This week we’re featuring gorgeous Lis Simon Bride Whitney who wore our Kenya gown. “I felt like such a princess on the day of our wedding and never wanted to take it off!” Congratulations Whitney and Adrian!

T h e L o v e S t o r y

Adrian and Whitney were both working in their local mall – Whitney was working part time at Sunglass Hut while going to school and Adrian was the manager at Lids. While it was winter break she picked up extra hours at work, so she had been working at the kiosk on days she wasn’t regularly at the store. That’s when Whitney first met Adrian, since her kiosk was directly outside his store. They had a lot of similar life situations they bonded over.

One night she was going to a party with her best friend and when she told him about it he said “Well if you want me to go with you I totally will”. They hit it off immediately and started seeing each other outside of work more and more. Not long after he and Whitney started dating. They laugh about it now, but he will never admit that he invited himself to that party with her and a bunch of people he didn’t know just to spend more time with her.

T H E P R O P O S A L

01.18.2018

Since they both worked in retail, they decided instead of buying each other gifts for the holidays they would treat themselves to a trip somewhere they hadn’t been before. They decided on Washington DC since they both love history and it was a reasonable price with their airline points. They had many conversations prior to the trip about what their future wedding would be like or just the idea of marriage in general and they both knew they wanted that with each other. Whitney’s favorite song of all time is “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire, and one day, earlier in the year, Adrian randomly mentioned that in 2019, September 21st was a Saturday and how cool would it be to get married on that date. She thought it was cool but never really thought much about it afterwards.

They had talked about what the ‘perfect proposal’ looked like to her and she told him that she would definitely want pictures to remember it by and she would also want to celebrate with their friends after. Adrian also knew that Whitney was inheriting her maternal grandmother’s engagement ring which would require asking for permission from both her parents. It turns out that he had asked her parents almost a year before actually proposing! While they were in DC, they planned a trip to walk down to the Potomac River. While they were walking Whitney was stopping to take pictures, which had started to annoy Adrian. He kept telling her to hurry up and stop stopping all the time. He was definitely in a weird mood and seemed nervous but she was totally naive to the whole situation.

Once they got there Adrian got very quiet and then suddenly stopped and got down on one knee. After he proposed Whitney saw a photographer pop out from behind a bush. Turns out he secretly hired her to capture the moment, which is why he was getting upset with Whitney because he gave the photographer a specific time they would be in a particular part of the park. The surprises didn’t stop there. When they got home they had to pick up the dog from her parent’s house and when they finally got back to their apartment he was very specific about Whitney not worrying about luggage but to go inside to bring the dog in. When they walked inside, he had planned a surprise party with their best friends, her brother, and her sister in law. They had decorated the apartment and everything! Adrian remembered all their conversations about the proposal she wanted and then he said “Now we have the perfect amount of time to plan a wedding for September 21, 2019”.

T h e D r e s s

Whitney’s dress shopping experience was great! She only went to boutiques she knew had a great reputation in Charlotte. She has a good sense of what does and does not look good on her which definitely helped narrow down style selection. It was important to her that the dress be timeless, she didn’t want to look back on their photos in 20 years and regret the gown she chose. She was shopping at Ladies of Lineage in Charlotte, NC and they happened to have our 2019 Collection for a Trunk Show on the day of Whitney’s appointment. Kenya was the first dress she tried on and she immediately knew it was “the one”.

T H E W E D D I N G

09.21.2019

Their ceremony and reception were held at Le Meridien Hotel in Charlotte, NC. Adrian and Whitney decided they wanted the reception to be beautiful and simple, but most importantly fun! They didn’t need extravagant place settings or floral arrangements, they wanted everyone to enjoy good food, music, and dance the night away.

Adrian was raised southern baptist and Whitney was raised Jewish, so his uncle said a blessing over the food before dinner, while her grandfather said a traditional Hebrew blessing over the bread and wine. It was a nice way to make both families a part of their special day. The actual ceremony was a Jewish ceremony so they were married under a chuppah, a canopy where a Jewish couple stands during their wedding ceremony, since it wasn’t inside a temple. Adrian stepped on the glass, and they danced the hora at the reception.

H o n e y m o o n

Whitney and Adrian went to Italy for their honeymoon. They started in Rome and did as much site seeing as they could. They then traveled down to Sorrento, did a day trip to Pompeii, and also did a hike up Mt. Vesuvius. They did a day trip to Capri and got to take a boat ride through the blue grotto, which was very special since the weather and tide can make it impossible, but conditions were perfect for them!

W o r d s f r o m t h e b r i d e .

What were your favourite moments from your wedding day?
Dancing all night long with all the people I loved. Also getting to walk down the aisle with my mom and grandpa was a moment I’ll never forget.

Where did you find inspiration while planning?
A lot of Pinterest boards, The Knot on Instagram, we also thought back to other weddings we had been to and tried to pinpoint exactly what made it so much fun and then tried to emulate that in our own way.

How did you find your vendors?
We met and live in Charlotte, so we knew we wanted to support local/small business owners as much as we possibly could. I found the designer of our invitations and signage by shopping local pop up shops. She took our vision and made it come to life. Most vendors we used because they were recommended by someone they had worked with and thought highly of their work. I found we didn’t want to spend a huge chunk of our budget on florals and our florist was amazing at taking the things I liked and making it happen within our budget but still making everything look perfect!

Do you have any tips for future brides?
Don’t do something because tradition tells you you should. We didn’t do a bouquet/garter toss. When we talked about it we both felt like we were doing it because we were ‘supposed to’. Delegate to your bridesmaids, that’s what they are there for. Don’t feel like you have to do everything on your own. Soak up every moment of the journey. There’s nothing like it in the whole world and it’ll go by in the blink of an eye so on the big day just relax and trust your vendors to do their job.