Mansie and Eric
“We decided on an ‘Old Florida Garden’ theme. With our wedding being in March, we were drawn to classic spring florals and pastels. However, our venues had a ‘Retro Florida’ feel to them, so we tied in some related elements like gold accents, green and pink monstera leaves, and other tropical plants lining the dance floor, and a seafood bar at our cocktail hour. Our colors were sage green, periwinkle, lavender, and shades of pink. We chose these because they bridged the two themes of ‘Old Florida’ and ‘Garden Party’ very well.” -The Bride
FEATURING
Mansie and Eric’s romantic downtown St. Pete wedding combined soft shades of blush, lavender, and cornflower blue with vintage-inspired decor for an old Florida garden vibe. The bride and groom exchanged vows in a sun-soaked museum gallery before hosting 123 guests for a chic hotel ballroom reception featuring elegant candlelight, specialty cocktails in honor of their beloved cats, and hand-scooped gelato in lieu of a wedding cake.
“Above all else, we wanted to have a fun, memorable day with each other and our loved ones, so we focused a lot on the general experience and tried not to get too wrapped up in details that wouldn’t impact the guests’ or our experience as much. It mattered to us that the day flowed well, that there was a lot of good food and drinks, and that everything was within walking distance of each other,” the bride revealed. “Most of our guest list traveled from out of state (with multiple people from other continents), so we wanted to make it worth the trek as much as we could! We encouraged friends and family to wear bright colors and other things that made them feel like they were dressed up on a Florida vacation. We had a small rehearsal dinner with our immediate family; this gave us some quiet and relaxed family time before the chaos began. We also invited everyone to the welcome party right after the rehearsal dinner, and nearly all of our wedding guests attended, so we were able to actually talk to many of our guests in depth without needing to formally ‘make the rounds’ on our wedding night.”
The Proposal
“We took a trip to Spain and Portugal in October. On the first ‘real’ day of the trip in Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal, Eric brought a tripod on our hike. I found that a bit suspicious but tried not to question it too much. We walked around at our first stop, a crater lake called Sete Cidades. At a small, relatively private outcropping on the lake, Eric set up the tripod, and in the midst of taking pictures of the two of us, he dropped down on one knee and asked me to marry him! It was such a perfect moment, and the rest of the trip felt like a big celebration!”
The Bach Party & Honeymoon
“My bachelorette party was in Charlottesville, VA. I chose Charlottesville because I know the area pretty well, and it is beautiful with lots of options for activities during the time of year we went (October). We went to nearby wineries and breweries, went bowling, did an easy hike, and had an ‘at home’ Hibachi chef make dinner for us at our house. One of my friends is a yoga teacher, and she offered to teach a yoga class the first morning of the trip. It was the perfect laid-back trip I hoped it would be!
For our honeymoon, we spent a few days in St. Martin, and then went to France and Italy. This is an unusual itinerary we would not otherwise do for a normal vacation, but St. Martin is a French territory, so it has daily direct flights to Paris.
In France we did stops in Paris, Dijon and Reims, and in Italy we stayed in Rome with a day trip to Florence. We chose this itinerary because it hit all our wants for the time of year – chilling on the beach, exploring big romantic cities, and great food and wine.”
The Most Memorable Moments
“I got ready with a few friends and family at my childhood home the morning of the wedding, just like my sister did; having these dual memories of getting ready for each other’s weddings in the house we grew up in together is really cool.
The first look was wonderful. We did it in the beautiful courtyard of the Museum of Fine Arts, which almost has a secret garden feel to it, so it felt like we were the only people in the world at that moment.
We read our own ceremony vows, and that was a surreal and unforgettable moment. Lots of sniffles and sobs could be heard throughout the ceremony (Eric especially blew everyone away). Our officiant, George, did a good job balancing all of that with jokes and levity!
Watching our nieces and nephews toddle down the aisle as the ring bearer and flower girls was amazing and brought us down to earth a bit during an emotional and nervy moment.
Performing our first dance after practicing it for months was so rewarding and fun. We learned a choreographed ballroom dance to Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac, which is one of our favorite bands. We wanted the first dances to feel celebratory and upbeat. Finally getting to open up the dance floor and let loose with margaritas and ice cream after all the planning was the best feeling ever!”
Finding Wedding Vendors
“We used Marry Me Tampa Bay in some of our initial research for venues and planners. Since I am from St. Pete, I was already familiar with the venues, but we used Marry Me Tampa Bay to learn more about their wedding services.”
The Inspiration
“We decided on an ‘Old Florida Garden’ theme. With our wedding being in March, we were drawn to classic spring florals and pastels. However, our venues had a ‘Retro Florida’ feel to them, so we tied in some related elements like gold accents, green and pink monstera leaves, and other tropical plants lining the dance floor, and a seafood bar at our cocktail hour. The spring garden aspects made everything feel very cozy, while the accents added pops of bright colors and whimsy. Our colors were sage green, periwinkle, lavender, and shades of pink. We chose these because they bridged the two themes of ‘Old Florida’ and ‘Garden Party’ very well.
All our friends and family know we’re unabashedly crazy cat people, so no one was surprised to see them featured at our wedding. We named our signature cocktails after our cats, ‘The Buffy’ was a mango margarita, and ‘The Nutmeg’ was an Aperol Spritz. We paired this with custom watercolor paintings of our cats that were displayed at the bar and on cocktail napkins.”
The Dessert
The Gelato Carte
“Ice cream is our favorite dessert, so we wanted it instead of a traditional wedding cake! Our planner found The Gelato Carte for us. We chose gelato instead of cake as our main dessert and did not have any sort of ‘cake cutting’ moment, which we were fine with – we were too busy dancing!
We liked that they had so many flavors and personalization options. We chose chocolate, espresso cremini, vanilla Italiana, mint chocolate chip, and raspberry sorbetti as our flavors. We were thrilled with their service! They were very responsive and the gelato was delicious.”
The Reception Venue
The Birchwood
“We live in Washington, DC, but we had our wedding in St. Petersburg because that’s where I was born and raised. In addition to our family ties, we knew St. Pete would be a fun place for our guests to travel to, and it is home to lots of unique and beautiful places to get married.
We considered a few things when looking for a wedding venue. We wanted a venue that would comfortably fit our guest list without feeling too cramped or too cavernous. We looked at some beautiful outdoor venues but were anxious about weather backup; we wanted a venue where the experience would be great no matter the weather. It did end up raining for part of our wedding, and we barely noticed because we were already inside, so we’re glad we did that! We were also intimidated by the idea of DIY decorating a blank canvas, so we wanted a venue with its own personality and existing design elements we could build on. Plus, since we don’t live in Florida, it was important we found a venue with a team that was communicative and could handle things from afar.
The Birchwood was an amazing wedding venue. Everyone we worked with was great, but our main point of contact was Marlice, and our experience with her was excellent. You can tell The Birchwood has weddings down to a science without feeling cookie-cutter or impersonal. Catering was all in-house, and the chef went out of his way to assure us multiple times that we could make specific requests for different dishes if needed (such as ‘this guest prefers their steaks very well done’ and other similar requests, which is way beyond what we expected). Marlice also gave us multiple first dance practices on the official dance floor two days before the wedding at our walkthrough, staying behind to film us and cheer us on.”
Which vendors really exceeded your expectations?
It’s hard to narrow this down as we were really happy with all of our vendors, but here are a few:
Bay Kings Band: We already had high expectations since I had seen them perform at two weddings before, but they still exceeded them. They tailor their band size/makeup and setlist to your favorite types of music from tons of options (our setlist included Abba, Green Day, Led Zeppelin, and Backstreet Boys, to name a few). At one point, Eric joked that he wished they would just play one bad song so he could get off his feet for two minutes!
Shane Long Photography: Shane and his team were amazing to work with. At certain points in the day, he almost acted like a “second wedding planner,” helping keep us on schedule if our planner was away handling another issue. He always checked with us before making major decisions, but otherwise just did his thing, and the photos all turned out beautifully.
2Birds Florals: We were both a little out of our depth with florals going into the wedding, but 2Birds made the process very easy, and they took our ideas and made them 10x better. We got so many compliments on the flowers!
Lindsay Travis Artistry: Lindsay was very responsive throughout the wedding week, even with constantly changing schedules and issues that arose. She added people to the wedding day schedule and moved things around without a problem, and she and her team brought a great, relaxing vibe to the morning.
Bloom & Grow Events: Kelsey and her team took so much of the stress and unknowns out of planning. We wouldn’t have found a ton of our excellent vendors or been nearly as organized without her.
What advice would you give to other Tampa Bay couples?
Decide early on which things are most important to you and then let that dictate the rest of your decisions. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of decisions you have to make, and you will never run out of things to stress about if you don’t draw a boundary somewhere. It was helpful for us to identify early on what was necessary, what was a want but not a need, and what we didn’t want.
Expect that something will inevitably go wrong. Prepare logistically and emotionally for what you can, and try to just accept everything else as it plays out. Ideally, on the day of, you are having too much fun to notice small problems.
Have a wedding website, and make sure guests can RSVP online. We had issues with invites and RSVPs getting lost in the mail, so having this option was really useful.
