A Virginia Horse-Country At-Home Wedding: The Details

I was so lucky to work with Merritt and Sean on their Virginia at-home wedding. Merritt’s parents have a large farm in Upperville, Virginia, which is one town west of Middleburg. Even though Merritt and Sean live in Long Beach, California, they knew this was where they wanted to wed. They had a fantastic wedding, and Katie Stoops made hundreds of incredible photos during that day.

What a gorgeous invitation suite by Richie Designs. You can see the mechanical gears blind-pressed behind the green text and the couple’s custom monogram on the envelope.

The residence is atop a hill, overlooking a small pond, where the reception tent was set up. Since there was a significant distance down a gravel driveway, we shuttled guests to the reception via small buses. The tent came from Skyline Tent Company, who did an incredible job on the whole event.

The property had a lot of existing opportunities for enhancement for this at-home wedding with simple ideas. We jazzed up the entry sign to the property with silk ribbons. I placed vintage bow ties on the six animal statues around the property.

All guests were given a Virginia-themed welcome bag. We had custom M&Ms, Route 11 chips (Virginia-based companies,) Virginia peanuts, local literature, and a water bottle and bag with the couple’s custom monogram. We tried to drop all the bags at the hotels, but some bags were distributed on the wedding day.

Guests did enter through the main doors of the house and walked straight through to the backyard for the backyard wedding ceremony.

Fashion and Flowers

Merritt and Sean are car enthusiasts who met while working on a race car, and both still work in the automotive industry. So throughout their wedding, you will see homages to cars. The bridesmaids were given Tiffany steering wheel necklaces to wear at the wedding.

Merritt found a designer who uses car seat belts to create various accessories. Merritt engaged the artisan to create a clutch for herself, a petite purse for the flower girl, and a pillow for the ring bearer.

Since Sean is from New Zealand, we incorporated blooms native to the country in the floral designs in addition to lush garden roses, created by Lavender Green. Merritt’s bouquet was tied with lace from her mother’s wedding dress.

Merritt and Sean brought their pup Rusty from California to participate in their wedding. He even got a tie to match the groomsmen for this Virginia at-home wedding!