Wedding | Michi & Evan

2 hours ago
7 min read

Tell us a little about yourselves!

I am an interior designer by trade, but I'm taking a hiatus from full time design work to create a cheeky art series called Sacre Bleu to share the uniquely feminine experience of recognizing the rituals, places, fashion, memories, and fellow women that tune us into who we are meant to be in a world of distractions and people pleasing tendencies; a discovery.Follow my new instagram profile @thestudioandstyle to see me painting in my studio and sharing my style and pop culture fashion inspo for us to all drool over.

Evan is a photographer, videographer, and endurance runner. His longest run took him through 77 miles within Umstead State Park, located in Raleigh, NC.

We were best friends for 4 years before we started designing homes together and fell for one another. And now after 2.5 years together, we're so excited to celebrate the start of our shared family with the loveliest day we could think of.

We're had an intimate 45 person garden party wedding on a sweet and secluded farm in North Carolina, Morning Glory Farm. Our day felt like a love letter to our loved ones in stylish ABBA meets Nancy Meyers style wrapping.

Why did you decide to get married where you did?

We live in the equestrian village of Wellington, Florida, half of our family lives in Miami and the other half live in Ohio, so meeting in the middle for an intentional and intimate destination wedding weekend always felt right. Plus we've both secretly always wanted to scope out NorthCarolina for our post wedding home.

We knew we wanted a venue that we felt completely comfortable in. Wedding day nerves can be so unpredictable, so surrounding ourselves with people we were excited to spend time with on such a beautiful day was our biggest priority. For us that meant kind owners and staff, but we never had the expectation they would feel like family and friends until we found Morning Glory Farm. Nan the venue owner and Maggie the manager are a mother daughter duo who are so deeply in love with what they do and we felt it the second we met them.

One major selling point for us and I think for any other couple looking to have an outdoor wedding, but want a beautiful rain plan that doesn't involve a tent that can add a lot of extra cost, Morning Glory Farm built a beautiful European inspired glass and stone garden room. This totally eliminated our fears of getting rained out & is great if you're more of an outdoor wedding couple versus a hotel conference room couple.

How many guests did you have?

We had 45 guests that we invited to our welcome party at Rada, a new to Charlotte restaurant impressively earning it's first Michelin Star just a year after opening it's doors. We connected immediately with Eloy the owner and his similar Miami roots. He did everything and more to make the start of our wedding weekend as sexy as possible with our Sex & the City themed welcome party!

What was your budget?

Our budget was about $60,000 total, including the welcome party.

Tell us about your outfits.

Michi: I worked with a custom wedding dress maker in Miami, Hanna Gotz. I shopped for 5 months for my ceremony dress and I just couldn't seem to find anything that fit the vision I had for my minimalist dress. I seriously think I went to every store that even had one minimalist leaning dress in stock. I finally realized that it was time to explore the custom dress route. My friends were all rooting me on because they knew I would love the creativity that came with it. Hanna allowed me to have the space to create exactly what I wanted, imagine a montage of sketches and girls nights to workshop until I finally created one photoshopped version of my dress that was IT. My dress was made by hand by a lovely man named Raul with Hanna direction and was made of ivory silk and chiffon, the chiffon ruched to create the illusion of a petite bust line where the ivory silk draped in a column silhouette draped with matching chiffon for a cascading train that fell from the low back of my dress. I hope I painted that picture well haha.

For the reception dress, I knew I didn't want a short dress, but as a minimalist girl I never thought I'd pick the dress I did! I decided to wear a pink sequin dress by Ilkyaz Ozel to finally have my Mamma Mia moment! When we walked back into our reception everyone surprised me by flash mobbing me with choreography to Dancing Queen by ABBA!

Evan: I wore a dark brown double breasted suit by Suit Supply, shirt by Express, and Tacovas espresso brown boots. For our reception I changed into an ivory jacket & that paired with a guests sunglasses had me on the dance floor dancing to Usher to Michelle Branch.

What was the most important aspect for you, in terms of planning your wedding?

We wanted to make sure everyone who came to our wedding felt how much they meant to us and felt like our wedding wasn't just a celebration of our love, but of the love they share between one another.

Were there any elements that were important for you to incorporate?

My sister and I have grown up going to art classes together and creatively obsessing over a new medium every few months. As soon as wedding planning started I couldn't wait to plan out our creative calendar with ways to make our wedding feel intentional every step of the way. I'd always dreamed of taking ceramics classes, so I signed up at my local Armory Arts Center in West Palm Beach and was instructed by the insanely talented artisans, Cynthia and Zoe. After a few weeks of wheel throwing, I was inspired to make matte ivory ceramic florals to scatter along the winding reception dining. My sister and I hand built each one and stamped them with our wedding icon. I designed our invites with using my photoshop prowess, and painted a floral sketch with a note to each of our guests sharing why they mean so much to us.

My side of the family is Cuban and weave that in was so important when it came to music, but just a month before we were playing dominoes and knew we had to include it into our cocktail hour, not to mention the incidents of the two mariachis haha.

Oh! The flower girl walked down the aisle with a ceramic basket we thrifted from a shop just in the Nola district of Charlotte. And I painted a 4'x4' painting of Geoffrey Pithon's work. Didn't think about fitting it into a car, that was a whole thing… oops. We had our guests sign the painting at cocktail hour in place of a guest book. We have it hung in our living room and are so excited to see it come along with us to make every house we find ourselves in feel like home.

Any tips for couples getting married?

Yessss! First focus on how you want to feel on your wedding day and really set that intention when making every decision for your day. Hire small business creatives, no one will care more and you will build genuine relationships & even friendships that last past the wedding with each of them. Plan as much as you can when you feel the most inspired, and hopefully you feel this within the first few months of your engagement. I planned about 70% of our wedding about 3 months after our engagement and that left us more than a year to enjoy the rest of the planning at a relaxing pace.

Finding vendors you love that understand your budget is the first and best thing you should do. Don't let anyone buy a dress size smaller than they currently are no matter how early it is. Even if they swear it's what they want to do. Ask them to get their true size and have it altered. If not you may just have a wardrobe malfunction moments before their walk down the aisle.

For my people pleasers, don't be too considerate. If you ask people what they want, they may tell you with no filter. It's your day, do what you want! You will never regret pampering yourself, don't hold back! And because I can't say it enough, find vendors you admire and want to be friends with. Especially if you're like me and decided to plan your own wedding.

Are there any vendors that you would like to tell us a little more about?

Ally Rabon and Hunter's talent and relaxed nature was the perfect vibe for our day. Working with them had always been a dream. Ally's documentary style work is the coolest. I remember seeing her Colorado wedding shoot and knowing that I needed to prioritize her within our budget. Today, in June, we are just a few weeks away from seeing our full gallery and super 8 wedding video.

Liv in Bloom, our florist extraordinaire, deserves every last one of her flowers! She made every chat over the last year so much fun and kept any stress on our day away from us. Her work is beautiful and I'm excited to see more brides with a not so conventional creative sensibility find her and trust her to make magic for the day!

Laura R Artistry, she brought so much peace to my wedding day. I felt so cared for. I am so lucky that Maggie, Morning Glory Farm's venue manager, gave me her information when I was looking far and wide for a natural focused makeup artist. She and her talent made me feel like the most beautiful version of myself and made the entire experience from trials to the final day feel so easy and like I was chatting with a friend. She deserves to be highlighted!

Her teammate Haley Mills was a rockstar! She gave birth just a month before our wedding and was there on our day to make sure every bridesmaid felt beautiful and that every hair was in place for my Latina meets Kendall-inspired low bun look.