A September Wedding in the Lowcountry

Last month, my little cousin Dane got married on the Carolina coast. It was a four day weekend of fun with family and good memories.

Dane and I. Circa 1985. Somehow this cute little guy is old enough to be married?

Dane is two year younger than me and we grew up playing together over the summer and on holidays. We both took joy in bugging the other growing up. I’d like to say we grew out of teasing one another, but he spent part of the morning of his wedding throwing peanut shells at me while I was trying to swing in a hammock…. so maybe we aren’t totally grown up yet!

My Aunt Joy’s family owns an old beach house on Pawley’s Island, South Carolina and it has been a lovely place for the family to go to over the years. Everyone of us loves the low country, and Pawley’s is just awesome… so it was not a surprise when Dane and his fiancee Emily decided to get married near there. Between Dane’s family and Emily’s family I felt like we invaded Pawley’s, Debidorieu and Georgetown. There were so many of us!

*Heads up, I didn’t edit any of my photos and took them all on my camera phone. Sorry if they suck, I just don’t have time to edit anything.

Thursday

My Dad and I headed down to the coast and checked into the Hampton Inn in Georgetown. I am just going to go ahead and say that the hotel was a horrible, awful, negative experience and I will never stay there again. First room smelled like mildew. Second room had a leaking window. Horrible customer service. Never again.

Anyway, after getting there we headed over the the beach house on Pawley’s for a lovely evening at the house with dinner, family and friends The house sits between the beach and the creek and there are always the best sunsets over the creek.The weather was mild and overcast all weekend, with rain at times, but not always. It didn’t work for going out on the beach, but it was nice for sitting outside.

My Uncle Bri at the beach house. Grill Master!

The Beach side of the Beach House

The Creek on the other side of the Beach House at sunset.

Friday

Such a fun day! About 30 women who are close to Emily or the family all gathered for the bridal luncheon at the Debordieu Beach Club. The club was so pretty and in a diamond shape, so when you walked in you saw a solid wall of two windows meeting at  point with the crashing ocean right on the other side. It was very nice. There was an open bar and nice lunch. Emily’s family is also from Ohio, so the  cookie favors were from a bakery in Cincinnati! Love it!

Cute cookie favors!

bridal luncheon

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner. I don’t know if it is the South or if it is just my family and we like to have a party, but we do rehearsal dinners differently than any other places I have known. It was not all, but about 3/4 of the the people who were invited to the actual wedding. There is dinner, speeches, a slide show and dancing. In short, a mini-wedding reception. It was held at the Georgetown Maritime Museum and is right on the water. It monsooned during the dinner, just like it did at my other cousin’s wedding in April 2013. We’ve decided it must be an unofficial family tradition.

Maritime Museum for the rehearsal dinner

Welcome Emily and Dane

Arkansas Mules… strong drinks.

table decorations

coozies! and boiled peanuts… it is the South

rain INSIDE the room of the Hampton Inn in Georgetown. Awful experience.

Saturday

The morning was spent at the beach house. The house is over 150 years old and actually has a name, but I’m not going to mention it here… it is just the beach house. Anyway, we spent the morning and afternoon with family and friends hanging out on the porch of the house. As I mentioned my cousin who was getting married spent some time trying to hit me with peanut shells when he wasn’t writing a love letter to his bride. He wrote her a love letter on their wedding day! Is that not the cutest thing ever?! There are eight of us as grand-kids, and I am the oldest. There is also only one other girl, and she wasn’t there because she and her brother were in another wedding in NY. So I was left to fend for myself in the kitchen with all the guys trying to get enough bacon for a BLT. The hardships of being the only girl around.

How I spent my morning… when not elbowing my way into the kitchen for a BLT

Hanging on the porch of the beach house with friends and family…. notice hammocks at both ends and LOTs of rocking chairs.

My only beach time was short walk on a cloudy day… kind of nice, actually.

The wedding was A LOT of fun and at the Debordieu Country Club. The ceremony was outside on the lawn, under a lovely live oak tree, with the marsh as the backdrop. The reception was a lovely dinner in a gorgeous country club, followed by dancing and photo booth upstairs!

Pre -wedding selfie

ceremony set up

pretty flowers

cutest flower girl ever! she was adorable

The bride walking down the aisle with her Dad

Hitched! My cousin Dane and his new bride Emily. This picture is fun but I did crop it and put it on Instagram and it looks much cuter there.

Lauren- sister of the bride. Blake- brother of the groom. Maid of Honor and Best Man

My cousin Ehirch and a friend of the bride

My cousin Rhett (yep, they are twins) and a friend of the bride.

Sally, my cousin Blake’s wife and Ryan, best friend of the groom

My Dad and my cousin Ben

My Dad and my Uncle Bri

The Bride and groom with his mom, step-dad, sisters, brother and sister-in-law. I already loved Emily, but I loved her a little bit more during all these family pictures… she was issuing directions like a boss- just like I would!

My Dad and Hayden, sister of the groom, goofing off around the cake.

pretty and YUMMY cake. 5 different flavors… the almond was my fave.

My cousin Ehrich and his lovely girlfriend Alexa

Cool view of the cake from the upstairs

Me and my Dad

Cousins! Ben, me, Blake and Dane- the groom

My Uncle Bri and Aunt Joy

Cake and shoes…. my typical wedding pic

Sunday

Sunday was breakfast and lots of time with family! Good times all around!

The view from the room was pretty at least…