A Whimsical Rustic Wedding at the Cookery in Durham, North Carolina

Blaire (31 and an operations analyst) and Mark (31 and a research scientist) met their freshman year of college, but they didn't necessarily have a lot in common right at the start. As Blaire explains, "Frankly, we didn't see eye to eye on most things." A little while later, they met again at a mutual friend's wedding, this time getting to know one another better and instantly hitting it off. At the time, Blaire was living in New York and Matt in Indiana, but after a few months of long distance phone calls, Blaire moved out to Indianapolis. Three years after that, Mark proposed (coincidentally on her parents' anniversary. "It was sweet, simple, and so exciting that I sort of blacked out," Blaire jokingly recounts. At some point during their engagement period, Blaire and Mark moved south to North Carolina and decided they wanted to host their wedding somewhere local. They ultimately decided on the Cookery, a commercial kitchen that doubles as a community event space in Durham, North Carolina. The laid back couple wanted their wedding to have a relaxed and casual feel, so they incorporated simple rustic decor with a soft color palette of gold, coral, and "kraft paper" brown. In order to make their wedding a close reflection of themselves, they combined a Southern sensibility with some elements of their nerdy personalities, like a Star Wars groom's cake, temporary tattoos for the wedding guests, and a Mad Libs RSVP card.