Real Wedding - Alabama

ABC Member Planner: Holly Lynch, PBC™, 
The Season, Rome, Ga., 706.767.0606, 
holly@theseasonevents.com, 
www.theseasonevents.com.ABC member businesses involved: The Season (bartending, transportation, and planning).Non-member businesses involved: Harvest Moon Catering, Bussey’s Florist, Honeymoon 
Bakery, Little River Canyon Center, Unlimited 
Party & Event Rental.The Couple: Vanessa and Shawn are a very unique couple. The groom was from Pennsylvania and the bride from Atlanta. They had non-traditional ideas and really wanted to embrace the fall season and the mountains near where the bride’s family has a cabin. As a child, the family spent long weekends there. The couple also wanted to incorporate her southern heritage into the menu.Inspiration: The fall season in a gorgeous mountain area in Little River Canyon, Ala.Color palette: Rich oranges and corals, coppers, and soft greens.Approximate Budget: $30,000Guest count: 125.Most unique design elements: The waterfall, where we were able to capture some really special photographs, was absolutely stunning; the very plain room we transformed into a beautiful dining room; the “beer buffet” that paid tribute to the groom’s love of specialty beers; and the “pie station” instead of traditional wedding cake.Biggest challenge: The reception room was a completely black room, with a black floor, walls, and ceiling. For us, it was a perfect canvas, but convincing the family just how magical we could make that room was a fun process. I learned how a plain, black room could become extremely beautiful!Hindsight: As far as doing things differently, the two biggest elements that posed a challenge were the lighting and the bar location during the cocktail hour. The challenge with the lighting was keeping the room lit low enough for dancing, but bright enough to function and eat. With an all-black room as a base, we used only café lighting and a few lamps on the bar and the beer buffet. The café lighting produced more light than we expected, especially since the facility buffed and polished the floors just before we hosted the wedding. The second challenge was the bar location during the cocktail hour—it didn’t create great flow in a small area, so I wish we had created a self-serve soft drink spot.