Belle and Owen filled their Charleston wedding with the kind of details guests could actually interact with: couches and coffee tables arranged like a living room, family wedding photos spanning generations, a band-led music line from ceremony to reception, and plenty of food for a crowd that had traveled to celebrate with them. Even a Southern tradition that didn’t quite go according to plan became part of the story when the couple tried, unsuccessfully, to dig up a bottle of bourbon buried at Admiral’s House a month earlier.

Their love story began while Belle was attending the College of Charleston, and Owen was a student at The Citadel.. “We knew there was a spark from the moment we met,” Belle says. They later discovered they had been in the same place at the same time several times before finally crossing paths.

Only a few weeks into knowing each other, Owen received an opportunity to transfer to The Ohio State University to play basketball. “It was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up,” Belle says, so they spent their final two years of college long-distance. When it came time to choose a wedding location, Charleston brought them back to where their relationship had started.

The setting was classic Lowcountry, with oak trees, Spanish moss, historic architecture, and water views. But inside that Charleston framework, Belle and Owen went decidedly less traditional, using color, mismatched wedding party fashion, playful florals, and family details to make the day distinctly theirs.

What We Love About This Admiral’s House Wedding

• A reception designed more like a giant living room than a formal event space
• Wedding photos from the couple’s parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents displayed alongside family keepsakes
• Bridesmaids and bridesmen choosing their own outfits from Belle’s color palette
• The Vinyl Junkies leading everyone from the ceremony to the reception in a music line
• Belle surprising her mom by dedicating her bouquet to her during the reception
• A buried-bourbon tradition that ended with Owen digging around the lawn in his suit and never actually finding the bottle

Featured Vendor:
TLC Wedding Photography

Choosing A Historic Charleston Venue Without Ignoring Its History

Admiral’s House was the first venue Belle and Owen toured, and it ended up being the only one they needed to see. “We knew we wanted to capture the classic Charleston, Lowcountry feel, but wanted to avoid any venues tied to a dark past,” Belle explains. The house was once the residence of the Naval Admiral when the surrounding site operated as Charleston’s Naval Base, and its restored architecture offered the history they were looking for without compromising on that priority.

Large oak trees and Spanish moss surround the property, with views toward the water. The setting gave them the Charleston character they wanted while leaving plenty of room to take the design somewhere more colorful and playful.

When A Southern Wedding Tradition Doesn’t Go Quite To Plan

A month before the wedding, Belle and Owen followed the Southern tradition of burying an unopened bottle of bourbon at the venue, which is supposed to bring good weather on the wedding day. The plan was to dig it back up and share a drink after the ceremony.

There was just one problem: they couldn’t find it. “Owen was digging, in his full suit and tie, looking for it, and we actually never ended up finding it,” Belle says. Somewhere on the grounds of Admiral’s House, presumably, there is still a bottle of bourbon waiting to be discovered.

Giving The Wedding Party A Color Palette And Letting Them Take It From There

Belle wore a Sareh Nouri gown from Maddison Row South with Manolo Blahnik shoes, while Owen and the groomsmen used tuxedos as a neutral base for the rest of the wedding party.

Rather than selecting one bridesmaid dress for everyone, Belle provided a color palette and let her bridesmaids and bridesmen choose their own outfits. After talking through the overall colors with their planner, they landed on blue suits for the bridesmen. The result worked with the rest of the wedding: coordinated, but not overly matched.

Keeping Their First Look For The Ceremony

Belle and Owen skipped a first look. “I wanted Owen to see me walking down the aisle,” she says. Their vows became one of the ceremony’s most personal pieces. Belle had actually written hers three years before the wedding. On the morning of the wedding, she gave Owen a journal filled with letters she had been writing to him since the beginning of their relationship. One page was missing from the collection because that letter had become her vows.

Owen’s vows came with a small mishap. He accidentally skipped an entire page while reading them during the ceremony. Afterward, the two found a private spot inside Admiral’s House, where he read the missing section just to her.

Belle also carried something from her closest friends into the day. Her bridesmaids surprised her with a book filled with letters and photographs, including childhood pictures and memories from their friendship and her relationship with Owen. Owen wore pins honoring close family members who had passed away.

Letting The Band Lead Everyone Straight Into The Reception

There was no quiet transition from ceremony to cocktails. The Vinyl Junkies gathered the guests and led them toward the reception in a music line, turning the short walk into the beginning of the party. Once everyone arrived, the band moved onto the stage and played songs the crowd could sing along to.

Later, Belle shifted the attention to her mother. Instead of tossing her bouquet, she dedicated it to her and gave a speech thanking her for the role she had played in her life. Her mom had no idea it was coming.

Designing The Reception Like A Giant Living Room

Belle and Owen wanted guests to walk into a space that encouraged them to settle in, talk, eat, and stay awhile. They treated the reception at Admiral’s House almost like an oversized living room. Couches and coffee tables were mixed among the usual wedding setup, then layered with books, lamps, and photographs. “We wanted our guests to feel welcomed as if we were throwing a giant house party,” Belle says.

Family history became part of that room, too. A table displayed wedding-day photographs of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, alongside sentimental pieces connected to their families. Both had grown up watching marriages they admired, so rather than simply referencing family in speeches, they gave those relationships a physical place in the reception.

That willingness to veer away from convention also shaped their vendor search. They gravitated toward creative teams who were open to “pushing the envelope” rather than defaulting to something traditional, particularly when it came to the florals and photography.

Making Food And Easy Logistics Worth The Extra Spend

With many relatives traveling for the wedding, food became one of Belle and Owen’s biggest budget priorities. Their planner helped them work backward from what they could spend, matching them with vendors and finding ways to get more from the budget without losing the elements they cared about.

The celebrations began with a smaller rehearsal dinner at MoMo at Riverfront Park, within walking distance of the wedding venue. By the time the wedding began, guests already knew where they needed to be and what to expect.

Putting The Phone Away Made It Easier To Actually Attend Their Own Wedding

Belle’s biggest advice for other couples is less about what to book and more about what to do once the planning is finally over. “When I arrived at the venue that morning, I handed my phone to a bridesmaid and told them I did not want to see it until the end of the night,” she says. “It allowed me to be present for every moment and really take in each part of the day.”

Her other recommendation is considerably more practical: schedule time to eat. With guests constantly pulling newlyweds in different directions, she warns that dinner can easily disappear from the agenda unless couples deliberately make room for it. After spending months thinking about how their guests would move through the wedding, Belle and Owen made sure they had space to enjoy it, too.