Kelsey and Cary’s elegant and chic South Carolina wedding is simply gorgeous! Chandeliers adorned with beautiful florals accent the urban loft space perfectly, while a color palette of pale blush pairs beautifully with the sparkle of silver and gray, and Courtney Dox Photography was there to capture it all! Plus, Kelsey is here with us today to share her planning insight and all about her inspiration!
What (or who) helped you most in your planning process and/or on your wedding day?
Pinterest and Melanie Murphy at By Invitation Only helped me the most with planning our wedding day. Pinterest helped me communicate my vision to Melanie (and other vendors too!) and she ran with it.
What was the most important thing to you when deciding who to work with for your wedding?
We knew where we wanted to get married immediately because 701 Whaley holds a special place in our hearts. We fell in love right across the street when we both lived at Granby Mills in college. I knew that if Courtney Dox was available for our wedding date I wanted her to be our photographer because I had seen a coworkers wedding photographs a couple years ago and thought they were amazing! I worked at a bridal shop in college and I remembered that my boss had once said “Scott at American Floral is the best!” So I contacted him too! My friend owns a bridal shop in Spartanburg, SC called Carolina Traditions, I actually worked there in high school too, so that was a no brainer. She actually had my dress picked out for me before I had even seen it! So I guess you could say word of mouth was a big deciding factor on who I wanted to help create our wedding day.
After those decisions I was pretty clueless. I found another Columbia photographers Facebook page and they had many wedding posted on their page and they listed every vendor that was a part of each wedding. I noticed the ones that were used repeatedly, googled reviews on them, and looked up their websites. I also asked my best friends mom for suggestions because she had just finished planning my best friends wedding. I got so lucky because I ended up working with all of my first picks! I couldn’t believe they all had our date available-it was meant to be.
What was your inspiration for your wedding details and/or design?
I found 2 different photos on Pinterest that were pretty much the total inspiration. One was of this space that looked similar to our venue and they had used a gorgeous crinkle taffeta linen with ivory and champagne pink floral accents. I thought it was simply stunning and very romantic without being super feminine. The other photo was of a large iron gate. I thought it was unique and decided I had to find something similar! And I did! I now had my inspiration for both the reception space and the ceremony space.
What was your favorite thing about your wedding?
This is such a hard question because the day really was just perfect! I married Cary, we got to celebrate with our family and friends, my best friend and MOH, Katie wrote and sang for our first dance, our band at the reception was incredible and we danced the night away. Every little detail had been taken care of and the ceremony space and reception hall were both even more beautiful than I could have imagined.
What is your best piece of advice for other brides?
Have fun! Don’t let the planning get stressful! Having Melanie as our Day of Wedding Planner was the best decision we made! I didn’t worry about a thing the day of because I knew Melanie and her team had everything under control. I got to enjoy every moment and soak everything in!
Wonderful advice Kelsey! I couldn’t agree more- don’t let the planning get stressful and hire a wedding planner!
So tell me- have any of you hired a planner to help with your planning? Or maybe you’re considering it? Share in the comments!
JavaScript is currently disabled in this browser. Reactivate it to view this content.
