You guys! This wedding is SO gorgeous. Hand-down, the most stunning flowers we’ve seen so far this year. Sarah and Brad were married at the urban Excelsior Lancaster in historic Lancaster, Pennsylvania where the bride grew up. Stylist Prema aided the couple in creating a lush, look filled top-to-bottom with HUGE pink peonies and coral garden roses in bouquets and centerpieces by Wildflowers by Design. Sara’s THEIA dress adds a modern vibe while Brad’s bright bow-tie and bold boutonniere are fresh and playful. And the icing on the cake? It’s definitely the cake by Rosie’s Creative Cakes with it’s climbing florals. Lucky for us Justin Tearney was on had to capture all the beauty.
Our wedding was held on June 25, 2016 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a small city in the south-central part of the state where I was born and raised. Although my husband and I met in North Carolina, we returned to Lancaster for a year at the beginning of our relationship before moving to California to start the next chapter of our lives; as a result, it is a place that always evokes for us both nostalgia for the past and excitement about new beginnings.
Many of the guests at our wedding had met us before we started dating. Knowing this, we wanted the ceremony and reception to give them a clear picture of us as a couple. We worked with our parents and vendors to make sure that each detail felt personal: from the menu of our favorite foods to the historic downtown venue to the bluegrass band that kept us dancing into the night, every element was authentically us. Perhaps most important, my husband and I are both incredibly good friends and very much in love; our ceremony and reception captured both the fun and serious sides of relationship in ways that I believe were visible to everyone in attendance. When I think back on our wedding, I am aware that, in deliberately sharing who we were with our guests, we were also expressing who we hoped to be in married life. I love what we chose to say. To me, this sense of our past and present becoming our future is what made our wedding so special. I will remember what that felt like forever.
Photography: Justin Tearney // Styling: Prema // Florals: Wildflowers by Design // Invitation Suite: byBrydon // Day of Coordinating: Planned Perfection // Venue: Excelsior Lancaster // Dress: THEIA // Bridesmaid Dress: J.Crew // Bride & Maid of Honor Shoes: Charles David // Bridal Shop: a&bé bridal shop // Groom’s Suit: Bonobos // Hair: Styles on Mulberry // Table cards: Minted // Cake: Rosie’s Creative Cakes // Film lab: The Find Lab // Camera Rental: Contax Rental