Annie Stoppelbein relocated from Charleston to Nashville on a whim, and ended up just down the road from Garrett Vangilder. Turns out, it was one of the best moves she’s ever made. “Our relationship blossomed due to the close proximity,” says Annie. “Our friends became friends and everything felt right.” Two years later, Garrett proposed, and the couple, who by then had moved back to the Holy City, aimed nearby for their fantasy wedding location—the Gibbes Museum of Art. With her favorite color, red, on the mind and a winter wedding on the books, the bride handed the rest over to Gregory Blake Sams Events. “We trusted them,” says Annie simply. Days before their nuptials, however, tragedy hit when the bride’s father unexpectedly passed away. “I knew he would have wanted me to go through with the wedding,” says Annie. “It ended up being a blessing that everyone in my life that I love was in the same spot in this moment of extreme grief and also extreme joy.”
Top Tips From This Wedding
• Eat like you do. Being a vegan herself, Annie wanted guests to enjoy a luxe plant-based menu. “We actually saved a good bit by not offering animal products at our wedding,” she says.
• Don’t shy from a patriotic palette. Red, white, and blue in the right designer’s hands can be sophisticated and impart nary a hint of Fourth of July. Mix bold (single-hue arrangements) and subtle touches (red-edged menus and watercolored napkins), and toss in neutrals (like these tablecloths, rattan light fixtures, and sleek chairs).
• Keep family close. The bride danced to her dearly departed father’s favorite band, The Beatles, while in her brother’s arms.
We couldn’t come up with a better love story than Taylor and Jonathan’s if we tried. They met while she was in dental school and he was completing his medical residency. (She’s a dentist, he’s a...
Who doesn’t have a soft spot for college sweethearts? Liz and John met their sophomore year at Providence College in Rhode Island, not knowing that nine years later John would propose on the very...
Oh my gosh is he a good guy! After meeting at work (at the Daniel Island Club), Ginny says she didn’t even know she was on her first date with Daniel when he offered to spend an afternoon helping her...
OK. So these two New Yorkers are kind of a big deal (she’s a VP at a hedge fund group and former account head at the Olgivy agency with an MBA and he’s a marketing director at a Big Apple firm and...
We want to be invited to *that* New Year’s Eve party! We’re talking about the one where Mount Pleasant native Bree met Mobile, Alabama-born Josh, and the two hit it off enough for us to be talking...
Lanier and Luke met in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, during a Friendsgiving supper one November along with some 30 pals. That run-in led to a friendship that turned into a romance and by 2017, the two were...
O.M.G. You are so going to love these two! For starters, they tricked—yes, tricked—their families into a shared Thanksgiving vacation in Charleston that turned into a surprise wedding for them and...
We hate to do this to you, but we have to tell you some things about bride Sarah Grace that might very well intimidate you (like it did us). Yes, yes, yes, she and her sweetheart Martin (aka “Bug”)...
From a welcome party aboard The Carolina Girl to the send-off with Callie’s Hot Little Biscuits, the mother of the bride planned a flawless wedding weekend
