Written by Lara Molettiere, Cameo Event, LLC

First, I'd like to give a little background information. The important thing to remember about wedding planners is that most of us are control freaks, and I am worse than the majority. It makes me a great planner with an eye for detail but it makes planning and executing my own wedding a bit trying. So all I did (against my better judgment) was delegate the task of directing to a close friend, after I gave her a minute by minute run down and nearly drove her crazy! I would advise against this to all the engaged planners out there. I hope you have more sense and less control issues than I do.

Now, on to the wedding planning part...

The joke in my family has always been that I am the "princess". John agrees. We decided that we wanted our families (about 75 people all together) to get to spend as much time together as possible since my family is mostly in Tennessee, and his family is in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. So we looked and looked for the perfect venue. I accidentally found the castle because I was looking at a historic home in Charleston, South Carolina, and it happened to be on the state park registry. I saw the word castle, read that it was located on the beach, and made arrangements to go see it. I also scheduled visits with caterers and bakers while we were going to be there for a long weekend. This was near the end of August.

The most interesting part of our wedding was the date. It had to be picked before John had even proposed. He is a technical director at a theatre, and the schedule gets filled over a year in advance. Talk about pressure! But we made it work, and the castle was available. The logistics of power and time were going to be a bear, but I had to have the castle, so I figured that I would just have to make it work. That weekend, we booked the caterer, baker, and castle. I was on a mission to get it done so I could have fun with the extra details that are my trademark.

We ordered our wedding invitations from Ann's Bridal Bargains. I had seen them before, and I loved them; parchment invitations with a sketched fairytale castle and the words "Dreams Do Come True" in silver foil.

Wedding Invitation

Now I opted for a non-traditional approach to RSVP's. We included the card but we had our guests RSVP by phone or our wedding website. I'm a huge advocate for wedding websites. They allow you and your guest's constant access to all relevant information.

I designed coordinating rehearsal dinner invitations and had them printed to be included with the wedding invitations since we were having a destination weekend. The stationary was a big deal for me. It really sets the tone for your wedding. We wanted a fairytale and our guests knew it from the time they opened their hand calligraphed envelope to find a gold wax seal on the inner invitation and castles inside.

We found the Springmaid Beach Resort through the recommendation of a friend. We reserved the Cypress building almost in its entirety (36 rooms). The chef, Brad, was incredible. He made the rehearsal dinner into a fantastic display of culinary delights. He also delivered a wonderful brunch for the ladies and bridesmaids on Saturday. The ocean views were amazing, and the weather remained perfect through the whole weekend.

We designed and made welcome bags for our guests. The weekend colors were chocolate brown, ivory and pale champagnes and pinks. The welcome bags were brown kraft paper with hand stenciled sand castles and "May you live happily ever after" on the front.

We designed and wrote a welcome note, itinerary, and hours for the hospitality suite as well as having the contents of the bags made into a "Storybook Survival Kit".

Guest Welcome Note and Itinerary

The absolute favorite of all the guests was that in each bag was a hand painted white chocolate castle.

Hand Painted White Chocolate Castle

The fairytale theme took on a life of it's own after our first meeting with our florist, Don. He mad a few suggestions, and we decided to run with it.

Toss Bouquet

The great part was that I could be as creative as I wanted to be, the negative part was that I was only limited by gravity and time. So from that point forward, every spare minute I was not working on someone else's wedding, I was working on my own.

We decided that each table at the reception would be themed after a different fairytale.

The flower girl would be a fairy and the ring bearer would be a little prince. We would have 2 pages to escort each family group down the long corridor to have their photo made with our picture fairy. You get the idea.

Petal Basket

The bridesmaids' gowns were chocolate brown youru satin with a sweetheart neckline, spaghetti straps, and floor length flowy skirts. The maids' flowers were all silk flowers so they could keep them and take them home. They each had a pewter mini-tussie mussy with a happily ever after charm at the bottom and a coordinating floral head wreath with ivory and chocolate ribbons down their backs. The groomsmen were all in chocolate brown pants, ivory French-cuffed tux shirts, latte colored vests, and chocolate brown ties. They all had matching swords, too. It made a striking picture against the pale colored bricks of Atlaya Castle.

The groom and myself were in ivory. He was dashing in an ivory tux with a champagne colored vest and tie and a dress rapier. My gown was ivory satin with a heavily appliquéd chiffon overlay. I remade portions of the dress after we purchased it. It went from spaghetti straps to halter, the satin part of the train was cut out to leave a sheer train, I added around $300 in Swarovski crystal beads to the bodice and train, and added some crinoline to give it a little pouf. And I wore a sterling silver and pearl circlet rather than a tiara.

I had John make a portable gazebo from steel to use at several events, and we used it for our wedding gazebo. It was covered in vines and greenery and hundreds of white roses. The aisle runner was white petals from daisies and roses, with a little jasmine mixed in. It looked like it was off the pages in a storybook.

The programs everyone had were raffia fans I had ordered and then designed a vellum overlay to attach to them. The watermark on the overlay was the original hand sketch of our monogram from our wedding bands, which we had designed and made by a company out of Buffalo, New York. The fans were decorated with chocolate organza ribbon tied in love knots and ivory and pearl flowers.

The reception was in the second courtyard of the castle. There were 5 "free floating" crystal chandeliers hanging over the tables.

Each place was set with a fairytale castle place card holder that held quotes about castles and happy endings.

Place Cards

The wedding cake was in a white lattice gazebo with a chandelier hanging over it, and a champagne colored light backlit the cake and cake topper, a Boyd's bear prince and princess with a mini sand castle.

The favors were handed out to each family group by the photo fairy. We had photo holder cards with our names and wedding date on the outside, with "May you live Happily Ever After" on the inside across from their picture with the photo fairy. Everyone was given bubbles to blow as we walked under an arch of groomsmen swords and drove away in a white limo. (I wasn't really keen on riding off on a white steed in a poufy wedding gown!)

We ended the night at the after party in the hospitality suite with all the remaining food and drink. It was a perfect wedding night! We had a farewell drop in brunch the next day, and we were off with our SUV and 16 foot truck to come back to Atlanta and unload so we could leave Monday morning for the honeymoon. (This is where it gets really exhausting.)

We flew out of Atlanta to JFK and then to Ireland for a week. My friends at Quinlan Tours had helped us plan a perfect week of B&B's and cross country driving ending with the perfect day (massage, high tea, dinner at the 5 star restaurant) at Dromoland Castle before our journey home.

And now we are back. The sun came up after the riding off into the sunset. John is back to being a technical director and I'm working on other weddings and events and still trying to unpack and re-organize everything and get thank you notes out. I am thankful that I now have a more complete understanding of how my brides feel, though my favorite piece of advice has not changed. Just keep breathing and don't lock your knees!