Christian + Bryce's Bowling Green Wedding

From the Bride: Bryce and I wanted our wedding day to reflect our personality as a couple and be full of little details that make us who we are. The wedding venue was special to us because it is owned by a close family friend of ours and there has never been a wedding held there before. As it is not an actual wedding venue, we were able to create what we wanted in the most beautiful space and we did a lot of the work with the help of our family and friends! The venue is an old historic plantation home in Bowling Green, Kentucky that was built in the 1800s. My vision was to have a classic fall wedding, with a very neutral color pallet that incorporated lots of lush greenery, white mums, white pumpkins, and rustic wooden accents. Another fun detail is that we did not hire a florist - the groom’s aunt who is a retired florist took on the role of doing the flowers for our big day and she did the most beautiful job! Bryce even helped to design the bouquet with his aunt as a surprise for Christian which made it even more special.

Another little detail that made the day special was the food. We are big foodies and Bryce runs 4 local restaurants in the Lexington area. Bryce also spent 7 years working in Hilton Head Island running the restaurant that catered the wedding. With his history of working in the restaurant industry and being known as the chef in our group of friends, most of our guests expected really good food. Instead of doing a traditional plated meal, we decided to do food stations based on our favorite foods and meals that have been special to us. The first station was a coastal station to reflect Bryce's time spent working on the island and our love for the beach. This station consisted of some things like oysters on the half shell, shrimp and grits, and shrimp cocktail served in a wooden boat. The second was a 'welcome home' station to reflect the country cooking of our shared Kentucky hometown. This station featured some things like roast beef Manhattan sliders, corn pudding, biscuits, and macaroni and cheese. The final station was a 'Taste of Roma' station as we got engaged in Rome, Italy that featured some of our favorite Italian staples. Each individual table setting was designed to have a menu that had a description of each station. Guests were welcome to sample whatever they wanted from each station throughout the night. Each table also had Woodford bottles full of water for refills that the couple collected leading up to the wedding to reflect their love of Kentucky bourbon. There were also signature cocktails named after the couples two golden doodles who were unable to make it to the wedding. "The Saylor" was an old fashioned to represent Bryce's favorite cocktail, while "The Stella" was a Moscow mule for Christian.

One other special detail from the day came with my wedding dress. My mom's older brother was killed in a car accident when he was 16 and she wanted to find a way to incorporate him into our day. One of the pieces of clothing she still had of his was his old FFA jacket. She cut out the "Kentucky" portion of the jacket and had it sewn into my dress as a surprise on the big day. This then counted as my something old, something borrowed, and something blue. I also had the pin that my late grandmother wore on my parents wedding day pinned into my bouquet which was another sweet sentiment.

One final detail that I loved about our day is that we had heard of the old southern tradition of burying a bottle of bourbon to keep the rain away on the wedding day. We went out to the spot where we were to take our vows a month prior and buried a bottle of bourbon with family and friends. During the reception, we dug up the bourbon and passed it around to share with everyone! It worked very well as there was no rain at all on the wedding day.

Katelyn DaughertyNovember 15, 2021