Real wedding: Corrie + Chris

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Its hard for me not to love every single little detail from Corrie & Chris’s wedding!  Sometimes black and white palettes tend to be very serious and stark for my tastes, but here it totally works.  The wedding is chic, sophisticated, and fun!  Corrie tells all below…

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Chris and I met three years ago through mutual friends and instantly fell for each other. Last summer, we went to the Highline Park to play a game of dominoes, and in the box of game pieces was his grandmother’s ring.

I’ve always wanted a wedding in my hometown of Charleston, and November is a beautiful month in the south. We knew that we wanted a short engagement so that we wouldn’t be tempted to over-think every aspect of the day. So on a tight budget, and with four months to plan, we were going to have to be creative in order to fill in the gaps. My talented and hands-on sister rallied my family and brought out a crafty side of them that we’d never seen before. The Harbor Grille miraculously had an open Saturday, so we jumped at it. Their dock and view of the Charleston harbor made us feel like we weren’t just settling on a venue, but actually excited about it.

There weren’t many things that Chris had a solid opinion on one way or another, but an open bar was one of them. The restaurant said they’d provide a grooms drink and a bride’s drink, so all we had to do was come up with one for each of us. We thought we could top that, so if you ordered the groom’s drink (a Jack on the rocks) the bartender would read one of a hundred wedding insults prepared by Chris (ie: “It’s nice to enjoy a meal you didn’t have to wrestle from a raccoon, right?”) and if you ordered the brides drink, a Bellini, you would have a kind word written by me read to you, (“You make bow-tie’s spin!”). Everything was printed out, cut into little strips of paper and then placed in two separate bowls behind the bar to be completely ignored be the bartenders. I think they read about three, then just got bored and started making up their own. I heard the bartender slag my brother and thought, “Chris wouldn’t say that.” Fair enough.

Since we are both graphic designers, we designed all of the printed material needed for the wedding…the Invitations, the Menu and the favors. I found Etsy.com to be a great source of inspiration for the little things. I got the table numbers from http://www.etsy.com/shop/papercutdiecut and glued them onto the vellum that we wrapped around votive candles. We made the favors ourselves by simply designing and printing different black and white patterns and pasting them to the inside of a clear topped tiny tin. We filled them with chocolate covered sunflower seeds, which ended up being a hit with all of the kids.

My sister designed and made the wedding canopy. We ordered our flowers wholesale and my aunt prepared all of the bouquets, boutonnieres, and table arrangements. Another aunt of mine and my sister labored over the wedding cake, which was the most delicious cake I’ve ever eaten. My grandfather made the wooden sign that pointed out the direction of the reception and ceremony.

I found a dress that I liked at J. Crew and stalked it on E-bay  (brand new!) for a quarter of the price. I also found my necklace at J. Crew and my earrings at Anthropologie. A workmate took time out to make a veil for me. We got material and feathers from Mood and used the flower that was originally on the sash of my dress. My younger sister is a hair stylist and so she took care of my hair, and my cousin, who is a make-up artist did my make-up.

Not only was our photographer amazing and made everyone feel relaxed, she also became the tent pole of the evening by offering to drive us to the ceremony when our wedding party accidentally left us stranded at the pre-wedding photo session.

We couldn’t have been happier with the way everything turned out. It was a day made perfect by the love and help of family and friends.

[images from Shannon Michele Photography]