Southern Weddings

Bride Lilly shares her Charleston plantation wedding to Bobby!

One of my favorite wedding details to check out is how the bride and groom choose to create a guest book! I’ve seen some pretty creative keepsakes, but never had I heard of Lilly and Bobby’s idea! “Instead of doing a typical guest book, we decided to collect post cards from places that we traveled throughout our engagement and have guests write little notes or advice on them. My mother-in-law has them all and she is sending them to us throughout the whole first year of our marriage. It is a great way to extend the wedding fun throughout the whole year and we love being reminded of all the fun memories when we get one in the mail!” I absolutely love this idea! Not only are the postcards themselves keepsakes from their travels, but now they are full of love and advice from their wedding guests!

I’m so thrilled to hand it off to Lilly to share all the meaningful details of their day, and I know you’ll especially love the wedding favor that is now a family tradition!

Thanks to Rach loves Troy for these lovely images!

Tell us your love story in one sentence. We met our freshman year at UNC on my birthday (of all nights) and our friendship eventually turned into something more because we were always seated next to each other in classes (both our names begin with H), and we also played on the same intramural soccer team. It was fate!
Tell us all about the proposal! Bobby proposed on a beautiful fall day in October 2015 when we were in town for UNC’s homecoming football weekend, which we’ve been going to every year since we graduated. We live in Boston now, and I had actually flown down early on Friday to meet up with a friend and have lunch on campus. I didn’t think he was arriving until later that night because he had been gone all week on a work trip. My friend and I were walking around campus and as we approached the Old Well, he came up behind me and surprised me! He proposed in front of the Old Well and I can barely remember anything he said because I was so surprised. The best part about it (other than the proposal) was that my parents and a lot of our friends were in town so we had the whole weekend to celebrate with them!
Tell us about some of the songs you used throughout your wedding and why you chose them. The songs that we used for the ceremony and first dances were really important to me because I wanted them all to have sentimental value. For the seating of the grandmothers and mothers, the musicians played “Your Song” by Elton John. I loved this choice because my dad used to play that song for my mom on the piano when I was growing up. I walked down the aisle to “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol (a personal favorite) and for the recessional we chose “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles because it had a great lively beat to it which indicated to our guests at the end of the ceremony that it was time to celebrate! For our first dance, we danced to “You and I” by John Legend which my husband suggested and I absolutely loved. And for the father-daughter dance, we picked “My Girl” by the Temptations. I’ve been dancing with my dad to that song all my life after seeing “Father of the Bride” with him and it only made sense to dance to it together on our wedding day!
What did you serve for your wedding cake or dessert? Why did you choose it? For our wedding cake, we wanted something classic, Southern, and a little unique. One of my favorite Southern desserts is banana pudding so when our cake baker offered that flavor as one of our choices, we had to say yes! It had real bananas and vanilla wafers inside it and was absolutely delicious. And the presentation of the cake could not have been more lovely with its classic white icing and beautiful sugar magnolia blooms. It was perfection!
What was your favorite detail from your wedding? My favorite detail was the favors for our guests. My mom baked homemade pecan chewies for each of our guests with the pecans from my great-uncle’s pecan farm. This was a nod to my great-grandmother who gave my mom and dad homemade pecan chewies on their wedding day as they were leaving for their honeymoon “so that they wouldn’t go hungry.” So we wanted to pass that same sentiment and tradition on to our guests!
What was your favorite thing about wedding planning? My favorite thing about wedding planning was all the special moments I got to share with my parents and my in-laws. Putting on my wedding dress for the first time with my mom, practicing the first dance with my dad, and making welcome bags with my mother-in-law were truly wonderful memories that I will always treasure. My husband and I also took dance lessons and it was a great way for us to make time as a couple during our busy week and just have fun together!
What was the hardest part about planning your wedding? The hardest part of planning our wedding was having to do it from afar. Since we live in Boston and the wedding was in Charleston, SC, we really had to rely on our planner and our family to help us stay organized and get through all of the logistics. We even picked out our venue by having my parents visit it and take videos – we didn’t see it in person until 10 months into the planning process!
What advice would you give to someone currently planning a wedding? It is very easy to get caught up in the details of planning a wedding and forget why you’re getting married in the first place. Make time for yourself, your family, and your significant other because those are the people that make this special time so memorable. Your wedding day goes by in the blink of an eye, and what you end up remembering the most are the moments you shared with all of the people you love and care about – not the little details that go into planning a wedding.

Photographer and Videographer: Rach Loves Troy | Planner: A.Caldwell Events | Venue: Legare Waring House | Florist: Tiger Lily | Wedding Cake: Sugar Magnolia Cake Boutique | Caterer: B. Gourmet Catering | Bar: MIX Bartending | Rentals: EventWorks | Lighting: Innovative Event Services | Ceremony Music: Classical Charleston | DJ: DJ Josh via OtherBrother Entertainment | Invitation Suite: Scotti Cline Designs | Bride’s Gown: “Estelle” by Modern Trousseau | Bridal Salon: Hayden Olivia Bridal | Bride’s Veil: Jennifer Leigh Couture Veils | Hair and Makeup: Paper Dolls | Bride’s Shoes: Badgley Mischka | Bridesmaids’ Dresses: “Annabelle” in Ciel Blue by Jenny Yoo | Groom’s Tuxedo: Loro Piana from Julian Style | Groom’s Shoes: Tom Ford | Groomsmen Attire: The Black Tux | Getaway Car: Lowcountry Valet and Shuttle | Wedding Nanny for Dog: Dog Tired