Neutral and Classic Virginia Wedding at the Clifton Inn

Megan Kemp
October 14, 2018
Categories: Real Weddings, The Blog, Traditional Elegance

For our timeless-neutral-loving couples, we’ve got just the wedding for you. Our hearts are melting with this super sweet outdoor summer wedding in Virginia with the prettiest photos by Elisa Bricker Photography! Bride Allie wore a stunning Rime Arodaky gown and we can’t contain our love for the greenery adorned classic reception design by Mallory Joyce. Allie details her entire day below!

From Elisa Bricker Photography… Allie and Matt’s wedding took place in the middle of the summer in central Virginia. They chose The Clifton Inn for its at-home feel and wanted their guests to be welcome into a comfortable space that made them feel at ease. Their reception space was one of my favorites of the year! Their family and friends danced the night away nestled in between the trees while the candles twinkled on the tables.

From Allie, the bride: When planning our wedding, we had a few major priorities that drove our decision making. First-off, choosing our venue. We knew we wanted something in Charlottesville, where we both went to college and started dating ten years ago. The Clifton was a perfect venue to have an outdoor ceremony with views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and a gorgeous sperry tent for the reception. As The Clifton is also a boutique hotel, we were able to rent out the rooms for the weekend, and have our families and wedding party stay at the venue, which was a wonderful way to extend the wedding into a full weekend of events. They also have a fabulous restaurant that could do the catering and bartending for us.”

We also knew we wanted an awesome band that would keep all of our guests out on the dance floor – when we first heard The Adrian Duke Project, we knew they were perfect! Their set list of classic songs included a lot of jazz and soul, like Eta James, James Taylor, Ray LaMontagne, Elton John, etc that all of our guests could enjoy! After booking the venue, the first thing we did was hire a wedding planner. Since I am a student in medical school, I knew it would be hard for me to coordinate a lot of the wedding planning logistics without some help. When I talked to Mallory Joyce on the phone, I knew she was a perfect fit. I had seen some of her work before, and loved her design style, and when I heard she was also a florist, we were in! She really carried us all through the wedding planning process and kept everything in order on the wedding weekend – we couldn’t have done it without her!

With Mallory’s help, we were able to hone in on our design vision and find many of the other vendors we needed, including the beautiful stationary work done by Paula Lee Calligraphy, and many of the unique rentals that fit our vision. Mallory helped us to have a cohesive style with many natural tones, textures, and an overall organic feel that was elegant but relaxed at the same time. This perfectly fit in with our vision of a happy, outdoor, garden party wedding celebration.

When our wedding weekend finally arrived, there was a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast, which meant we would need to decide whether to move our ceremony to a covered patio. We decided to wait it out, and thankfully the rain never came and we were able to keep the ceremony on The Clifton’s front lawn as planned! Our close friend’s mother was our officiant, who kept our ceremony personal and lighthearted. Everything else went as planned, from the cocktail hour in the croquet lawn to the reception with dinner and dancing in the sperry tent. Everything went without a hitch, and we truly enjoyed every minute of the evening! One of our favorite moments was a tip from a guest, who told us to take 5 minutes to ourselves during the reception to be alone together and savor the moment. We’re so thankful we took his advice and had a moment to slow down amidst the celebration.