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I’m a South Carolina girl at heart, so I simply adore Kacie and Darby’s wedding, set at one of my favorite venues in the world, the Inn at Palmetto Bluff, and photographed by the incredible Nashan Photographers.

Guests were welcomed to the lowcountry with beautiful jute gift bags and lovely palm fans.

The ceremony took place in Palmetto Bluff’s Waterside Chapel - a simple and stunning small chapel with wooden pews and loads of sunshine.  Each aisle was decorated with lush pink and green florals in glass vases, tied with ribbons to the pew.

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I am in total shock that my wedding is just about a month away - where did the time go? September was a total blur - starting with a last minute trip to Paris (I know, pretty amazing), followed closely by my bachelorette and Homecoming at Davidson. Then I had two fabulous showers in Brian’s hometown, and then a work trip to Chicago! And do you think I managed to get any wedding planning in during that time? No. I got back to my real life and had a melt down because of everything there is still left to do…

Well, fortunately I have amazing friends (one who drove down from Columbus, OH!) who helped me regain my sanity and excitement for all that is coming up.  We spent this past weekend getting the invitations ready to go out (they are amazing, even if they are a tidbit late going out…) and making plans for getting all the things left to do done.  I can’t believe it’s so close!

I have lots of upcoming projects and planning to tell you about, but before I dive into that I thought I would share some pictures from my adventures this past month. Enjoy!

First a few Paris ones…

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After Brian and I got engaged, we started talking about where and when we wanted to get married. I should note here that I moved around a lot growing up and thus don’t have a “hometown” where I would want to get married. We knew the wedding had to be in the fall or winter to avoid Brian’s season, so we started thinking of places that would be nice that time of year. We initially talked about having the wedding in San Diego at Torrey Pines (my parents live in San Diego) - it’s beautiful there and would have been a fun destination for our guests to visit. The one main drawback is that we would have been limited to only 100 guests and ultimately we decided that we’d rather have more of our friends and family there than have it in California.

The other idea we had was sharing the beautiful NC mountains Brian and I both love with our friends and family. One weekend we made a trip up to the mountains in North Carolina to look at some possible locations up there and we fell in love with the High Hampton Inn and Country Club in Cashiers, NC. We went there first and could immediately envision our wedding as we walked around the property (which was gorgeous despite being the middle of winter and the inn being closed for the season), but we knew we should check out some other places just in case - what if there is something even more amazing than this place?! Of course there wasn’t and on our drive back home we decided that this was “the” place.

Ok, enough gushing. Here are some pictures of the beautiful High Hampton Inn and Country Club (all courtesy of High Hampton):

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Ed Note: I’m beyond thrilled to welcome another EAD Weddings bride blogger into the fold!  Natalie is absolutely adorable and I know you’re going to love getting to know her and reading and commenting along as she plans her November 2009 North Carolina mountain wedding!

Hi EAD readers!  I almost can’t believe I’m here blogging to you - I have been religiously reading EAD (and seemingly countless other wedding blogs - I’m obsessed!) and it’s nutty that I’m on the other end now, but I can’t wait to hear all your thoughts and ideas about my upcoming wedding.

To start, let me share with you where the title comes from (just in case you aren’t as obsessed with When Harry Met Sally as I am): When Harry Met Sally - the Couples.  I just love the older couples talking about how they met… plus Brian secretly (well, maybe not so secretly) thinks I have some similarities to Sally (especially the restaurant ordering).

Now, let me tell you all about me (well not aaaaall about me - if you want more goodies, check out my blog I think I might be a grown up…).  I moved around a lot growing up (my dad’s a doctor in the Air Force, which - along with his love of change and all things new - was the reason for all the moving) so I don’t really have a hometown.   For college, I came all the way from Northern California to a small (top ten!) school in North Carolina (a state I hadn’t lived it yet!), Davidson College.  Not only did I fall in love with Davidson (I work here now), but I fell in love with Brian at Davidson - talk about being happy I took a chance on a school I had never heard of!

Now for the boy: Brian.  Brian is from Louisville, KY and has lived there his whole life.  He played baseball at Davidson (and double majored in math and economics - yes, I am bragging) and was drafted by the LA Dodgers after he graduated.  He finished last year on their AAA team before having Tommy John surgery last August.  He’s spent this season rehabbing at the Dodgers spring training facility in Arizona - he started a blog, too, but his is more for the grooms than the brides (unless you’re really into baseball or Brian’s random thoughts, which actually are pretty entertaining…).

Brian and I meet early my freshman year at Davidson (his sophomore year), but didn’t start dating until April of that year.  This was partly due the high school boyfriend I had when I came to Davidson (Brian was very respectful) and partly due to Brian’s shyness/nervousness which always kept him from saying more than a few words to me at any one time (one of Brian’s friends/teammates who was dating a friend of mine was the one who finally told me Brian liked me… thanks, Tim!).  After a few months of hanging out in his dorm until all hours (don’t worry, we sat on opposite ends of the couch most of the time and he would give me the “two pat” when he was really feeling brave), Brian got up the nerve to kiss me and we’ve been together ever since!

Now Brian and I are planning a November wedding in Cashiers, NC (a small town in the mountains of Western NC) - time has really flown by since freshman year (even though it doesn’t really feel like it has!), but I can’t wait for all that is coming up next!

Stay tuned for my next post - the proposal!

Hello EAD readers! I am thrilled to be blogging here on Elizabeth Anne Designs!  I can’t wait to share ideas with you and hear your comments and ideas on my wedding plans as well!  I suppose I should do an introduction…

I’m originally from North Carolina and am a recent graduate of UNC (yay National Championship win!) where I studied anthropology (must be where my anthropologie brand lust came from). I met my fiance on an archaeological dig in Natchez, Mississippi where we lived in a house along the Mississippi River Real World Style with 6 students and 2 TAs. There were hoop skirts to wear, mint juleps to drink, bear skulls to find, and mud to be covered in. When I met Garrett I finally saw what people meant when they “knew” they’d found the right person. It was a fairy tale, albeit an odd fairy tale where the sun made you delusional and your biceps were tripled.

Fast forward a little over a year and we moved to Birmingham, AL after we graduated. He’s from here and I’ve never lived anywhere else so I thought it could be a fun move and so far I love it! I am so not a city girl and Birmingham is a good mix of the south, great food, art, people, and photography! Garrett really helped me realize that my passion was photography and not archaeology (though I’ll always love it!) and I’m so fortunate to have found a really great community of photographers here to work with and learn from.

Birmingham Skyline from today’s photo

Now I’m here planning a wedding in my new town of Birmingham for October! We’re planning a two day event with a private ceremony, close family blessing and a big party. Our colors are navy and goldenrod and we’re channeling some art deco/art nouveau and vintage charm for our day. We’re on a budget of around $10,000 and that means we’re getting creative on a lot of the details which I love! I am very excited about the wedding but even more about being married to Garrett!

I’ll save the engagement story (and e-pics!) for the next post!

Stay tuned!

-Kelly

Today we have an absolutely beautiful rustic North Carolina wedding for you, photographed by Kellie Kano!  Hannah and Paul’s wedding was a very simple but well-thought-out event, more proof that bigger is not always better when it comes to budget and that personal touches really mean the most when it comes to your big day.

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We have a mini-feature for you from Natalie Storment Photography.  Anna and Eric were married at The Point Lake Club in North Carolina.  The gorgeous venue was the perfect backdrop for their early summer wedding.

I love how couples are including their children.  It’s so important to let them know the marriage includes them as well.

Thank you for sharing, Natalie!

A.

Choosing our venue was really a difficult decision for me. Choosing the city where we would get married was even harder. I am from Louisiana and lived most of my life there, but my parents live in Dallas now. My honey and I were both living in Columbia, South Carolina and he was originally from Columbia and his parents still live here. I didn’t want to have the wedding in Columbia because I wanted to keep the wedding to 150 guests and his family would not have been able to keep their numbers down if we’d had it in Columbia. I was really clear about not wanting to meet anyone for the first time at our wedding and wanted to find a location where our closest friends would travel. In fact, all but about 10 of my guests had to travel quite a ways to get to our wedding anyway. I knew that those that really wanted to be there would get there.

We decided right away to keep the wedding in South Carolina because it would be easier on me to plan it. I originally wanted to have a very rustic wedding and found a beautiful farm about 30 minutes away with a wonderful pavillion and tons of rolling hills and huge trees. I visited the location and fell in love. But because the farm was in the middle of nowhere, I began to get concerned about having tons of tables and chairs brought in, bringing in tents and generators, and those portable executive restrooms. I just wasn’t sure that our budget could handle it. I had wonderful dreams of having my favorite caterer do a lowcountry Southern supper and have gorgeous centerpieces in blue and white porcelain vases and pots. It wasn’t a great option for our budget and it wasn’t a great option for our guests. The farm was in the middle of nowhere, so there weren’t any hotels nearby and our guests would have had to drive a long way back to Columbia to the hotels or we would have had to rent some very large buses– another budget buster. I will look forward to planning someone else’s gorgeous rustic farm wedding!

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I find it absolutely adorable that photographer Brooke Mayo calls her engagement sessions “SugarButt” sessions.  So cute!

When Brooke sent over these images from Elizabeth and Todd’s SugarButt session, I couldn’t believe how precious they were - what a fun couple!

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Whitney was kind enough to enter our EAD inspiration contest awhile back, and even though she didn’t win, we thought we’d pull together an inspiration board for her rustic fall North Carolina mountain wedding in hues of orange, brown, and aqua.

 
Clockwise from top left: The Wiebners, Artfool, Darling Dexter blog, the Knot, Darling Dexter blog, B&B finder, Tiffany Aicklen Photography, Brides via Faye and Greer, Darling Dexter blog, the Bride’s Cafe, Toast via Peonies and Polaroids

Three of the pictures are actually from Whitney’s blog!  The gorgeous dresses are handmade (wow), that is actually her Save the Date (gocco’ed by the way, it’s fabulous - you should check out her Etsy shop for more gocco’ed goodness), and those are her shoes!

Whitney, I love what you’ve put together so far and I hope this inspires you!

E.

{Image Credit: Millie Holloman}

A few weeks ago, Rachel from Millie Holloman Photography posted images from a session with Salt Harbor Designs. I loved them so much that I contacted Jennifer, the owner, and she graciously answered a few questions for us.

Salt Harbor is based in Wilmington, North Carolina. Jennifer founded the company in March of 2007 and the first wedding was booked two months later! Jennifer worked at a flower shop while still in high school, and continued to design there through college and graduate school. She eventually chose event design because it combined all of her loves: flowers, graphic design, interior design, art and theater.

{Image Credit: Millie Holloman}

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I couldn’t believe my luck when I stumbled upon Paperwhites Press.  Sarah, based in Raleigh, creates absolutely gorgeous custom letterpress invitations and stationery.  Just have a look at the beautiful details in the images below.

My favorite details are the architecturally inspired corners and frames.  Simply beautiful!  She maintains a blog as well so add her to your reader for more fantastic details. 

E.