Sarah & Michael's Enchanted Garden Wedding
There's something undeniably magical about a garden wedding, where natural beauty provides the perfect backdrop for celebrating love. Sarah and Michael's enchanted garden celebration captured this magic perfectly, combining lush greenery, twinkling lights, and thoughtful personal touches to create an unforgettable day. We're delighted to share their love story and the details that made their wedding so special.
Their Love Story
Sarah, a botanical illustrator, and Michael, a landscape architect, met appropriately enough at a botanical garden fundraiser. "We were both volunteering at the event," Sarah recalls. "Michael was giving tours of the new Japanese garden installation he had worked on, and I was sketching plants for guests to take home as souvenirs."
Their shared passion for plants and design made conversation easy, and they quickly discovered other common interests—hiking, classic films, and a mutual love of historical architecture. After dating for three years, Michael proposed in the same botanical garden where they first met, with a custom-designed ring featuring a center stone surrounded by tiny emeralds in the shape of leaves.
"When we started planning our wedding," Michael explains, "we knew immediately that we wanted an outdoor celebration that would reflect our love of nature and gardens. We wanted our guests to feel like they had stepped into an enchanted world for the evening."
The Venue
The couple chose Willowbrook Estate, a historic property featuring meticulously maintained gardens, a charming stone manor house, and ancient willow trees surrounding a serene pond. The venue offered multiple outdoor spaces that allowed their celebration to unfold as a journey through different garden "rooms."
"What sold us on Willowbrook was the way the gardens transition from one style to another," says Sarah. "The ceremony took place in the formal rose garden, cocktails were in the Mediterranean-inspired courtyard with herbs and citrus trees, and dinner was under a canopy of trees in the woodland garden. Each space had its own character but flowed together beautifully."
The Ceremony
Sarah and Michael exchanged vows in a circular rose garden surrounded by fragrant blooms and attended by 120 of their closest friends and family. The existing garden structure needed minimal decoration—just an arch enhanced with wild, garden-style arrangements featuring roses, delphinium, and cascading greenery.
"We wrote our own vows, incorporating quotes from our favorite poets about nature and growth," Michael shares. "We also included a soil-mixing ceremony, where we combined soil from both of our childhood homes with soil from the botanical garden where we met, then used it to plant a small tree that now grows in our backyard."
Sarah walked down the aisle to a string quartet playing Debussy's "Clair de Lune," wearing a flowing A-line gown with botanical lace appliqués and carrying a loose, garden-inspired bouquet of garden roses, ranunculus, sweet peas, and trailing jasmine vine.
"The scent of that bouquet is forever etched in my memory," she says. "I worked closely with our florist to include flowers that would be fragrant as well as beautiful."
The Attire
Sarah's dress, designed by Claire Pettibone, featured botanical-inspired lace with tiny embroidered ferns and flowers cascading down the skirt. "I wanted something that felt like it belonged in a garden without being too literal," she explains. "The dress moved beautifully in the breeze during our outdoor ceremony."
She paired the gown with a cathedral-length veil edged in the same botanical lace and wore her grandmother's pearl earrings as her "something borrowed." Her shoes were pale green silk with hand-painted floral details.
Michael wore a tailored sage green suit with a subtle texture, paired with a cream vest and tie. "I wanted something that would complement the garden setting without blending in completely," he says. His boutonnière featured a single garden rose with a sprig of rosemary for remembrance.
The bridesmaids wore mix-and-match dresses in various shades of green, while groomsmen coordinated in charcoal suits with sage green ties.
The Décor
The couple's professional backgrounds in botanical illustration and landscape architecture influenced every aspect of their wedding design.
"We approached the décor as if we were designing a temporary garden installation," Michael explains. "We wanted to enhance the natural beauty of the venue rather than compete with it."
Key décor elements included:
- Escort Cards: Vintage botanical prints with guests' names and table assignments calligraphed on the back
- Table Names: Each table was named after a significant garden the couple had visited together, with a small watercolor painting by Sarah
- Centerpieces: Low, lush arrangements in aged terra cotta pots, surrounded by bud vases and potted herbs
- Lighting: Hundreds of candles in glass hurricanes, plus bistro lights strung overhead between trees
- Lounge Areas: Vintage furniture groupings with lush potted plants creating intimate conversation spaces
"We were very intentional about creating different sensory experiences," Sarah notes. "Beyond just how things looked, we considered fragrance, texture, and how spaces would sound and feel."
The Menu
The couple worked with a farm-to-table caterer to create a seasonal menu featuring ingredients from local farms. Cocktail hour included passed hors d'oeuvres like fig and goat cheese tartlets, mini herb-roasted lamb chops, and edible flower canapés.
For dinner, guests enjoyed a family-style feast served on long farm tables:
- First Course: Spring pea and mint soup with lemon crème fraîche
- Main Course: Herb-crusted salmon and rosemary-garlic roasted chicken
- Sides: Seasonal vegetable tart, roasted fingerling potatoes, and spring vegetable medley
- Bread Service: Artisanal breads with herb-infused butter and edible flower compound butter
"The family-style service was important to us," Michael says. "We wanted the dinner to feel like a gathering of friends in a garden, passing dishes and connecting over a shared meal."
The Cake and Desserts
Instead of a traditional wedding cake, the couple opted for a "garden" of desserts:
- A two-tier semi-naked cake decorated with fresh flowers and herbs
- Individual lavender and honey panna cottas served in tiny terra cotta pots
- Rose-flavored macarons
- Lemon thyme shortbread cookies
- Chocolate "dirt" cups with edible flowers
"Our dessert display was designed to look like a potting bench in a garden shed," Sarah explains. "We collected vintage garden tools and terracotta pots to create the display, and our baker executed the vision perfectly."
Special Touches
Several unique elements made Sarah and Michael's wedding particularly memorable:
- Botanical Cocktails: Signature drinks included a lavender gin fizz and a rosemary-infused old fashioned, garnished with edible flowers
- Seed Packet Favors: Custom packets containing wildflower seeds collected from both families' gardens
- Living Guest Book: Instead of a traditional guest book, friends and family wrote messages on small wooden plant markers that the couple later used in their garden
- Memory Table: A display of family wedding photos arranged among potted plants and candles
- Late-Night Bonfire: The evening concluded with a bonfire by the pond, where guests enjoyed s'mores and acoustic music
Advice for Couples
When asked what advice they would give to other couples planning their weddings, Sarah and Michael offered these insights:
"Choose a venue that already has elements you love, so you're enhancing rather than transforming," Sarah suggests. "It's more sustainable and usually more budget-friendly."
Michael adds, "Incorporate your authentic interests and passions. Our wedding felt so personal because it genuinely reflected who we are and what we love."
Both agree that prioritizing guest experience was one of their best decisions. "We created comfortable spaces for conversation, made sure the food was delicious, and thought about the flow of the evening from our guests' perspective," Sarah explains. "The feedback we got was that people felt truly welcomed and considered."
The Beginning of Their New Chapter
As the evening came to a close, Sarah and Michael slipped away to a small rowboat decorated with flowers and twinkling lights. Their photographer captured them floating on the pond under the willows as the last light faded, creating a magical final image of their wedding day.
"That quiet moment on the water, just the two of us reflecting on the day and looking up at the stars, was perhaps my favorite part of the whole celebration," Sarah remembers.
The couple honeymooned in Kyoto, Japan, visiting the ancient gardens that had long inspired their professional work. They've since purchased a small property where they're creating their own garden together, incorporating the tree from their ceremony and plants propagated from their wedding flowers.
"Our wedding was the perfect beginning to this new chapter," Michael reflects. "Like any good garden, a marriage requires patience, attention, and room to grow and change with the seasons. We're excited to see how our love story continues to bloom."
Photography by Elena James Photography
Planning by Green Leaf Events
Florals by Wildflower Design Co.