Greenville, SC – Destination Wedding Location

As my sweet little city has grown throughout the years, it has become a fabulous destination wedding location! Not so long ago, I had a group who traveled down from Chicago for a beautiful wedding at the Cliffs Glassy Chapel and Wyche Pavilion. Their connection to the city was that the groom’s parents owned a second home nearby, and they had fallen in love with Greenville while visiting (not hard to imagine)!

One of the main reasons why Greenville, SC makes such a great destination wedding location is the fact that the downtown area has been carefully and purposefully developed. A few decades ago, Main Street was not a place to go visit. People would come downtown to work, and then they would leave. With the help of some visionary leaders, Greenville has been transformed and is now on many of the top destination lists!

A huge plus for those couples seeking a destination wedding location is the walk-able downtown (with hotels, restaurants, and venues in close proximity), the ease of travel (GSP Airport is 20 minutes away), and the climate (although we can get warm, we don’t get very cold). Greenville can offer couples a more affordable option for a gorgeous wedding, too!

There are currently eight major hotels located along Main Street, with a many additional hotels being added in the next year. There are also 10+ venues located along Main Street, with others just a short car ride away. Don’t even get me started on how many restaurants there are, there’s something for everyone (with many great options for rehearsal dinner/private dining location as well). Guests even have the Saturday Market to entertain them for the earlier part of the day, before the newlywed couple wows them with a fabulous wedding just down the street!

If you are looking for a great spot to entertain your guests all weekend and create a gorgeous, memorable day – look no farther! Greenville, SC is the new spot for destination weddings. And, come talk to me, I’ll tell you where to enjoy all of the best bites while you’re in town scouting. 😉

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Love This Little City on Greenville Wedding Podcast

Hey Guys! I recently had an opportunity to sit down and chat with Justin Reid from Greenville Wedding Podcast. We talked all about Love This Little City and what I do as a coordinator, and a little bit about myself, too! If you’re interested in listening, check out this link below!

Greenville Wedding Podcast – Featuring Jennifer Dennis from Love This Little City

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What is it Like to Work With a Wedding Coordinator?

*Updated April 2020

One of the first questions I tend to get from potential clients is, “What exactly do you offer?” Since it comes up so often, I’ve decided that I’d also write a post about it.

Instead of just listing out what’s included in my wedding coordination service, which is great for contract purposes but doesn’t provide the amount of explanation that some people would like, I’ve decided that I would write about what typically happens through the process of working with a couple.

Of course, I can only speak for what I do. Below is what has come to work really well for me and my clients, but all coordinators probably approach things a bit differently. This should give you a good idea of what to expect though! [Read more…]

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Full-Time Focus on Wedding Coordination!

In addition to providing insight into the wedding world, I also like to share some personal updates on here, too! Well, this one is personal and professional, as I am now focusing on my wedding coordination business full time!

As of April 25th, I have resigned from my job with a local food, wine, and music festival to have more time to devote to my wedding business. I’ll still be taking on other event jobs and freelance roles, but weddings will be the center of it all.

As I have grown as a wedding coordinator (I’ve now surpassed the 100 wedding mark), I’ve truly learned how much time and focus it takes to produce a wedding day that meets both the expectations of my client and those that I’ve set for myself. Turning my attention so fully to my wedding business is allowing me to continue to produce at that level and still have some downtime to recharge.

Here’s to the rest of 2018 and many more years of wedding coordination in Greenville, SC!

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A Wedding Rehearsal When Your Ceremony Venue Isn’t Available

This is a conversation that I have with a majority of my clients. Typically in the beginning stages of planning the wedding, after falling in love with or after booking the venue, it becomes apparent that the space most likely will not be available for the ceremony rehearsal. It happens often at downtown venues. The wedding industry is growing in Greenville, and you see a lot of Friday (and Sunday) weddings during the busy season (and sometimes just because). Many venues are not able to guarantee you access for a rehearsal because it’s still a day where they would be able to rent out the space for another event.

I always encourage my clients to not worry because I have a lot of experience with off-site rehearsals. We do not have to be in the actual ceremony venue for the rehearsal if the space isn’t available at all the day before the wedding or the time that it would be available isn’t practical (i.e. all of your wedding party is traveling in from out of town and it’s only available at 9AM or it would include a lot of travel time to get everyone there and back).

Off-site wedding rehearsals work because a rehearsal consists of three components: [Read more…]

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A Better Wedding Coordinator than a Blogger

To say that this blog has been neglected would be an understatement. With twenty-one weddings last year and a new full-time job, chatting with anyone other than clients and vendors about wedding details has officially fallen to the wayside…

I did want to pop on here and let anyone who happens upon this page know what’s been going on and that, yes, I am still very much active in my wedding coordination business.

As I said, in 2016, I coordinated twenty-one weddings, including one in Philadelphia for a sweet acquaintance of mine from the event world. I also transitioned from a real estate development job in NC (I had been driving an hour each way) to a job with a local festival downtown in Greenville, SC (and my commute is now one mile). I am doing event-based work all of the time now, and I tend to see quite a bit of overlap in contacts between the wedding and festival worlds.

Although I do plan around festival dates and pre-festival events, I am still coordinating as much in 2017 as I was in 2016. Meetings and site surveys are much easier to schedule nowadays, too. I’ve found my groove again with the balance between both of my roles, and I can’t wait to see what 2018 has in store! In the meantime, I still a few dates in 2017 available if someone needs me. 😉

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A Look Back on 2015 – 32 Weddings!

A Look Back on 2015It’s so hard to believe that 2016 is here already! Things were so fast-paced last year that this little blog didn’t get nearly the amount of attention that I had intended. Instead, my clients had all of my attention as I coordinated 32 weddings in 2015!

Looking back, I thought it would be nice to have a little run down of all of the venues I worked at last year!

In 2015, I coordinated ceremonies at:

After those ceremonies, I took care of the coordination details for receptions at:

Now that was a fun year! So many wonderful clients, great vendors, and awesome wedding memories! Here’s to 2016!

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Wedding Season & a 2014 Wrap-Up

Greenville Wedding SeasonWhen I first started coordinating, wedding season, for me, was May & June and then October. Those are prime times in Greenville. Those are months when it’s best to make your vendor decisions far in advance, especially for photographers, officiants, and other vendors who can only do one wedding a day (maybe two for officiants depending on the ceremony times).

Nowadays, wedding season, for me, is pretty much all year (May, June, and October are just really busy). I’ll end up with small gaps in the winter when it is a less popular time to schedule a wedding (but I LOVE a January wedding, hello, Avett Brothers), and then I’ll have some gaps in the summer when it’s traditionally a bit hotter (but any summer weddings is still lovely, especially inside).

With all of that being said, February is an entire month off for me this year. It’s the only month this year when I don’t have a wedding or event, and I’m fully enjoying some downtime/recharge time on the weekends.

It’s also now the time that follows Christmas, New Years, and Valentine’s Day. Prime engagement time! So, I have been meeting lots of new brides!

Since I hadn’t stopped yet to look back on 2014, I thought now would be a great time to reflect and to let everyone know what I was doing all of last year.

In 2014, I coordinated 29 weddings. All of those were in the Upstate, but I also traveled down to Folly Beach to help with my best friend from high school’s big day (my first on-the-beach wedding!). [Read more…]

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Celebratory Drinks with Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka & Liquid Catering

Wedding Cake Vodka Group of Cocktails

Have you ever had a friend get engaged and simply popping a bottle of Champagne seemed like it wasn’t special enough? Are you tired of generic wedding shower punches? Then this post is for you!

A little while back I had the opportunity to spend a fun evening with Lindsey from Liquid Catering, our favorite professional bartending company in Greenville, SC. I had picked up a bottle of Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka because it seemed like a fun challenge, and I reached out to her to create some celebratory wedding cocktail recipes.

The goal was to create recipes that could be used at three different points during an engagement: the newly engaged, the wedding shower, and the bachelorette party! Not only did they each have to fit the theme, they also had to taste really good! Lindsey has had plenty of practice creating custom cocktails for weddings and other parties, so it’s no surprise that she knocked this one out of the park!

 

Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka - Put A Ring On It Put A Ring On It РCheers to the new fianc̩s!

 

2 oz. Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka

1 oz. white grape juice

3 oz. prosecco

Shake vodka and juice in a cocktail shaker until cold, strain into a flute and top with prosecco.

Williams Sonoma Sanding Sugar Gold

We added a little gold glitter garnish using the sanding sugar from Williams Sonoma.

After a little trial and error, we decided it was best to run the sanding sugar through a food processor to make it a bit more fine. Not for too long though! Just enough to break it into some smaller pieces. We ran a lemon slice around the glass and the smaller pieces held put, no problem!

 

 

Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka - Coconut Lemon Cake PunchCoconut Lemon Cake Punch – A perfectly balanced wedding shower cocktail

 

1 oz. Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka

1 oz. coconut rum

3 oz. lemonade (we used Simply Lemon so it was nice and tart)

Mix all ingredients and chill (can be done in small or large batches). Pour over ice to serve.

Candied LemonOur garnish for this drink was candied lemons. I had them in a cocktail at Nose Dive once, and I became obsessed. To make my own, I read several recipes. The two most helpful were Martha Stewart’s Candied Lemon Slices and the Candied Meyer Lemon recipe from She Wears Many Hats.

 

 

Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka - Love Is SweetLove Is Sweet – A shot that everyone will enjoy!

 

1 oz. Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka

1/2 oz. creme de cacao

dash of grenadine

Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and pour into a shot glass.

 

Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka - Something BlueSomething Blue – Wedding cake and pineapple are a great combination

 

1 oz. Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka

1/2 oz. blue curacao

1/2 oz. pineapple juice

Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and pour into a shot glass.

 

I hope everyone enjoys their cocktails! Thank you, Lindsey, for being such an great mixologist!

P.S. Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka has no idea who we are or that we love their vodka this much. We just found a cool product we wanted to share.

Pearl Wedding Cake Vodka Cocktail Recipes with Liquid Catering

Happy Wedding Planning & Cocktail Mixing!

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A Tale of Two Weddings: Pretty Place & Hartness Pavilion at Furman and The Cherrydale Alumni House at Furman

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of coordinating weddings for two couples that are dear friends of mine. They were actually Saturday and Sunday weddings on the same weekend at Furman, and the schedule worked out perfectly where I was able to coordinate both. It was a jam-packed few days, but they were full of fun, happiness, and very sweet moments.

For Amanda and Scott’s wedding, things started off on Friday evening on the top floor of the Erwin Penland building, where Scott works.They have a big conference room upstairs that was perfect, and we had a very helpful and efficient rehearsal with both their minister and ceremony musician in attendance. Check out her rehearsal bouquet, great idea for a first grade teacher!

AmandaScottRehearsal [Read more…]

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