Earthy Elegance at Atlanta’s Historic Swan House With Rose Pink & Sage Green Hues

From the beginning, my vision was “fairytale” with a hint of “garden party”. That really came to life as I started going through Pinterest and thinking tangibly about our day with the Swan House as the backdrop. I quickly realized that I didn’t want to have extravagant decorations, because I wanted the natural beauty of the venue to be the focal point. That meant intentional floral arrangements and lots of draping greenery.

We met in August of 2016, during the start of our freshman year at Georgia Tech.  We actually both lived in the same hall of our dorm, so the first time we ever saw each other was during our first dorm meeting. We spent that fall in classes together, going to sorority/fraternity parties, and quickly realizing that we were pretty obsessed with each other. We made it official in spring of 2017 and have been inseparable ever since. We both graduated in winter of 2020, and spent the following summer roadtripping across the US. At the end of our road trip, Ian proposed in Cloudland Canyon, GA! A few months later, we moved to Seattle, WA, and began planning our wedding. We’ve lived here for three years now! Georgia Tech and Atlanta in general were definitely a big part of our story that we really wanted to be reflected in our wedding day. Actually, one of the first vendors we booked was the Ramblin’ Reck (one of Georgia Tech’s mascots) as our getaway car. I vividly remember going to football games during our freshman year and singing the Georgia Tech fight song by Ian’s side. Those were some of the first moments I really started to fall in love with him. So it felt right to ride away from our wedding in the best car in the world, the Reck, with our closest friends singing “I’m a ramblin’ reck from Georgia Tech” as we rode off.

I bought my dress at the Sentimentalist in Atlanta. I had always envisioned a ball gown, and that’s exactly what I chose! The dress (designed by Rebecca Schoneveld) had a stunning pattern of flowers, and I worked with the stylist at the Sentimentalist to design custom sleeves (which I drew inspiration for from Belle’s dress in Beauty and the Beast). I didn’t do a second gown for the reception because I was too obsessed with the gown!

The bridesmaids wore one of our favorite colors, sage green. It was our way of bringing that part of the color palette to the forefront of the design of the day. My sisters were my maids of honor and they wore sage dresses with a light blue floral design.

We served an amazing spread of Hors d'oeuvres which included cumin coriander chicken kabobs, lobster arancini, smoked salmon fried potato chip, and a squash and cream phyllo tart. For dinner, we decided on three stations; seafood, pasta, and a potato bar.

Our florist, Bantam and Bloom, knocked it out of the park. She brought my vision to life in the most unique way. My favorite arrangement that she put together was the meadow of flowers placed at the front of our sweetheart table during the reception. It looked so naturally done and made the ballroom look so stunning. I think my favorite crafted detail were the bouquets. The first time that I cried the entire day was seeing mine and the bridesmaid’s bouquets when we arrived at the venue. I put a lot of trust into the florist and wasn’t too particular about the exact flowers or colors that she used and more so, with the help of my planner, gave her a sense of my inspiration. The arrangements that she so carefully created for the day were better than anything that I could’ve imagined, and genuinely took my breath away all day.

Our cake was a classic, three tiered cake with white frosting. We had so much fun choosing flavors with my mother in law during the tasting! We ended up with layers of amaretto white chocolate raspberry and black tie (a chocolate flavor picked especially for the groom). We didn’t have favors, but did have late night snacks with a personal flair! At those Georgia Tech football games I mentioned, Ian and I always shared a chick fil a chicken sandwich at halftime (a very important tradition). So for a snack, we had our caterer make the yummiest chick fil a like chicken biscuits, each with a Georgia Tech flag sticking out of it. This was a big hit with the guests.

One of my favorite decisions that we made for the wedding was to have my grandmothers be the “flower girls”. I wanted them to have a significant role in the day, as they have been so influential in my life. They both looked stunning walking down the aisle, and I loved hearing the guests laugh as one of my grandmothers threw flower petals right on the guests.

For the Swifties out there – I had to incorporate at least some aspects of my love for Taylor Swift into our day. Our seating chart, adorned with a stunning base of flowers, said “and at every table, we’ll save you a seat”, which is a quote from one of my favorites of Taylors songs. I loved the way the sun hit it as it welcomed guests into the reception. I also walked down the aisle to an instrumental version of “Love Story”, and our last song of the night was a remix of “Love Story”. That song felt like the perfect book-end to our day, for obvious reasons.