Congratulations to Lauren and Walker on their feature in Inside Weddings Magazine. We absolutely loved working with Birch Design Studios and HMR Designs on their Secret Garden wedding.
She was on the dance team, he was a football player. Lauren and Walker probably seemed like an obvious match to their fellow classmates at Vanderbilt University, and it’s hard to argue with the results. After being introduced by a mutual friend, the pair hit it off right away. As the party where they met was at the end of the school year, the encounter could have easily been bad timing. Instead, Lauren and Walker’s connection grew stronger as they spent hours on the phone with each other during the summer, soon making their relationship official Walker even traveled from his home in Alabama to visit his new sweetheart in Memphis, Tennessee. “We never turned back,” Lauren muses.
After years of dating, the couple had not shied from marriage discussions, but that didn’t mean the engagement was devoid of surprises. “Walker had convinced me that he was not going to propose until the fall,” shares the brides. Instead, during a summer trip to Florida with Lauren’s family, he took her to a rooftop overlooking the beach and asked her to become his wife. “I was shocked to see a photographer who captured the whole thing,” she explains. Both families joined the couple to celebrate. With the familial involvement, it would be understandable to assume that Walker had asked for a blessing from the father of his future brides-and he did, almost. “Her dad told me that months later that I had asked him if I could take our relationship to the next level,” but never actually asked for her hand in marriage,”admits the groom. Luckily, Lauren’s dad got the idea, but wWalker still experiences playful teasing.
When planning began, the groom made it clear that he knew Lauren had been dreaming of this day since she was a child. “The only thing I really care about is the food, the music, and marrying you,” Walker told her. The bride had always imagined an outdoor garden wedding, but since the couple elected to wed in their current home of Chicago, appropriate venues were scarce. Instead, she brought in HMR Designs to create their own garden for the tented cocktail hour. “We wanted to give the impression of being inside a beautiful ballroom that we created from scratch,” Lauren explains. Blush and ivory elements adorned the space, paired with metallic, mirrored, and crystal details. “In it’s entirety, it was a little bit The Secret Garden whimsical with the perfect amount of elegance to match,” says the bride.
Read more about their love story in the Winter 2017 Print Edition on new stands now!
