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Today’s fabulous featured wedding comes all the way from Savannah, Georgia!  Richard Ellis of  Richard Ellis Photography, a Charleston, South Carolina based wedding photographer submitted this beautiful wedding to us.  However, they cover weddings in the Savannah, Georgia and Hilton Head, South Carolina areas too!  Richard Ellis is a three-time Pulitzer Prize nominated photojournalist who for the past 30-years has covered news and events around the world including six years covering the White House of President Bill Clinton!  WOW!  Richard Ellis has been so sweet and accommodating to GSS and we have truly enjoyed working with her on this feature.

Laura and Bo were married on October 9, 2010 at Whitefield Chapel in Savannah, Georgia.  What a beautiful venue!  Laura was kind enough to answer a few questions for us:

How did you and Bo meet? We met at the Kentucky Derby in 2008. He was part of a destination bachelor party and I happened to be a Louisville resident at the time.  Kentuckians love all things Derby, and we happened across each other that weekend while he was in town. The rest, as they say, is history!

How long have you been together? We have been together about two and half years.

How did Bo propose? Bo proposed at The Boathouse in Central Park on Halloween 2009.  He lured me the Boathouse for “brunch with friends,” which friends later “stood us up last minute” and, under the guise of taking a photograph in front of the railing overlooking the water, he got down on one knee and proposed! It was completely romantic and fun.  We toasted our engagement with champagne and strawberries afterwards.

What sold you on your wedding venue? We both knew we wanted to do a destination wedding (of sorts) and we both LOVED Savannah.  He wanted warm coastal water and I wanted historic Southern charm.  What better place than Savannah? So, that’s how we settled on Savannah.  As for Bethesda Chapel, well, I knew the moment I saw it that it was the perfect location for our ceremony. It’s intimate. Charming. Quaint.  Possesses the basic structure of a church without being overly churchy, and we absolutely fell in love with it. As for Telfair Museum, it speaks for itself. It’s striking, unique, breathtaking and very elegant.  We wanted a reception venue that people would remember, something out-of-the-ordinary, and felt Telfair fit the bill perfectly.

Your dress is gorgeous, where did you get it and how did you know it was “the one”? Actually…I found my Monique Lhullier dress at Cincinnati Bridal and Formal.  CBF is HUGE, literally, HUGE and carries most couture names a bride could ask for.  It’s basically a one-stop-shop for wedding gowns.  Interestingly enough, however, it was the last store I visited on my hunt for a wedding gown.  Prior to arriving at Cincinnati Bridal and Formal, I’d been to no less than six salons and probably tried on 40-50 dresses.  None of them were “the one.”   Many brides find that the first dress they try on is “the one;” I was completely opposite:  the LAST dress I tried on was “my dress.”  I picked it up off the Monique rack on a whim because it looked like the complete combination of all the individual characteristics I liked about prior dresses:  ivory color, A line, organza skirt, sweetheart neckline, etc.  I knew it was the one because it was the only dress that made my cry.  I ADORED my dress. Whatever little girl fantasy lay buried in my thirty-one year old psyche came alive when I put on that dress.  Beyond that, the Lazaro belt absolutely pushed the dress over the edge and made it perfect.

What song did you dance to for your first dance? Van Morrison’s: Someone Like You.

What was your “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue”? Something old:  hankerchief from my grandmother-in-law; something borrowed:  something new:  diamond bracelet from my husband-to-be; pair of diamond earrings; something blue:  the bottom of my wedding shoes!!

How did you choose your wedding color palette? Mmmm, the entire them of my wedding was “simple elegance” and I’ve ALWAYS been a fan of red/burgundy.  I used the wine color as my accent and selected black, ivory, gold and champagne as the remaining palette.  Using wine/claret as one of my colors, I was able to integrate a “wine them” into my wedding.  By this, I mean we had custom-labeled home made wine at each table during the reception and the place card holders were unused wine corks.

It’s true the colors are more suited for a winter wedding, but with the museum as the reception venue, I thought we could pull of a more sophisticated, darker palette.  With my dress being ivory and the men in tuxes, I felt ivory and black were appropriate colors for the palette.  I added champage to the palette later in the planning stages because the sash of my dress was champagne.  That gave me the idea to put my flower girl in a champagne dress and the ribbon wrapping my bouquet was also champagne color.  

Do you have any advice for brides that are in the planning process? Have fun.  Start a binder of ideas.  Start early in the planning/thinking process.  Don’t be afraid to go by your own timeline of task completion, even if you are working on certain tasks before traditional timelines say you should.  I began working on my invitations in late February (for an October wedding) and had them ordered by early summer, calligrapher hired, and lists in the works.  If I had had to struggle with all the invitation shenanigans three months before the wedding, I would have gone crazy.  Invitations are time-consuming.  Especially if you are using a calligrapher. Ask the caterer to prepare an extra plate for your and husband to take to your room after the reception…I promise you will be hungry.  In the end: by the time your wedding weekend arrives you will need to let yourself go with the flow.  Things will go wrong. Something won’t happen as planned.  And, if you haven’t planned a certain detail by the time your wedding weekend arrives, it obviously wasn’t important enough to plan in the first place – so don’t worry about doing it last minute.  

What was your favorite part of your big day? Hard question.  Probably seeing my husband for the first time.  I was a bundle of nerves until I saw him but once we were together, everything else floated away and we were supremely happy.  And I was supremely calm.  We wanted a wedding that celebrated our love with people WE love mixed with great food, awesome music, drinks and tons of dancing.  By the end of the evening that’s what we had.  And it was an amazing day/night.

Thank you so much, Richard Ellis, for sharing this amazing wedding with us!  Please stop by his website and blog and show him some love!  And thank you, Laura, for taking your time to answer our questions!  We wish you and Bo a lifetime full of love, laughter, and happiness!!!  May every day be better than the last!