Light Aqua & Blue Themed Wedding in Newport

Q1: Tell us about your wedding!

“We wanted our wedding to feel elegant and intimate. We choose a venue that was surrounded by natural beauty but also had the classic elements of a french manor home.

“We also wanted the venue was intimate enough that we would get to interact with all of our guests. Since Glen Manor House is so natural elegant, we styled with classic ivory and gold detailing. We incorporated light aqua and blues into our invitations and stationary.”

Q2: Let’s talk wedding decor

“The ceremony space was in a stone covered terrace facing the water. The space was furnished with gold chiavari chair, and the alter was framed with two large flower arrangements in stone urns.

“Keeping with the style of the flowers, the arrangements where white flowers and greenery and loose wild design. The beginning of the aisle was framed with white lanterns.

“The cocktail tables featured silver and clear candle centerpieces. The dining room tables featured white flowers and greenery and were in a gold hurricane style vases.

“The flowers were complimented with ivory linens, marcella gold dinner & salad plates, gold table numbers in gold frames, and gold and silver votive candles. Name cards were printed and held up in wine corks that the bride’s parents collected and made into place card holders.

“The sweethearts table featured a gold lace tabletop.

“The mantles in the dinning room featured greenery, a lantern, and candles.  The mantles in the library and ballroom featured greenery, lanterns, candles and picture frames with pictures of the bride and groom.

“Many of the elements incorporated into the wedding were things picked up along the way by Jaclyn and her mother including the vases, lanterns, candles, candle stands and cocktail table centerpieces.”

Q3: What were the florals like in your wedding?

“All of the florals incorporated in our wedding were designed to look understated yet beautiful. We wanted to highlight the natural beauty of our venue. The florals were mostly white flowers with lots of greenery.

“The brides bouquet was featured cream large roses, cream spray roses, ruscus, olive branches, and light gray succulents in a wild and crazy arrangement.

“The maids of honor had similar bouquets that also feature, pink astilbe, thistle, gerbera and white hydrangeas.

“The mothers of the bride and groom wore corsages with cream spray roses.

“The grooms boutonniere was cream rose with greenery and the attendant’s were thistle and greenery.

“The alter was framed by two large floral arrangements in stone urns that were in line with the rest of the floral arrangements. The mantles were adorned with greenery and the credenza featured a vase arrangement with white flowers and greenery.

“The cake was adorned with greenery, white roses and thistle.

“The dining tables featured arrangements with greenery and white flowers in gold vases.

“We wanted the florals at the wedding to really bring out the historic and natural beauty of our venue so we spent a lot of time thinking about how to design the arrangements to be timeless as well as modern, and to not overpower the space or feel unnatural.

Q4: Did you personalize the day in any way?

“Our wedding was planned to include elements that were particularly meaningful to the us. The bride and groom personalized all aspects of the ceremony from selecting the music and readings to writing their own vows.

“The minister, harpist, soloist, reader, attendants, flower girl and ring bearer were all relatives or close friends of the bride and groom.

“The wedding party was small with the bride and groom each having just two attendance reflecting the intimacy of the day and in keeping with the venue.

“The guitarist during cocktail hour was a close childhood friend of the bride. About 1/3 of our guests were involved in the wedding in some manor which we wanted to do to incorporate our family and friends into the wedding.The ceremony was very special to us.

“Glen Manor House was the perfect location for a beautiful and intimate ceremony. We were hoping for an outdoor ceremony on the lawn overlooking the river, but with drizzling rain, we moved the ceremony to the portico/terrace with its stunning architectural features that framed the wedding party and complimented the bride’s dress and floral arrangements.

“We personalized all aspects of the ceremony from selecting the music and readings to writing their own vows. The minister, harpist, soloist, reader, attendants, flower girl and ring bearer were all relatives or close friends of the bride and groom. Another special element we included was handing out Mardi Gras beads during the dancing portion of the evening. Jaclyn and Nate had attended 8 Mardi Gras’ while living in New Orleans and had lots of beads to share so once dancing began the beads were handed out to guests to wear.

Q5: Let’s talk fashion. How did you both choose your wedding day look? Describe the looks in detail.
A5: Early on in my engagement I feel in love with designs by Maggie Sottero (she has three lines including Sottero and Midgley). I loved the elegance, beautiful open backs and detailing of her designs. I choose to go only to bridal salons that had her dresses. When I tried on my wedding dress (Clementine by Sottero & Midgley) I quickly fell in love with it. The ivory dress was accented with bold metallic embroidered gold lace appliques and Swarovski crystals adorning the v-neck and keyhole back.  Since the dress was fitted, I decided to pair it with a cathedral veil was that was adorned with matching gold lace. I wore my hair up to showcase the beautiful keyhole back of the dress. My makeup was designed to highlight my eyes. To finish my look, I wore nude Kate Spade Wedges, an aqua opal ring borrowed from my mother (my something blue/borrowed/old) and Effy earrings gifted from the groom as my wedding present. The groom’s wore a navy tux purchased from Men’s Wearhouse. We choose to have him wear navy to provide a softer look than all back. He wore a black bow tie, suspenders, brown loafers and Fleur-de-lis cufflinks in honor of New Orleans where they met.

Q6: How did you meet? Tell us about the proposal.
A6: Nate and Jaclyn met their freshman year of college at Tulane University through mutual friends though they did not start dating until the beginning of sophomore year. They were both science majors and spent the majority of their “free time” sophomore year studying Organic Chemistry, eating at the cafeteria (Nate would go 4 to 5 times a day to get food), and enjoying the many special events at Tulane and in New Orleans. When Nate decided to stay in New Orleans and go to Tulane Medical School, Jaclyn also decided to stay. Nate proposed (to an impatient Jaclyn) in April of 2017 after 5 years of dating. He asked Jaclyn to marry him at their favorite nature trail in City Park with their dog Luna by their side. It was a beautiful (non-humid) sunny spring day. They decided to wait on the wedding until spring of 2019 since Nate would be graduating from medical school in 2018, and both Nate and Jaclyn would likely be moving and starting new jobs. Though they enjoyed their 8 years in New Orleans, Nate and Jaclyn decided they were ready to move to a new place; they ended up moving to Durham, North Carolina.

Q7: What was the most anticipated or special moment of your wedding day?
A7: Our favorite moment from our wedding day was our first dance which we careful choreographed ourselves at home with the help of YouTube videos. We even included two lifts! We practiced our dance for weeks leading up to the wedding. A few days before the wedding, we were practicing and the bride nearly fell and the groom caught her, painfully, by her thumb. On the special day, however, the first dance caught everyone by surprise. It was fun and appeared spontaneous even though it was well rehearsed.

Q8: Do you have any wedding planning or marriage advice that you’d like to share with other couples planning their day?
A8: I would recommend giving yourself reasonable goals to accomplish every week or month; this gives you the opportunity to continue to make progress but not overwhelm yourself.  I would also suggest doing something fun during your wedding planning – for us it was choreographing and learning our first dance- it gives you something to do with your fiance that is fun and different! Most importantly choose vendors that come highly recommended (from online reviews or word of mouth); having great and full service vendors takes a tremendous load off your plate.