitting weekends between Houston and Austin while I’ve been completing the MBA program at the University of Texas in Austin.

Congratulations to Margret + Andreas. We wish you the best in love and happiness!

Written with love by Lara Casey

This wedding was a joy for our staff to look over. The wedding celebration all took place in Durham, North Carolina, which is the neighboring city to our office and many of the locations for this wedding celebration are highlights in Durham. Paige + Brandon happily married at {Duke Chapel} and happily treated guests to a reception at the {American Tobacco Historic District}. The wedding celebration and reception were photographed by {Tracy Turpen Photography}. She caught all the shots of the beautiful flower arrangements by {Tre Bella}, delicious food by {Durham Catering Company}, wedding cake and a Duke Blue Devils’ grooms cake by {Cinda’s Creative Cakes} and the beautiful calligraphy by {Della Carta Studio}. The bridesmaids wore {Watters} gowns and Paige was dressed in a beautiful {Eugenia Couture} gown. This wedding was planned by {Grace Leisure Events}. Check out all the shots on Tracy Turpen’s {Blog}. P.S. We love the shots of the couple at Cookout such a North Carolina college student tradition to go there late at night!

How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story. We met on the first day of freshman orientation at Duke University and were pretty much inseparable thereafter! We took the same political science classes, studied abroad in London, became involved in student government and then applied to law school together.

Describe the proposal: After asking my parents’ permission while visiting my family in Savannah, Brandon picked out a ring. On a fall evening during our second year of law school, he asked me to take a post-dinner walk to enjoy the weather. He surprised me by proposing in front of the Love sculpture in the middle of the University of Pennsylvania campus.

Why do you love your husband? He’s the quintessential Southern gentleman. He opens doors, he calls his parents and grandmother often, and he goes out of his way to make other people feel comfortable. His laugh is infectious, and everything is more fun when he’s around!

Why do you love your wife? Paige is the most beautiful and thoughtful woman I have ever met. She is incredibly intelligent and accomplished, but her sincere humbleness makes everyone feel at home. Her sense of humor keeps me laughing, her cuisine keeps me going back for seconds, and her love of reality TV keeps me in the know. I cannot imagine spending my life without her.

A date we went on that we’ll always remember: While studying abroad in college, we took a weekend trip to the Catalan region of Spain. We stopped in the town of Tarragona, outside of Barcelona, for dinner. After sharing paella and a bottle of cava, we walked up the main boulevard and looked out over the medieval harbor to the Mediterranean. It was one of those unplanned, but perfect and memorable evenings.

The weather on our wedding day was: rainy! We had always pictured a beautiful Carolina blue sky spring wedding, but the weather forecast was dismal. It rained for four days straight! Looking back though, the rain made everything so much cozier. The grey sky was stunning against Duke’s gothic architecture and the hazy light created a dramatic back-drop for our day.

What was the design inspiration for your wedding? Blending sleek sophistication with Southern hospitality. Our ceremony location, the Duke Chapel, is an awe-inspiring space with traditional gothic architecture, but our reception site, a renovated tobacco warehouse in the American Tobacco Historic District, is much more modern with very high ceilings and exposed brick walls. We wanted a style that bridged the two spaces and made our guests feel special.

Favorite design element of your big day: The tables at the reception. We had long rectangular tables covered in chocolate brown pin-tuck linens. The napkins were folded into the shape of dinner jackets with little black bow ties for a whimsical touch. We mixed arrangements that mimicked the bridal bouquet with lots of candles in hurricanes spread across the tables for an intimate glow. The centerpieces were spectacular – we had towering cherry blossom arrangements lined up down the middle of each table– the cherry blossoms reminded our guests that this was a spring North Carolina wedding, but maintained a sophisticated aesthetic.

Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I knew exactly what I was looking for; it was just a matter of finding it! I wanted a classic dress with lace details, an a-line skirt and cap sleeves. I took my mother, brother and future mother-in-law to Kleinfeld in New York to search for my dress. I chose one of the first dresses I tried on because it met all of my criteria and was so comfortable to dance in!

Describe your wedding flowers: We chose white and green flowers for our wedding and tried to pick flowers that you would find in a southern garden: freesia, hydrangea, cherry blossom, ivory spray roses, button mums, and hypericum berries. Green cymbidium orchids also added a modern touch. By placing fresh garden flowers in modern arrangements, the flowers stood out against the contemporary background of the tobacco warehouse. Our biggest flower challenge was that the Duke Chapel does not allow flower girls to drop petals. We did not want the flower girls to hold bouquets and look like the bridesmaids, so our florist came up with the precious idea of a ball of button mums. It turned out very well and matched the ring bearer’s button mum boutonniere perfectly.

Describe your wedding cake: Delicious! We opted for classic, white butter cream with navy ribbon and cymbidium orchids that matched the bridesmaids’ dresses and bouquets. There were four tiers, each with a different type of cake and filling. Brandon chose an awesome red velvet groom’s cake in the shape of suitcases with travel stickers from places we’ve been together. The cake designer placed caricatures of us in our wedding finery on top of the cake with Brandon holding a Duke pitchfork! Our friends cannot stop talking about the red velvet cake!

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? We are both in school in Philadelphia, but really wanted to get married at Duke and closer to our families. It was difficult to plan the wedding from afar and we had to stay very organized so that we could make the most of the weekends we were able to get down to North Carolina. Luckily, my parents moved to North Carolina shortly before we were engaged and were able to oversee everything and follow up with our local vendors.

Were there any special family traditions you included in the wedding? I carried a tussy-mussy (silver bouquet holder) that members of Brandon’s family have used in their weddings. My parents also asked all of the guests to sign magnums of champagne at the Reception for us to open on our anniversary.

Funniest moment? Going to Cookout was a late night tradition at Duke, so Brandon asked our driver to take us to Cookout for burgers, hushpuppies and milkshakes after the wedding. We went up to the walk-up window to place our order and the man who took our order had no clue what to say! Everyone was honking and shouting congratulations to us! We could not stop laughing and cannot imagine what everyone must have thought of us!

Hardest decision you made in planning? The planning was fun, but as the event got closer, we worried about how all of the elements would come together. I refused to commit to “wedding colors” all along and had instead chosen colors and elements that drew attention to the beauty of the ceremony and reception venues. It seemed to match in our heads, but we would not be able to really know until we saw everything set up. When we arrived at the reception site and looked over the balcony we were relieved and thrilled – everything was even better than we had imagined and we could not have been happier with the end result!

The most unexpected event on our wedding day was: I came down with the stomach flu the night before the wedding and could barely get out of bed the next morning. Luckily, the parents of one of my bridesmaids are both physicians and were able to diagnose me, write a prescription and run to the drug store for chicken soup and ginger ale. They were God-sent and had me feeling well enough to walk down the aisle in no time!

Three adjectives that describe the day are: sophisticated, welcoming, lagniappe (Cajun expression for “a little something extra”)

What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Happy guests are essential to a perfect wedding. It is so important to make your guests feel comfortable and involved in the big day, rather than spectators waiting for the ceremony to end. We made a full seating chart to show our guests that we had thought about each and every one of them in planning our reception. Guest bags with a list of local attractions and restaurants as well as a detailed timeline of the weekend also ensure that your guests can relax and enjoy themselves. And do not be afraid to ask your guests to dress up for your wedding! Our family and friends looked so dashing in their tuxedos and evening gowns. It made everyone feel like an honored guest and our day even more magical.

Best advice or most memorable comment someone made to you during the wedding celebration. Get a weekend-of wedding planner! Even if you want to plan your wedding yourself (which we would recommend because it can be great fun), finding someone to coordinate the events allows you to enjoy the day with no added stress.

What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? We graduate from law school in May and are moving to Houston to join the same law firm! We cannot get enough of each other after college AND law school together!

Any DIY items? We created a lot of our wedding elements in order to get exactly what we wanted. For example, I designed the save-the-date – a stylized map of Durham with landmarks from our lives together and the wedding. We also created our napkins by folding them into the shape of dinner jackets and making black bow ties. The guest welcome bags included some of our favorite snacks from North Carolina and Brandon’s native Louisiana. My mom and I baked 500 chocolate chip cookies from our family recipe to include in the welcome bags. It was a great way to spend time with my mom in the days leading up to the wedding and provided an additional personal touch for our guests.

Congratulations to Paige and Brandon! We hope you enjoy your new home in Houston!

Raven + Ben happily admit that it wasn’t love at first sight but it was something. The two became friends and began dating a year later and somewhere with the spark of the friendship became the spark of love. The two happily married at {Blowing Rock Country Club} near Boone, North Carolina. Their photographer, {Jeff Holt} captured this amazing day and we thank him for submitting these images to us. The incredible flowers were designed and created by {Millefleurs}. We love the use of yellow flowers in the arrangement and bouquets. Raven’s dress was from {Pattis Bridal} and the bridesmaids wore dresses from {Forever 21}. (What a chic and cheap idea). To see more from this fantastic NC wedding check it out further on Jeff Holt’s {Blog}.

How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story: We met after college through a mutual friend. I had just moved back to Charlotte and was living with a friend that I had known since grade school. He and Ben had met each other after graduation and hung out in the same circle in Charlotte. Ben had come over to our house one day to borrow something and that was our first meeting. Admittedly, it was not exactly love at first sight, but I knew Ben was someone special. We became friends first and then started dating about a year later.
Describe the proposal: We were visiting Napa Valley and enjoying the beautiful wineries. We stopped at Sterling Vineyards and took the Gondola up to the top to enjoy the tasting and views from the area’s only mountaintop winery. On the way down, I was enjoying the view out of the window and turned around just in time to see Ben getting down on one knee! I can’t even remember what he said because I was just knocked down with excitement and surprise; but remember blurting out “well, are you going to put it on my finger?” after he just kept holding the box and shaking. Afterward we shared our news and celebrated with Ben’s family in the Bay area of California.
What attracted me to my husband was: His beautiful blue eyes, his charming sense of humor, the kindness and warmth in the way he treated others.
Why do you love your husband? For so many reasons: his big heart, the way he makes me laugh and because he is my best friend – just to name a few.
What attracted me to my wife was: Everything. From the way her big brown eyes look at me to the way she snorts when she laughs. I was a goner from the moment I met her.
A date we went on that we’ll always remember: It doesn’t count as a date per se, because this was before we were official and we were not alone. In fact, Raven and I did not even come together. But, I remember meeting up one night at a local bar and just being captivated with her. We spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing, and there was nothing that could take me away from her side. Our first date was also memorable: dinners and lots of talking and getting to know each other!
The weather on our wedding day was: It was a picture perfect fall day in the North Carolina mountains. It was late September and the entire weekend had sunny blue skies and pretty, puffy clouds. The days were warm enough to allow the guys to golf in shorts and the nights were just cool enough to enjoy the big, outdoor, stone fireplace at the reception. It was ideal!
What was the design inspiration for your wedding? I had always envisioned my wedding being outside, and after some searching we found the perfect venue. The ceremony was at a pretty Catholic Church in Boone, NC that allowed us to quickly move to an outdoor reception at a nearby country club. The Blowing Rock Country Club Lakehouse is a large, open-air, covered pavilion that overlooks a small lake with trees and wild flowers all around. It was a picturesque setting and exactly what I had envisioned with the ease of all the facilities right there. For design inspirations I was thinking of a natural, rustic chic theme that was simple and casual, yet modern, fun, and unique.
Favorite design element of your big day: Our colors were yellow and gray; we loved how fresh, modern and original they were! We enjoyed using those colors in different ways; like the bridesmaids wearing bright yellow satin shoes with their gray dresses and the honorary bridesmaids wearing chunky yellow necklaces with black dresses of their own choice. It added just the right touch of color and casual chic we wanted. Also the way the white and yellow flowers popped off the steely gray table linens-so pretty!
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I exhausted every website I could find and looked through endless magazines, tearing out pages of dresses with various elements that I liked. I went to a few boutiques with my mom and grandmother, and one of them had actually just gotten one of the dresses I had found online and printed out. It was so unique, fit perfectly and was so flattering, that I knew at once, it was the one for me. I loved the details of the pleated tulle that was in the bust, kick pleats and train. It had a vintage feel with the lace overlay yet the cut was so modern. And it did not hurt that it was right in line with my budget! I did not want to take it off!
Describe your wedding flowers: I knew I wanted all yellow and white flowers with a lot of natural greenery, but I was not set on any particular flowers. I wanted to use what was in season, which also makes the flowers more affordable. Our florist Carolyn, who did an amazing job, put together a mix of enormous yellow Latina Roses, locally grown garden dahlias, golden cockscomb which provided an amazing fuzzy texture, hanging amaranthus which dripped over the bouquets and vases, bells of Ireland, yellow calla lilies, zinnias, Asiatic Lilies which smelled so lovely, and river oats which gave a delicate sense of dimension. The flowers were arranged in simple, birch bark wrapped vases and staged at various heights. I didn’t want it to be fussy and I didn’t want to compete with the amazing outdoor setting already provided by the Lake house. Mixing in our flower arrangements with the lake and natural blooming wildflowers was more than I expected and it all looked gorgeous.
Describe your wedding cake: It was a very simple square, four tiered cake with a graphic yellow flowering, gray tree branch that switch-backed across the cake. We did alternating layers of white chocolate truffle (which had little pieces of chocolate in the icing and was so delicious!!) and classic lemon (Ben’s favorite). The cake looked amazing and tasted even better, so much so that our guests kept talking about how delicious it was.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: The photo booth! We had the idea early in planning to try and have a photo booth at the wedding, and even designed our save-the-dates around the theme. The result was such a hit and everyone enjoyed it throughout the night! We were able to set up a booth at the entry that was both out of the way from the wedding, yet easy to access. It allowed guests to take photos while also providing enough room for the packed dance floor. The photo booth printed double copies; allowing the guests to receive a copy while also saving a copy for our own wedding book. It was so fun to go through them all the next day and see everyone enjoying themselves and we know this will be something we can save and look back on and enjoy. One other fave was the Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka and lemonade cocktails!
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? Procrastination. We waited longer than we should have to book our band and many of the good ones in our budget were booked. I ended up getting very lucky and finding an AWESOME band in the end, but it was very stressful for a while.
Were there any special family traditions you included in the wedding? I wore my grandmother’s guarder and carried one of her handkerchiefs. Ben wore a pair of my late grandfather’s cuff links, which I gave him as a wedding gift as he was getting dressed before the ceremony. We also had flowers and special notes in the entry of the church that represented our family members that had passed or couldn’t attend.
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Walking into our reception after being pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Ben Watt and seeding all of our friends and family cheering us on! It was so incredible!
Scariest moment? When our limo van was late to pick us up after our pictures. We arranged for it to take the wedding party from the ceremony to a nearby location for photos before the reception and
they had gotten lost before picking us back up and actually dropped us off at the reception quite later than we had planned. Luckily, the cocktail hour kept the guests entertained, but we were definitely stressed and anxious to get back and start celebrating with everyone.
Funniest moment? When the band started playing “I Like Big Butts!” by Sir MixAlot. It totally caught me off guard, but was hilarious! That immediately brought everyone to the dance floor and had everyone singing along!
Hardest decision you made in planning? Finding the place to have the wedding was hard at first. Narrowing down what city we wanted it all to happen in and then what we hoped to create. We also tweaked the menu several times but in the end we kept it simple and classic with dinner stations with something for everyone.
The most unexpected event on our wedding day was: When our priest starting singing a prayer right in our face during the ceremony. This was neither planned, nor practiced, and it completely caught us off guard. Afterward, our guests said that the looks on our faces were priceless!
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Honestly, words cannot to justice to the day. It was so much more than we could ever imagine. Celebratory, breathtaking, joyous.
What advice would you give to someone planning their wedding? Prioritize. You need to figure out what is important to you and try to avoid getting hung up on all the other small details – you can drive yourself crazy. We also took pride in making our wedding our own and not conforming to other’s ideas or influences. The result is an event truly representative of you and something to cherish forever. And lastly, enjoy every moment. It all goes by so incredibly fast.
Best advice or most memorable comment someone made to you during the wedding celebration. Take a moment to yourself and take it all in.
Who was your most honored guest at the wedding? For me it was definitely my Great Aunt Faye. She is in her eighties and traveled from Phoenix, AZ just to be with us on our special day. It was her first trip back to NC in years and she came for us. We also had our close friend Shepherd travel all the way home from Australia to be with us as well! He was a groomsman and made his first trip back to the states just to help us celebrate. Both of these people came just for the wedding and it really makes it that much more special knowing the difficulty they endured to make it happen.
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? We are hoping to take a big trip for our one year anniversary in September. And, I am sure we will be thinking about starting our own family down the road. Beyond that, I just look forward to having a partner in crime to grown old with.
Any DIY items? We did a lot of things on our own. It allows you to make the wedding that much more unique – and it’s also a great way to save a little money. We are both creative minded and work in design fields, so we looked forward to making things ourselves. Ben is a whiz with the computer, so he was able to make a lot of things after we decided on some of the details. He did our wedding website, save-the-date cards (cute photo-booth style pictures to tease the photo booth at the wedding), our wedding programs (which featured some of the same design details that were used on our invitations), detailed driving and attraction maps to go in the invitations since our wedding was out of town, and even our own wedding favor labels that were affixed to chocolate covered pretzel rods and read “So sweet of you to join us!”

Congratulations to Raven + Ben. We wish you the best!

Written with love by Lara Casey