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This weekend I had the pleasure of seeing a year’s worth of planning come together in a beautiful event, being surrounded by many of the people I love most in the world, and marrying my true love. It all came together so seamlessly, and I could hardly have asked for a better wedding!
My new husband and I rented a car and drove up to Atlanta on Wednesday, just to be sure we had a bit of time to unwind before everything began. Our suite at the Canopy by Hilton Atlanta Midtown (just 0.2 miles from the venue) was fabulous, with fantastic views of the city!
On Thursday, we mostly relaxed before heading to the welcome reception at the hotel that my new in-laws had thoughtfully planned for us. The hotel staff were so kind and helpful at the event and all weekend. They really helped to make it all so special for us. There were lots of compliments on the food, as well. (I don’t even like grits, but my favorite thing, surprisingly, was the fried cheese grits!)
At the reception, I got to meet lots of close friends and even some family of my new in-laws whom I had never met before. Many of my friends and family, including some from out of town whom I had not seen in years, were there, too. The whole evening felt so filled with love and joy, and the wedding itself had not even started yet! I was thrilled that everyone was so kind and sweet and so pleased to be there for us. There were lots of compliments on the food, too! I began to feel some slight jitters that night for the event to come.
My outfit for the casual reception was my only (other) white dress atop a pair of blush pink jeggings and dark brown, faerie-tale-inspired boots (to fit the “Woodland Faerie” theme of the wedding). And my “Bride to Be” sash, because I had it and it was the last chance to ever use it.
After the reception, we invited our bridal party back to our suite to bestow gifts. My husband got the groomsmen each a Pilot Namiki pen.
For the bridesmaids (or as I was calling them in my head, my “Faerie princesses”), since it was winter and it went so well with the theme and the colors, I had matching faux-fur wraps, and four different canvas totes with vintage faerie tale illustrations on them. Then I had them play a little white elephant game to choose their earrings and tiaras, all of which I had painstakingly selected from different stores on Etsy and created matching sets from. We had so much fun selecting the gifts! (Also, since I got them wraps, I decided to go perhaps slightly overboard and get myself this for a few fun photo ops with them outdoors.)
Friday morning, bright and early, began with a rehearsal at our venue, Rhodes Hall. Rhodes Hall was so accommodating through every step of this process. I remember being so surprised at how young our coordinator, Caroline, appeared when we first met in person, because she was so on top of her game I would have thought she’d been doing this for decades! Caroline walked us through the rehearsal and helped us load in beverages, centerpieces, and other odds and ends. Then we departed for a day of preparations leading up to the big night!
Since we don’t live in Atlanta, everyone wanted to know why we chose this as our venue. I think for the most part, they realized it as soon as they saw it, but the official answer is that I looked for castles in the US, we really liked this one, and Atlanta was a much more convenient destination than Florida for our many out-of-town guests (with several having the option of a drive that they hadn’t had before, and others having a quicker and more direct flight), while giving our locals and ourselves the option of a driveable distance or one quick flight. (Getting married in Florida was also never going to be an option for me.)
I had so much fun getting ready with my ladies during the day, along with Lauren Amodeo, who did my makeup, and Brushworx, who did my hair and my mom’s and bridesmaids’ hair and makeup. It was one of the parts I was most looking forward to since my sister’s and friend’s weddings a few years ago! It was nice to just relax with them and some prosecco, and it was exciting seeing their looks come together. Every one of them looked so beautiful.
It was important to me that all the ladies feel comfortable in dresses that they would like and could conceivably wear again, since they were the ones buying them. So I first made a showroom on Azazie with every dusty-rose-colored dress that felt at all faerie-tale-ish to me and had them all comment to tell me which seemed the most faerie-tale-ish to them. After eliminating the leftovers, I let them vote for their top 4 and tried to assign everybody their #1 or at least #2 favorite. I think it worked out really well. They all looked on-theme and in dresses that were perfect for them.
At one point during hair and makeup, we turned on a playlist and it transitioned into a song called “Disco Snails” that had us all cracking up and became a running joke for the rest of the day. (We had to look it up, and the purported meaning of the song is that disco never really died, and its fans simply went underground–hence “snails”–and have been keeping it alive there ever since.)
I don’t think anyone could tell, but despite my careful hydration planning (I actually had it scheduled on my agenda to get three liters of water in–and out–before putting on the dress), I had a headache that started about 1 (when the hairspray started going in) and lasted the entire day! I’m so used to dealing with those, though, that I think I successfully hid it. And I of course had a wonderful time in spite of it.
We took a wrong turn on the way to the venue, which was terrifying at first (considering Atlanta traffic!), but fortunately it wasn’t too bad and we were able to turn around and get right back the way we were supposed to be going with very little time lost.
I deliberated at length over whether to give the flower girl her own song. Every source I read on the subject kept saying the same thing: it’s too many song changes, it’ll give your guests whiplash, it’s extra, the flower girl doesn’t need her own song. I’m so glad I did it. She is teeny-tiny and adorable, and we had a big, curvy staircase to walk down, so she needed every moment of her own song. Everyone laughed when she got halfway down the stairs, spotted her mother, and called, “Mom! Mommm!” I’m so excited to see the video of this. Yes, there were people who heard the song begin and thought it was my song and were like, ‘Really, Carrington? This is what you’re walking in to?’ until they realized what was happening. That just made it that much funnier for me.
She had a cute green floral dress similar to this one that mimicked my own, along with some faerie wings and a flower crown. Her song, incidentally (Linda Arnold’s “I Wish I Was Magic”), was the intro song from a collection of faerie tale books on tape my siblings and I listened to when we were kids, called “Disney Presents Your Favorite Fairy Tales”. It felt so fitting for her and this event in every way. I will also note that the flower basket she was carrying was one my sister carried in a wedding when she was four years old. She also carried her teddy bear, which was extra-adorable.
I had a ton of fun taking photos. Brad at Forevermore Media was a dream to work with. I gave him free rein to direct the show to be sure all the best shots were captured. We both agreed we could have kept shooting for hours. (After watching this for a while, one of the groomsmen came over to tell me I was really born to be one of those people who dresses as a Disney Princess at the parks and lets people stop and take photos with them. I had another friend before the wedding suggest that I take my dress to kids’ birthday parties and pretend to be a princess, so I was already all about this idea!)
Once again, it was a delight to see everyone, and many more still than the night before, at the wedding. Our officiant is a dear friend of mine, who carefully practiced tying a handfasting knot for the occasion. (She and I had agreed beforehand that if either of us looked like we were about to start crying, then we would look at each other and telepathically share one of our many inside jokes and try not to laugh, instead. At one point I accidentally looked too closely at the wrong groomsman and almost started laughing, too.)
I knew I wanted to stay very traditional with the ceremony. Since my family background is Catholic and his is Episcopalian, I settled for right in the middle and based the ceremony on the official wedding ceremony script for the Church of England, with a couple of light tweaks where I liked the Catholic or Episcopal version of a phrase better.
We had two readings. Our brother-in-law read The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, by Christopher “Kit” Marlowe. (He even did some research and prepared a bit of history about it! Our baby nephew started crying in the middle, and he made a joke about how he was being heckled, like on Seinfeld.)
And one of my good friends read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 14.
I knew I wanted some Romantic poets in there, because the song the bridal party entered to (Sissel’s “She Walks in Beauty”) was also written by one, and again, it just felt like it went so well with the overall theme. (The first time I ever heard this song, years ago now, I knew right then it was the one my bridal party would be entering to whenever the day came.)
The best man confessed later that leading up to the ring exchange, my ring had become perfectly encircled by my husband’s ring, and he had a moment of panic trying to get it unstuck without anyone noticing.
We also used this traditional Irish blessing during the handfasting portion (during which I had our DJ play Joanie Madden’s “The Twisting of the Rope”):
May the road rise up to meet you. / May the wind be always at your back. / May the sun shine warm upon your face, / And the rains fall soft upon your fields. / May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings. / May you know nothing but happiness / From this day forward. / May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home. / May the hand of a friend always be near. / May green be the grass you walk on. / May blue be the skies above you. / May pure be the joys that surround you. / May true be the hearts that love you.
We had never considered a handfasting before someone recommended it to us, but when I found out my husband’s sister and brother-in-law did one in their wedding, we decided we should continue the family tradition!
One of my favorite little moments was our nephew giving me the biggest, longest hug ever right after the ceremony, as we were greeting everyone. It was so sweet, and his mom told us he was really excited for us. He and his sister had gone to the Coca-Cola museum earlier that day and gotten us a can of Coke with our names and the date on it. Too cute.
For our first dance, I really wanted to do some kind of Regency-era waltz sort of thing. We had recently watched some Jane Austen films, as well as The Vampire Diaries, which had a great scene with a dance like that. But I knew I was lucky he had agreed to do a first dance with me at all and there was no chance he would agree to something like that. Imagine my shock, then, when he told me out of the blue that he sort of wished we could do a dance just like that scene from The Vampire Diaries! After reading the lyrics to the song from that scene, I decided it was perfect for a first dance and we kept the whole thing! We had our multi-talented friend (who was also our videographer) skillfully cut and paste the song to the perfect length, added our own moves, and went with it. We even invited three of our couple friends to join us halfway through the song for extra dramatic flare.
My sweet friend who manages The Dance Den Tampa came to town and gave us some last-minute tips that we were able to incorporate, making things so much smoother!
Our mother-son dance was Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up”, and father-daughter was Enya’s “May It Be”.
We had a full bar with a signature cocktail called the “Blushing Faerie” (sparkling rosé, Chambord, and rose water).
I selected a few thematic wines and created a menu for the bar with a beautiful frame I found on Amazon which was excellent quality for the price.
We also had some more standard wines in addition to the above, selected with help from our friend Mark at Wine Warehouse:
- Clos Pegase Carneros Pinot Noir (2021)
- Panther Creek Maverick Vineyard Pinot Noir (2018)
- Bodega Garzón Single Vineyard Tannat (2020)
- Tenuta di Salviano Castello di Titignano Turlo Umbria (2022)
- Copain Daybreak White Blend (2024)
- Zenato Pinot Grigio delle Venezie (2024)
There were so many people commenting on the lovely ceremony, with one even saying it was the most beautiful wedding he’d ever been to.
One person said the food was the best wedding food he’d ever eaten, and another person said the same about the gingerbread cake! Somebody told me the cake was so beautiful she wasn’t even sure it was real. Our food was catered by Chef Cary. The menu included the following entrée options:
- 1) Red-wine-marinated, oven-roasted bistro tenderloin crusted with fresh herbs, mustard, and black pepper, sliced thin and topped with red wine reduction, balsamic onions, and fried shaved garlic
- 2) Chicken breasts, lightly marinated and crusted with bread crumbs laced with pecans, atop wilted spinach accompanied with honey mustard sauce
- 3) Eggplant Parmesan (vegetarian)
The cake was made by Sweet Peach Confections.
Oh, and how could I forget–my dress! My gorgeous dream dress was made by Elena Thomas at My Amazing Wedding Dress. I first found her on Reddit, and while I was hesitant at first to have a dress made, sight unseen, online, she had nothing but amazing reviews, and I decided to take the plunge. I gave Elena my ideas for how I wanted each little piece of the dress to look. I provided descriptions and photos, and then she gave me a sketch of the dress. I requested a few tweaks and she sent the sketch back again until I was happy with the final product. I hadn’t realized it until I saw the sketch in all its glory, but I think I was subconsciously summoning a variant of Belle’s yellow ball gown from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It is basically the same silhouette in every way, and even incorporates roses. Elena sent me measurements to do at home, and I sent those back to her and she got to work. When I tell you it was perfect, I mean I took it to a local well-rated tailor (Sew True Alterations in Jax Beach) to see if it needed any alterations done, and the tailor told me she could not honestly take my money because the dress didn’t need a single thing done to it. I will recommend Elena to every bride I meet. It’s so worth it to get exactly the dress you want down to every single detail!
My ring set was made by Doron Merav in Israel, and I couldn’t be happier with them and want everything he makes, it’s so gorgeous. This is another one of those instances where I first heard about him online and was a little hesitant until reading the many stellar reviews, and took another big gamble, but it came out spectacularly. I would, again, recommend his work to anyone. Every time someone looks at my rings, they are initially impressed, then realize it’s even more detailed than they thought at first, lean in for a closer look, and are even more impressed! His work is so elegant, intricate, and unique.
My own tiara, earrings, and necklace were made by Howling Moon UK.
My shoes came from JJ’s House. I’m in between sizes and there was an excellent discount, so I just ordered two pairs. Unfortunately, the larger size was too large and the smaller size was too small, so I got a great cedar shoe tree and stretched them out for several months, which worked very well!
At the end of the night, we had everyone line up with white streamers with little bells on the ends (for Christmas) so we could run through while the DJ–Jaelen from Sifi, who was excellent, kept things running smoothly in spite of any hiccups in the schedule, and had a great personality and overall vibe we loved–played Alkaline Trio’s “Love Love, Kiss Kiss”. My husband chose this last song, and I thought it was just perfect. Not only was it exactly the right touch of irony and humor for the end of a wedding, but I thought it matched our personalities so well. I’m the social butterfly of the two of us and planned most of the event (I consulted him when I needed help and when I thought he would want an opinion, but he mostly let me run with it because he knew I wanted to), and he is quiet and reserved but always manages to find exactly the right witty comment to add to anything (one of the things I love most about him!), and I thought this song in its flawless irony was that perfect witty remark on top of all the rest of my gabbing.
Other little touches included dusty rose tablecloths to match the bridesmaids and dark green napkins to accent, beautiful wild floral arrangements by Petals, A Florist, all the magical Christmas decorations Rhodes Hall had put up, and our party favors–Pilot G2 Limited pens in Rose Gold, with a little design I created for them with our names and the date. My sister-in-law and our niece and nephew helped set up the centerpieces and programs I designed, as well.
And the weather was exactly what I was hoping for! Sunny, low ’60s, great for walking and dancing, neither too hot nor too cold.
I loved learning later that the photographer, videographer, and DJ all hit it off with each other and added each other on socials, too. And that the photographer and my dressmaker knew each other! What a small world.
Now that all is said and done, I can say it was a stressful year of planning, but in a good way! It never felt like it was too much and always felt like it was fun and incredibly satisfying, and now I kind of wish I was planning weddings as a career. Maybe a future side gig?
Overall, I am delighted to have given everyone what felt like such a wonderful night, and to have spent that time with so many of our loved ones, and to be married to my true love!
I’ll update this with more photos as I receive them!
You can find more details and photos from our wedding here, along with vendor reviews.
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