Hel-lo, wedding reception!  Erin + Jeff toasted their nuptials in style at the famed Keswick Hall, and what a reception it was.  It’s like candy for the eyes!  Sure, they had an incredible five-tier cake from The Desserterie and the décor (courtesy of Easton Events) is to die-for, but my very favorite detail of all is the escort card table, replete with lime-and-rose-covered silver pyramids.  Proof that simple elegance still goes a long way in the South. Want to see more?  Visit Patricia Lyons’ blog post for her take on the Virginia celebration!

Describe your wedding flowers: I used a combination of white orchids, white gardenias and pale yellow and white peonies for my bridal bouquet. The bridesmaids carried white peonies, purple picasso calla lilies and purple viburnum, and the groomsmen wore Picasso calla lilies for boutonnieres. There were flowers galore and most all were local to Virginia. That is a great benefit of an early June wedding. So much is in bloom!
Describe your wedding cake: We served a vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. Our florist decorated the cake with white gardenias and white and yellow garden roses with rose petals around the base.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? Managing our guest list because our historic country church had a capacity of 225 max and we invited almost 350. While we were very tight in the church during the ceremony, it was cozy and felt very intimate being surrounded by so many friends and family.
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Jeff sent a bouquet of gorgeous flowers with the most sincere, sweet note to my suite where I was getting ready with the bridesmaids.
Did you write your own vows?  If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line? We followed the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer for our vows, but we did write the final prayer.
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future?  Jeff will graduate from business school in May 2011, and will be starting a new job. We should know what city we’ll be in by this fall. While the future is a bit of an unknown for us right now, we both agree wherever life takes us, we trust it will bring us back to Virginia. It’s where we both grew up, went to college, fell in love and have lived for the first year as a married couple. Virginia really is for lovers!

Congratulations, Erin + Jeff!  Enjoy your new lives together – and the beautiful Commonwealth!

I get a wee bit excited whenever we feature a Virginia wedding, and for good reason!  Erin + Jeff’s wedding at the Grace Episcopal Church in our dear Commonwealth is an effortless throwback to classic Southern elegance.  (Not that I’m biased or anything, but the happy couple may or may not have met at the College of William in Mary in Williamsburg, my beloved hometown for those of you who somehow have missed my obsession with Virginia.)  The bride’s twelve attendants donned elegant champagne-colored gowns from the Jenny Yoo collection.   Easton Events planned the Southern soiree, and Shawn Cossette at Beehive Events brought the bride’s vision of bouquets bursting with local Virginia blooms to life.  Emily’s going to cut me off in short order, so I’ll save some of my other musings for the reception.  Special thanks to VA photographer Patricia Lyons for sharing this perfect June wedding!

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story.  Jeff and I met as undergrads at the College of William & Mary.   We took a modern European history class together, and were paired up by the professor for a presentation. The rest is history.
Describe the proposal. Jeff proposed a few days before Christmas in Washington, DC at the National Tree. He pulled me to the middle of the National Mall by the tree and got down on one knee. He surprised me with a beautiful cushion cut diamond he had designed himself. I was so surprised I started crying and people around us started clapped when Jeff and I hugged. A limo then picked us up with champagne, and took us on a tour of DC to see the holiday lights while we called family and friends. We ended the night at a candlelight dinner at Kincaid’s restaurant in the city.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: One of our favorites was our signature drink during the cocktail reception. We served Lemoncello martinis. Not only were they delicious and yellow (one of our wedding colors), they were a nod to my Italian heritage.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: My sister was married two years before me, and she insisted I, too, would be a “Vera bride.” I didn’t think she was right, but after a few excursions in Richmond, D.C., and New York, I found my dream dress at the Vera Wang Madison Avenue boutique. My mom and sister were with me, and when I came out of the dressing room all three of us knew it was the one. The two sales clerks started clapping and opened champagne to toast.

S + S look really sweet and really, really happy to be married – and Georgia-based photographer, Melissa Schollaert, got just the right shots.  The newlyweds toasted their marriage at the Fair Weather Farm with their signature drink (spiked sweet tea!) served in Mason jars and a 3-D turkey cake (courtesy of Cakes by Darcy) in honor of the turkey-hunting groom.  Baby Cakes designed the couple’s green + white wedding cake, and Carole Parks Catering coordinated the traditional Southern fare.  Kudos to Simply Charming Events for planning this Georgia farm wedding!

See all the photos from Sarah + Steve’s wedding in their Real Wedding Gallery!

What Southern details or traditions did you include in your celebration? Both Steve and I were born and raised in the South, and knew we wanted a farm wedding here in Georgia. All the cotton used for the wedding was hand-picked by my younger sister, Amy, from a cotton farm in South Georgia. Burlap was the fabric of choice. My father made home-made Spiked Sweet Tea for the signature drink and served it in Mason jars. The food was traditional Southern fare: ried chicken, beef tenderloin, shrimp and grits, mashed potatoes, butter beans, sweet potato biscuits and corn bread muffins.
Describe your wedding flowers: The hand-picked cotton centerpieces were arranged in large Mason jars. The groomsmen wore cotton boutonnieres with a hint of green hypericum berries. My bouquet was made with cream Amelia roses, cotton blooms, green hypericum berries, dark centered white daisies and white freesia with the stems wrapped in burlap. The bridesmaids’ and mothers’ bouquets were similar  to mine, and had a touch of orange tea roses to give them a pop of color.
Describe your wedding cake: Our wedding cake was a simple, yet elegant square design that had stripes matching the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses with pearl drop icing lining the edges. The groom’s cake was a surprise from me. Steve is an avid turkey hunter, and our wedding was on the opening day of turkey season. I gave the bakery a picture of one of Steve’s stuffed turkeys and they make a 3D chocolate cake with chocolate icing.
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? The band! The farm had never had such a big band before, so we had to make sure that ten-man troupe would fit in the venue and have enough electricity. We also had to reserve the venue for extra so that the band could set up and do sound checks. It was well worth it, because the band was awesome!
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? After the ceremony, we were walking in the fields while the photographer was taking pictures of just the two of us. It was a quiet moment that we enjoyed together as husband and wife. We were surrounded by such beautiful scenery and the sun was just about to set. It was perfect. 
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future?  We now live in a small rural town in Kentucky where Steve practices as a mixed animal veterinarian. I am continuing my work as a photographer and graphic designer, and also enjoying decorating our new home. We are looking forward to finding a good church and starting a family in the next couple years.

Is there anything more Southern than hand-picked cotton blossoms tucked into the bride’s bouquet?  Office consensus is no way, Jose, and Sarah + Steve (with the help of Birch Blooms Flordal Design) get this down-home bloom just right.  The Georgia natives exchanged vows at the Fair Weather Farms, and we just love the natural backdrop of the unfinished barn in the bridal portraits.  The ladies wore sage-colored dresses from Bella Bridesmaid, and the darling bride got all dolled up in a feminine Rivini A-line gown.  Melissa Schollaert photographed this sweet couple’s traditional Southern wedding – and what a job she did!  Check back soon for images from Sarah + Steve’s reception.

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story. We were introduced by one of Steve’s close friends, Casey Neary.  Casey and Steve were classmates in the College of Veterinary Medicine at UGA and spent a great deal of time together studying, hunting, and of course looking for the right woman. Casey and Jenny decided we would make a great match, and began to plan when they could introduce us. On August 24, 2007, my younger sister, Amy, had a birthday party in Athens.  It was this birthday celebration that served as the place of our first formal introduction. The rest is history, folks!  
Describe the proposal. After his graduation from vet school, Steve moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to work in a dairy practice. Steve is all about the outdoors, and we were both very excited that his relocation would afford us various mountain activities that were unavailable to us in Dixie. He decided to plan a 4^th of July camping trip in Steamboat Springs so we could get a chance to enjoy the beauty of the Rockies and get a good wilderness experience together. Steve warned me that the weather was supposed to get bad and mentioned that we would most likely be camping under a few thunder storms. Once we arrived in Steamboat, Steve surprised me with a weekend suite reservation at the Highmark resort!  Our camping trip got a tad more comfy at that point! That evening, I overheard Steve on the phone preparing a reservation for 6:30am. He told me it was going to be a great surprise and said that I should dress warmly. The next morning, we woke up really early and went down to the lobby to prepare for our surprise adventure.  A few minutes later, a Pegasus tours van pulled up with a balloon mural painted on the side.  We were going for a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the mountains of Steamboat Springs!  At 10,000 feet, Steve asked me to spend the rest of my life with him, and I joyfully said yes!            
Three adjectives that describe the day are: Warm, Southern and joyous.
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: Hand-picked cotton.
Tell us about finding your wedding dress: I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, and after trying a few other places I booked an appointment at Bridals by Lori. That Saturday morning, one of my best friends and I went through all the rooms of the salon looking for dresses that were ivory, A-line and lace. We found the perfect Rivini strapless gown with delicate lace on the bodice and flowing sheer ribbon across the top. There was matching lace and ribbon around the bottom of the skirt that brought it all together. The most delicate detail was the buttons that lined the back of the dress all the way down to the tip of the train.

We were a little focused on the bright pops of yellow in our first post, but we equally like the clean, neutral colors of the attendants’ J. Crew ensembles.  Plus, gray and yellow is pretty hot right now, and apparently for good reason!  And while we’re (still) talking about colors, check out the bride’s fiery-red hair against her white-white dress.  Stunning!  Laurens Floral designed the sweetly understated blooms for Alexandra + Josh’s outdoor celebration at the Four Oaks Manor.  I’m completely in love with the last shot of the newlyweds stealing a kiss beneath a lit gazebo.  For more from Scobey Photography, visit their galleries!

Describe your wedding cake: We went for a cake buffet. Josh and I bought the wood for the cake stands in New Mexico. He sawed each slice by hand, and packed them up and brought them with us in our luggage to New Mexico.  We served seven cakes, some reflecting the Southern food theme, and others that are personal favorites. My mom and I baked four of them (Red Velvet Cake, Chocolate Cake, Orange Amaretto Cake, Chocolate Flan), Josh’s mom baked two (Apple Pie and Banana Pudding) and Josh’s grandmother made the bread pudding. I think if our guests had planned the wedding we would have had the dessert before the ceremony!
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding? Packing! Living 1400 miles away and being a big DIY crafter, we ended up checking 4 50-pound suitcases, and carrying on 2 suitcases and 2 personal items. Luckily, I had taken my dress to Atlanta in a previous trip.
What was your most memorable moment about your wedding day? Walking back down the aisle as a married couple to the Zelda theme song while our friends gave us a thumbs-up for the song choice. Josh says his favorite part was watching me walk down the aisle.
Did you write your own vows?  If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line? We did write our own vows, much to Josh’s dismay. I wrote mine first, and he based his off of mine, so they were similar but different. Our last 3 lines were the same, though: “I will be open and honest with you. Where you go, I will go, and we will have an adventure together. I will love you with all my heart.” Josh:
What’s next for you as a couple?  What are you looking forward to in the future?  We didn’t go on a honeymoon right away, so we are looking forward to spending 12 days in Costa Rica this summer!