This pretty bride and her pretty plantation party make for a perfect Wedding Wednesday post. She and her groom celebrated with a ceremony downtown at First Baptist Church, and dinner and dancing afterwards at Runnymede Plantation outside of Charleston. The navy and white set a formal yet fun tone and Corbin Gurkin was on hand to capture all of the beautiful images. Here, I do love that the bride and her girls had such a lovely backdrop for the day while getting ready. It does make for photos that help set the tone for the day…
A bride in all white Vera Wang and a groom in a classic tuxedo is pure perfection.
Flowing navy Monique Lhuillier dresses were accented with cream and peach garden rose bouquets. The bride worked in fashion at Ralph Lauren, so the groomsmen all sported custom loafers with their tuxes.
The bride and her ladies ride a Classic Charleston trolley to the church, luckily Corbin is right behind to capture this sweet moment
Simple ceremony decor like floral wreathes and a custom aisle runner give a sweet touch without overshadowing the meaning of why everyone is there.
A custom monogram designed by Lettered Olive is used throughout the wedding papers and design.
Guest welcome boxes contain a mixture of the couple’s favorite treats and local goodies. Custom printed cups are perfect for the morning bloody mary’s using Charleston’s Fat and Juicy mix.
Once at Runnymede, guests enjoyed cocktail hour on the lawn… We customized the wedding everywhere we could, down to the blue and white striped bow ties, and printed papers lining the trays serving the food.
Caligraphied escort tags on papers printed in the different colors and patterns were pinned to a board for guests to find during cocktail hour.
I’ve been really into designing the outside of a tent as much as the inside lately. I mean, really you see that first and foremost, so why wouldn’t it be lovely as well, instead of some big white rigid structure. To enter the carpeted and greenery draped dinner tent, guests walked down a boxwood lined pathway and under a custom fabric awning.
The head table’s centerpiece was a garland adorned with flowers running the length of the table and spilling over onto the floor.
Graced with perfect weather that day, the tent opened up onto the plantation grounds overlooking the river and the ruins of the old plantation house. A crisp blue and white palette allowed the soft pastels in the flowers to pop.
Jim Smeal’s pastel and metallic gold cake with simple florals was a centerpiece of the dinner tent. We like finding a way to have a captive audience for the cake cutting without having to interrupt the flow of the party. So, if you can cut it and have the servers pass out as the dessert course without delaying the dancing, that’s a good way we have found to do it.
Guests retreated after dinner into a lounge full of conversation nooks and dim lighting, draped with glowing golden fabric.
A late night food bar of sweet treats even included Charleston’s cult favorite donut truck, Diggity Doughnuts.
The bride and groom said farewell to guests with a classic sparkler send off, and drove off into the night in a classic convertible car as fireworks made for a grand finale.
As guests made their way into the dinner tent, they grabbed their escort cards which were attached to varying individual vases of florals.
After dinner, the couple cut the cakes, designed by Jim Smeal.
The main house at Runnymede no longer stands (only a few ruins remain), but we found an old photograph which we had screen printed to serve as the background to the band stage.
Because of the remarkable weather, we built an outdoor porch off of the main reception tent for guests to enjoy drinks, cigars, and late night treats if they needed a dance break.
With the couple living outside of Chicago, but the bride a Southern girl, favors were bags of local biscuit mix perfectly packaged with mini wooden spoons. And, because of their affinity for wine we got a bottle that would be a perfect addition to their collection and guests signed it.
Welcome bags for the hotel guests came with the perfect tag for the end of the night- Do Not Disturb…we had too much fun. Congrats to Katie and Paul!
The bride and groom rode together from the ceremony to the reception. A great way for the two of them to reflect on the marriage and ceremony before joining all of the guests at the reception.
