A Gold Vintage Wedding at The Cotton Room in Durham, North Carolina

Laura Kurtz (27 and PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill) and John (Blair) Reeves Jr. (33 and a senior marketing manager for a software company) planned an industrial, vintage wedding with sequined linens, glittered frames, green garlands and plenty of gold. They ultimately decided The Cotton Room in Durham, North Carolina, would be perfect for their nuptials because they loved the aesthetic and history of the place, it was located within the Golden Belt of historic textile mills (think: giant windows, exposed brick and gorgeous hardwood floors) and it allowed them to have the ceremony and reception in the same place. Plus, the venue provided everything they needed from in-house catering to linens to lighting so they didn’t have to do a lot of extra work to book lots of other wedding pros. In lieu of a wedding planner, Laura and Blair made a lot of the wedding details themselves such as the luxe gold magnolia leaf wall decor (made from nothing but foam board, glue, spray paint and a few thousand magnolia leaves) as well as the escort cards with their hand-punched lace border, just to name a few. Megan Sayre from Tre Bella Inc worked with Laura and Blair to create the textured floral arrangements that also included gold-dipped leaves or seeds to complement the glam color palette. There are so many details we love! See them all, beautifully captured by Joseph Sides and Andrea Harris from Connection Photography, below. A tip from Laura: “The planning process can get to be pretty brutal at times, but you’ll get through it. Things are destined to go wrong; but even those totally unplanned, imperfect moments can make for the best memories.”