On the outside this wedding is gorgeous; a seamless blend of color and charm crafted by Gloriosa Design with coordination by A Flawless Event. But once you pull away those pretty layers and really get cozy with this wedding, you’ll see that it has soul. It’s a beautiful dedication to the Bride’s father and a celebration of family and love perfectly documented by Harwell Photography. Click here for more.
From the Bride… Sean and I met through a mutual friend who swore we would love each other – and she was right! We were quickly inseparable, but marriage seemed like something that only grown ups do, and weren’t we just kids? But everyone grows up eventually, and after 5 years together, we were engaged under our favorite tree on our block in Brooklyn.
The engagement came on the cusp of a move to Atlanta. My father was ill and I wanted to spend time with him, helping him at home and with his company. We decided to marry in Georgia since we had relocated down here, and I’m so glad we did. Our wedding weekend at Serenbe was a getaway not only for for our friends and family from New York, but for our loved ones who lived in Georgia. We kicked the weekend off with a welcome party on Friday night by the Inn pool, and we ended with a lovely brunch on the wrap-around porch on Sunday morning.
Serenbe was the only venue we seriously considered – we fell in love with the town immediately, even on the rainy December day that we visited. And we knew that we wanted to marry beneath a beautiful tree like the one we were engaged under. Serenbe had just the tree in the middle of a meadow.
Though we were marrying in a pastoral, idyllic small town, we started our relationship in the biggest city in the US, and we wanted to capture that aesthetic sense as well. We hadn’t suddenly become cowboys since our move – but we knew a beautiful spot when we saw one. So, in terms of the planning, we tried to marry with our graphic, bold, mid-century modern style with the natural, soft setting at Serenbe.
We started with the invites. We worked closely (though cross country!) with our talented letterpress designer, Sara at Constellation & Co. As inspiration, we sent her pictures of the graphic, typographic art we have throughout our home. She came up with the dynamic and bold invite design. Pro tip: We really hit our stride once I provided her with the exact text I wanted on my invites – she was able to take the words “in a field, under the trees, down south” and run with it, typographically. And the color inspiration came from colors we had around our home. We had Constellation & Co create a wedding certificate for us, which all of our guests signed as witnesses to our wedding. (We also used Zazzle to print our custom postage stamps, featuring photoshopped versions of our dog Hank!)
Speaking of colors, I never really settled on a “color scheme.” Though our invites and other paper goods provided pops of color, I didn’t want to limit our colors to two or three. In this case, we worked with Gloriosa Design to come up with a floral design that would work for us, and be seasonally appropriate. Gloriosa created a design scheme that was bold and pop-y, but also fitting with the very natural setting of our venue. They provided rentals that met our mid-century furniture aesthetic with the farmhouse style, including an awesome cream couch that was set in the middle of a field for extra seating during the reception!
My dress was easy. Ever since I’d seen Jenny Packham’s designs on Kate Middleton, I knew I wanted to look feminine and breezy on my wedding day. I purchased Packham’s “Willow” from Kelly’s Closet in Atlanta.
We chose our DJs after attending their monthly dance party in East Atlanta called “Keep On Movin’!” Though our DJS are based in Nashville, they come in once a month with an extensive collection of Motown, Stax, and lots of oldies. Sean and I don’t claim to dance very well so we decided to select entertainment that we loved enough to dance anyway! I walked down the aisle to Dr. Dog’s “Heart It Races” and Sean and I had our first dance to “Excuses” by The Morning Benders.
My dad passed away 7 weeks before the wedding. In the time leading up to his death, we asked ourselves if we wanted to move the date up, have a small ceremony – we didn’t know what we wanted or what he wanted. But my dad was secure with the fact that Sean and I would marry, that we had done our hardest work to create a strong and stable relationship, and he told us that that was enough for him. My mother and brother walked down the aisle with me, and my brother gave a speech in my dad’s stead. He and I even did a dance together, to me and my dad’s song, “I Love You More Today Than Yesterday,” which was a happy surprise for me!
Our friend Jessica Halliburton created a beautiful ceremony for us and we married, yes, in a field, under a tree. It was a dreamy 20 minutes of my life! (Incidentally, we opted not to have a wedding party. Everyone we invited was dear to us in some way or another during our 6 years together – we didn’t want to pick teams! I loved this decision: everyone that wanted to be involved was involved, and there were no hurt feelings.) After our wedding ceremony, Sean and I went off to have a private picnic during cocktail hour: it was nice to get away and catch a few breaths before dinner. Dinner was awesome, by the way. Gloriosa made unbelievable fried chicken, green beans, mac and cheese, prime rib, etc etc etc. For dessert, we had a small cake AND banana pudding AND apple crisp!
As the reception was winding down, we all went outside and let off about 20 lanterns. This was a really neat activity – all of our guests worked together in groups to get their lantern aloft and everyone cheered each time one took off! We went straight in to an enormous bon fire that lasted until the early morning. It was truly an incredible day!
Photography: Harwell Photography | Coordination: Amy DiLoreti, A Flawless Event | Floral Design: Gloriosa Design | Wedding Dress: Jenny Packham | Cake: Gloriosa Design | Invitations: Constellation & Co. | Catering: Gloriosa Design | Makeup: Hope Ferguson | Calligraphy: Blissful Ink By Keeli | DJ: Electric Western | Ceremony And Reception Venue: The inn at Serenbe | Photobooth: Brooke Courtney Photography | Save The Date Art: Knifemen