Ballantyne Country Club Wedding / Charlotte Wedding Photographer
Thursday, March 26, 2009 Thanks for returning for Jennifer and Matthew’s wedding! Weren’t their invitations lovely?
Jennifer and Matthew were married at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Charlotte, NC. Their reception was held nearby at the Ballantyne Country Club.
Jennifer writes about the design of their wedding:
“For my dress, I knew I wanted something with a modern silhouette, and as I was trying dresses, I was a bit surprised to find I loved lace dresses. After trying on many different styles, I decided on each part of the gown, and set out to find the one that included all the elements I was looking for. After hours of searching online, I came across the Maggie Sottero Philippa. It is a strapless, mermaid shaped gown, with a lace overlay, and corset back. When I found my gown it was easy to set the tone and style for the rest of our wedding. My advice to brides is even if you know what you want in your dress, try on many different styles, you might be surprised at what you like best!
I used a damask pattern in black and ivory to mimic the lace pattern of my dress… I used this motif in our wedding invitations, name cards, menu cards, table runners, cocktail napkins, etc. My mom was a great help in hunting down coordinating items. I can’t tell you how many times she’d call me to tell me she’d just bought some store out of the perfect napkin, candle, etc. To accent our black and ivory themed wedding I chose Wedgwood blue and sage, which we incorporated into our flowers and table décor, as well as invitations, programs, etc.”
The Spa at Ballantyne Resort did a wonderful job of reflecting the wedding’s 30’s/40’s time period in Jennifer’s hair and makeup.
“We had a traditional Catholic wedding mass, but chose to include more contemporary music pieces, played by a pianist and guitarist, to reflect our personal musical style.” The wedding took place at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Charlotte.
“Matt has a love for classic cars and vintage autos, so we knew that the traditional limo getaway wasn’t quite for us. Instead we chose a London cab, which was a perfect accent to our day.”
“Matt and I did not want a traditional hotel ballroom for our reception. Instead we wanted a place that felt more like someone’s home; ideally with lots of windows, and access to outside. The Ballantyne Country Club was the ideal setting, two sizeable rooms, with a lovely stone fireplace in the middle, a sizeable dance floor, floor to ceiling windows all around, a beautiful covered wraparound porch, and an open patio overlooking the golf course.”
Studio Flowers of Charlotte was the florist. The bride’s “signature flower” was the cymbidium orchid, which was found only in her bouquet, and Matt’s boutonnière.
“Our florist also included Bells of Ireland in some of the flower arrangements. We chose to keep our flowers mostly white with lots of greenery.”
In keeping with the black and ivory damask motif and accent colors of Wedgwood blue and sage green throughout the wedding, the place card holders at the reception were miniature topiaries holding place cards designed to match the wedding invitations. On the back of each place card, the bride and groom included their contact information, as well as a general thank you to their guests. The reception tables were dressed with black tablecloths with ivory and black damask runners. Bright sage green napkins accented each setting. Jennifer’s mother handmade (with the help of her brother!) all of the ivory and damask table runners for the reception.
Jennifer’s mother also surprised the bride and groom with personalized champagne glasses for each guest.
“Even our cake matched the ivory and black damask motif!”
“Matt and I are both photography hobbyists, and so our wedding photography was one of our highest priorities in vendors. We were thrilled to find Angela, who, in our opinions, struck a perfect balance between classic black and white and vivid vibrant color. Her high contrast black and white images are exactly what we were looking for, and were reflective to us of the 30s/40s time period our wedding theme was starting to evoke.”
This is what Jen wrote me after she saw her wedding photos:
“Wow! Thank you, thank you, thank you for just absolutely blowing our expectations out of the water! Matt and I are so excited to start picking our favorites. At this point I am still just sort of obsessively delighting in looking at every image (which took me about three hours yesterday morning :)).”
then a couple of days later…
“Have I mentioned that I am so so so excited about our wedding photos! You’ve really given me a new opportunity to be totally unproductive at work! I have to tell you, my mom and I argued quite a bit about what I was willing to invest in our wedding photography. However, now that she has seen the results, she is singing a different tune. I think you have convinced her that you are worth the investment!”
Talk about expectations, Jen, you blew my expectations away when I received your wedding story this week. I asked if you wanted to say a few things about your wedding for the blog and you crafted a beautiful bedtime story for me to read. (I got it late at night on my iphone - I was tucked in bed, but I couldn’t stop reading!) I hope you’ll save it to share with your children and grandchildren. But as it stands today, you all might be too busy to think about children right now (see below)! Thank you so much for sharing about your wedding!
Matt is a software engineer at Luxottica in Cincinnati, Ohio. Jennifer is an MD/PhD student at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She will finish her PhD in neuroscience in July 2009 and will complete her MD in June 2011. Jennifer has won numerous awards and is one of those beautiful, young overachievers who make my head spin with all their early accomplishments. I literally had to pick my jaw off the floor during the toasts.
Jennifer shared with me a list of suggestions and advice to brides who are planning their wedding. I’ll post this list soon. It’s worth checking out so come back!
Angela Stott | 4 Comments | 1 Reference | Share Article Tweethttp://www.angelastottjournal.com/journal/2009/3/26/ballantyne-country-club-wedding-charlotte-wedding-photograph.html Email Article
Reader Comments (4)
What a gorgeous wedding and gorgeous photography!
The car shot is divine. :)
Angela, Thank you so much for putting this together. I love the images you chose and the way you used them to illustrate our day. You are the best!
Hi! Those are amazing pics! I was wondering if you could email me Jennifer's contact information -- I've been searching for a Phillipa dress and would like to ask her if she'd be interested in selling hers.
Thanks!