Hi, I know these are a bit late, but better then never. We had an incredible wedding day and weekend. The Outer Banks is truly incredible and I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to get married in a truly dream location. I am from Cincinnati, and did all the planning long distance. We made a total of 3 trips to OBX over a 1.5 year planning period. We ended up with about 100 guests total and many of them stayed for a long weekend. J
Reception- Miha and the Hilton Garden Inn Staff: Miha and her staff at the Hilton were incredible. She was very responsive to emails and helped answer questions all throughout our 1.5-year planning process. We planned this wedding from Ohio and Miha made the destination wedding planning process as smooth as it could have been. The Hilton was very accommodating and allowed us to truly customize a dream wedding that fit our personalities. The entire Hotel staff was incredibly welcoming and helpful throughout the weekend.
Photographer- Nick Gillespie with Blue Bend Photography: Our photographer is from Asheville, NC and he traveled to OBX for our wedding. Nick has a wonderful personality and is very easy to get along with. He was flexible with the events throughout the entire day, and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He made us feel at ease in front of the camera and was great at catching the “candid” shots. We are by no means photogenic people and I am still in awe of how gorgeous we look in his pictures. I really wanted some artistic photographs and we could not have selected a better photographer to capture them. Nick was on the lookout all day for the perfect angle, shot, and kept tabs on the sunset all evening, so we didn’t miss it!
DJ - John Harper DJ: John Harper was our DJ for our reception at the Hilton Garden Inn Pier House. If you would like a party to last all night and not have a slow moment, John Harper is it. His DJ skills are top notch and we danced the entire night. He did a great job keeping everyone, young and old, on the dance floor all night. I would also personally like to thank John for being a great MC throughout the night. He kept the reception time-line events on track! After the wedding our guests only had wonderful comments about the music and dancing!
Ceremony- Holy Redeemer Catholic Church: Val at Holy Redeemer was easy to work with and did a great job. We brought our priest from Ohio to marry us and she made sure we had all the paperwork for the NC Diocese to make the wedding happen. She had a great staff that helped coordinate the wedding at both the rehearsal and the day of. Everything went off perfectly and the Church took care of returning the marriage license paperwork as well. From Val’s recommendations, John Buford was our pianist for the ceremony. He was absolute incredible. Easy to get a hold of us and was willing to work with our singer from home. He actually played the piano over the phone when we were selecting the music!
Flowers- Brooks the Florist: Brooks is awesome. We stumbled into his shop after a few other OBX wedding florists canceled on our weekend appointments last minute. Since I was from Ohio and only down in OBX once before our wedding, I needed to get the flowers checked off the list. He did a great job helping me decided on flowers that fit my personality. My wedding flowers were fairly priced and absolutely gorgeous! I couldn’t have been more thrilled with how they all came together. Brooks is a true artist and really loves his job. His passion for flowers truly shows through his work.
Rehearsal Dinner- Tale of the Whale: Just incredible! The room we had fit all 32 of us and the food was to die for. We all enjoyed a few drinks on the deck and took many pictures over the sound as the sun was setting. A perfect venue and fabulous restaurant! Highly Recommend them!
Honeymoon: Just a side note, we ended up staying at the Sanderling for part of our honeymoon, then spent the rest of the weekend in Ocracoke. The Sanderling was a fabulous resort and the spa was excellent after a crazy wedding weekend. My husband and I loved Ocracoke and enjoyed our bed and breakfast hotel room and quaint town. Also, the restaurants on the island were incredible! I was shocked at how awesome the food was J
*** Best of luck to all the brides planning a wedding in the Outer Banks! It was the best choice we could have ever made. The OBX knot board is great and definitely helped me throughout the process.