Danielle and Patrick have friends and family all over the country, so they decided to marry in one of their favorite places, Sarasota, Florida, and make it a full weekend celebration for their guests! Sarasota and its beaches have a long history in Danielle’s family and she grew up visiting the Ringling Museum, so it was a dream setting for their celebration! NK Productions took the couple’s vision of a clean, romantic aesthetic with a pastel color palette of blues, pinks, and whites and brought it to life with chic modern touches. Botanica designed a stunning chuppah for their blended ceremony (Danielle is Jewish, Patrick Presbyterian), and worked with the NK Productions team to style a sophisticated reception with modern touches such as acrylics and a sea of candles for the reception. They say rain on your wedding day is good luck, and the best laid plans of a courtyard reception were quickly switched for plan B, a ceremony and reception setup on the dramatic loges overlooking the museum. This made for an intimate event that Danielle says “ultimately made for an even more memorable experience!” This elegant and timeless event is one for the books, beautifully captured by Hunter Ryan Photo!
In their own words
What is your proposal story?
Patrick and I went out to Montauk (where we first met) for a weekend in the winter to get away from NYC. Before we checked into our hotel, we first drove to Ditch Plains beach which is where Patrick loves to surf and is one of our favorite spots in town. We walked around a bit and he proposed to me there on the beach. As it was March, the beach was empty and was so romantic enjoying the moment just the two of us.
What was the most important to the two of you while planning? Was there anything that you chose to splurge on or skip?
To both of us, the most important piece of our wedding was our ceremony. I am Jewish and Patrick is Presbyterian, so we decided to have a blended ceremony officiated by a rabbi and Patrick’s minister from growing up. We each picked a handful of our favorite prayers and traditions from our respective religions, and combined them together to create our wedding ceremony. The second most important piece of our wedding was the food – we wanted our guests to have options, so we opted for a seated salad to start and then food stations grouped by places that were memorable to us individually and as a couple (for example, we had Southern food at the Atlanta station, fish tacos at the Montauk station, steak and Mac n cheese at the NYC station, etc). It was a total hit!
What were your favorite parts of the day?
The original plan for our wedding day was to have our ceremony at the Ca’ d’ Zan Ringling estate and then move our guests over to the Ringling Museum courtyard for the reception. It began to rain during our first look, so we decided to bag the ceremony site and the wonderful women at NK Productions created a Plan B that was incredible. The ceremony was under these beautiful outdoor loges that overlooked the full museum, which organically made the space close and intimate, and ultimately made for an even even more memorable (and emotional!) experience walking through and standing with the family and friends that came to celebrate us. Luckily, the rain stopped just a few minutes shy of the beginning of the ceremony, and what came in its place was a stunning double rainbow and a sunset that you could only dream of at the cocktail hour. Cody and Tif at Hunter Ryan could not have done a better job capturing the day (including some incredible umbrella photos)!
Do you have any advice for couples planning their weddings now?
The best piece of advice any person gave me was to stop stressing the Friday before the big day and enjoy the weekend and the experience – you’ve put in so much hard work, so enjoy it!