From the bride’s less-is-more natural beauty look to the bridesmaids’ swoon-worthy mismatched aesthetic, today’s real wedding planned by Haley Kelly Events is serving up a major dose of style envy. In a unique palette inspired by Molton Brown hues, Shean Strong Design created organic arrangements that perfectly complimented the autumn season. Don’t miss out on the full gallery captured by Clay Austin to see all the pretty unfold.
From Clay Austin Photography… This was one of those couples where after the night was over I had that scene in Step Brothers where Will Ferrell says “did we just become best friends” rang through my head haha! They were the kindest people on the planet and you could feel all the love they shared with their guests! Shawn Strong (florist) and Haley Kelly (designer) beautifully wove hints of yellows, ambers, and touches of brown throughout all the design making for a jaw-dropping color palette!
From the Bride… I went to College of Charleston, which is what inspired our choice to get married there, and absolutely love the city – it’s one of the happiest places in the world for me. Many of our friends and family from other periods of our life hadn’t visited the city, so it was amazing to be able to have them experience it for the first time during our wedding weekend.
Our general inspiration was around making our wedding feel like home. As a couple we love to host friends and family in our space, and we really wanted our wedding to reflect that – we wanted our guests to feel taken care of by us and to really enjoy themselves. We wanted it to feel like a massive dinner party at our house. Hank and I are really into gardening and plants, so we went all out with florals – we wanted our florals to be the center pieces of the design for the wedding, and Shean our florist did such a beautiful job of capturing our vision and the colors of a Charleston fall – green, light and dark yellows, and amber and light brown. My mom loves Molton Brown, and we took a lot of inspiration from their color palettes as well.
We wanted people dancing, so we did minimal seating outside of the dinner seating. Our band was stellar and ended up bringing these amazing back lit lights for the stage, which made the effect of being at a concert.
Another sweet touch we loved – Hank takes a bath once a day, so we wanted to have an old vintage bathtub somewhere on the property – we loved having it and know it was an extra effort from our wedding planner to procure it!
We love candles and really leaned into candlelit lighting where possible – there were two long tables that were lined with hundreds of candles on either side of the stage, and the effect as the sun set was special.
Our best friend Brandon, who officiated our wedding, gave us the most beautiful book prior to our wedding day, that was inscribed with our wedding date, our initials, and the words “To Have and to Hold”. He wrote his officiant speech inside the book, and we included our vows. It was such a meaningful thing for him to do and love that we will have his words and ours from that day in the book forever.
Another lovely moment was when my best friend Sloane bought me a perfume for the day of. My whole family calls me Peach, in particular my dad, and she found a perfume called “Bitter Peach”. I wore the perfume and ended up putting on extreme amounts of it because I loved it so much – every time I put the perfume on now, I feel like I’m transported back to that day and all the joy that came with it. One of my other friends is an amazing artist and had found a white vintage leather jacket that she painted on the back – she included our astrological signs, the moon phase that would be on our wedding day, the South Carolina state flower, and other beautiful details. I wore it on our walk out to our getaway car. Advice for future grooms and brides – this is such a unique time in your life! There is no other time that you will be celebrated so fully by all the people in your life. It felt so special to us to be able to see the ways that different people showed up for us during that weekend. Stay present and open to the experience – it can be stressful but if you are able to stay in gratitude it can make the weekend other-worldly.
Photography: Clay Austin | Event Planning: Haley Kelly Events | Floral Design: Shean Strong Design | Invitations: Hatch Cove Designs | Ceremony Venue: Lowndes Grove | Makeup: Dannon K. Collard | Hair Stylist: Katie Cammisa | Lighting: TEC | Entertainment: EastCoast Entertainment | Band: The Band Punch | Draping: Veil | Rentals: Snyder | Rentals: Eventworks | Rentals: Ooh! EventHaus