Rehearsal Dinner

Wedding

Head on over to The Wedding Row to see more from Allison & Ben’s rehearsal dinner, wedding, & day after photo shoot!

We loved working with this awesome Charlotte, NC couple and also loved working with their friends, photographers Geoff and Cheyenne Schultz. Make sure to check out their great blog here as well as the post on Junebug Weddings here!

Their wedding was at the always-dreamy Lowndes Grove Plantation and another dear friend, Josh Drake, took the photos for the evening.

I’m not sure if it’s just because I love her so much, but Claire JUST may have been one of the most beautiful brides who has ever walked down an aisle…

(gorgeous flowers by SYG Designs)

The ceremony rocked (that’s me, matron of honor second away from the bride in a gorgeous Carol Hannah dress!)

The reception was absolutely stunning, too…

No, I don’t think these two were having ANY fun…

And I think this photo pretty much sums up JUST HOW pumped Ed was to marry this beautiful lady:

Congrats, Dr. and Mrs. O’Bryan! I love you both with all my heart!

We LOVED working with this hysterical bride and her sweet fiance Joseph. Throw in a hilarious family and we officially all love our jobs .

Another thing we loved is that the bride chose January for her wedding month and really, it couldn’t have been more perfect. Though Charleston was threatened with snow that weekend, spirits were high and their guests were more than happy to come out to a weekend full of personal touches and clever details.

The wonderful Leigh Webber was out to document it all starting off with the rehearsal dinner in the Historic Rice Mill… take a look for yourself!

Don’t you love how much fun they were having together?? Come on back to see their lovely wedding soon…

What we loved about this NY girl and southern guy’s wedding was that the look was simple and yet unexpected. We’ve seen blue a hundred times, but how about pops of electric blue contrasted with crisp, southern whites? Tres chic.

Make sure to check out part one and part two of their post and enjoy the photos of a fabulous couple and their beautiful wedding:

But not Joy. Her name is the perfect nomer for this bride because she was always so blissfully joyful to be around! And she is living proof that any kind of bad weather does NOT have to ruin your wedding day. She trekked through the rain and the sun even decided to come out just in time for her ceremony, leading into a beautiful evening at Lowndes Grove where all of the guests were laughing all night long despite the dreary day.

Dana Goodson captured the day perfectly… make sure to check out her blog as well!

And I thought I’d have to link to another blog that gave this bride a wonderful shout out.. that belonging to the infamous Carol Hannah Whitfield of Project Runway fame.

Allison’s dress was  TO DIE FOR Vera Wang from Maddison Row. Duh, of course this girl was going to rock it out with handmade jewels and Sky high blue suede louboutins, too:

Naturally, she had to find bridesmaids dresses that at least as cool for all of her best friends standing beside her on her big day. In steps Carol Hannah with these gorgeous custom-made one-shoulder chiffon dresses. I know you are wishing right now that all of YOUR bridesmaids dresses in your closet were as chic as these (I know I am!):

Simply gorgeous. Maybe Allison will give me some style lessons sometime soon…

She and her wonderful fiance Ben worked with us to plan both their November wedding at Lowndes Grove and Rehearsal dinner at the Carolina Yacht Club... you know… the place with the gorgeous views right on the edge of the Battery on East Bay Street?! With a larger-than-most guest count for the pre-wedding celebration (about 150 guests), we knew that we had to create a feel in the large room that was intimate and cozy.

We kept the linens simple solid navy and white poly from Snyder Event Rentals and the flowers streamlined (deconstructed arrangements from SYG Designs) but went bold on the lighting by TEC in installing lanterns over every singe table. This really brought the high ceilings down and helped us create the cozy feel of the night.

Allison designed all of the BEAUTIFUL printing (I think she described it as “french nautical”) and brought her own french nautical touches for the night as well… including the sea glass balls used on the dessert table and for every guest’s place card. I LOVED these beautiful touches!

It was a great night. My husband and I are friends of the couple and so we were able to actually attend as guests, too! And even though I was nearly 38 weeks pregnant, I still had a blast and relished being a guest… what fun! I ate delicious food, mingles with fun friends, I laughed, I cried (during both of the fathers’ speeches- what great dads these two have!)… it was a blast.

Juliet Jones came out to take photos- it was wonderful that we had someone to document the beautiful space as well as all of the fun moments. Make sure to at least consider hiring your photographer for your rehearsal dinner, too! I know after seeing these photos you’ll see why we always recommend it:

First, the invite… really set the tone for “french nautical,” don’t you think??

Love the beers in the old boat!

Here are Allison and Ben. Gosh, they just could not look more joyful about getting married, I just adore their smiles here and how they stayed on their faces the entire night!

The bride and her dad…

Everyone loving their place card favors!

Allison’s gorgeous mom… seriously, is she really her mom??

Ben’s dad, the host of the party along with his sweet mom, gave the most wonderful toast I think I have ever heard at a rehearsal dinner. It was genuine, heartfelt, poignant but concise. It had me crying that’s for sure! Ben and Allison could not have better parents to celebrate with and I think we ALL saw this that night.

Of course, there was room for some laughter with all the friends toast… Allison, I loved to find out that you stop every single morning at the same gas station to get your 1/2 coke, 1/2 diet coke mix. How quirky and funny!

And then there was the dancing… this little pregnant chica didn’t hit the dance floor as much as I usually do, but the Travis Allison Band had the rest of the guests dancing until the stroke of midnight and beyond. The perfect way to end a most celebratory night!

Stay tuned… wedding details to come next!!

Allison is one of the talents behind Studio R Designs and we rely on her and Rachael Blessinger’s style and expertise to design many of our clients printed materials.

So what does a graphic designer do for her own wedding? I think it’s safe to say deliberate for a very long time and then produce something like this… some of the most beautiful, personal pieces of printing I have ever seen:

Her save-the-date featured two pieces- the part photographed on the bottom is the piece that was the cover on this, tied to the bottom layer with the beautiful gray and white twine. And don’t you love the little tag with the David Gray quote, “Sail away with me honey, I put my heart in your hand.” So romantic!

Their rehearsal dinner invitation kept with the theme without being matchy matchy…  these invitations were actually wrapped in paper with the addresses printed on it directly, and then stuffed into translucent vellum envelopes and sent out with gorgeous stamps.

Oh, and these wedding invites are some of my all-time favorites! I love the combination of vintage-modern… traditional calligraphy in the form of a classic letter positioned in a modern, slanted way.

Doesn’t this make you want to head right over to Studio R to have them dream up something for your big day?

Congrats, Allison and Ben- we can’t wait for your big day to be here soon!

(All photos via Juliet Elizabeth Photography… another uber-talent in Charleston’s wedding scene who will also be shooting the wedding!)

Marni took the photos for us and she just always blows us away with both the photos that capture all the candid emotion of the people and also all the beautiful details of the setting… thanks for passing these along, Marni!

And head on over to The Wedding Row to read about all the fun details… I always love her collages from the blog and they really bring the details to life.

Here’s a peak of the lovely October affair…

Congrats, Whitney and Daniel!

Flowers: Sara Grimshaw Designs

Cake: Jim Smeal

Venue: William Aiken House

Photographer: Marni Pictures

Catering: FISH