1. Real Weddings

Cam & Scott: A Destination Wedding in Hilton Head Island, SC

If Cam hadn’t lost touch with one of her good friends, she may never have met Scott. One night, she went over to her friend’s apartment for dinner and

If Cam hadn’t lost touch with one of her good friends, she may never have met Scott. One night, she went over to her friend’s apartment for dinner and to catch up, and coincidentally met Scott, who lived on the same floor. Fate chimed in again a week later when the two ran into each other at a crowded bar, and they’ve been dating ever since. The Bride Cam Ngo, 34, cancer researcher The Groom Scott Holland, 30, private wealth manager The Date May 2 Almost five years later, Scott surprised Cam with a trip to Cabo San Lucas. (He’d even gotten the okay from Cam’s bosses!) On the second day of the vacation, after a bumpy glass-bottom boat ride, Scott proposed. The couple enjoyed their engagement for six months before they started planning their destination wedding in Hilton Head, South Carolina. The theme? Balance and harmony with an emphasis on feng shui.

Cam and Scott worked with a graphic designer, Jamie Baird of Scottsdale, Arizona, to create a lotus flower motif, which they incorporated into the menu cards and other wedding day stationery.
Cam and Scott commissioned a carpenter to build yin- and yang-shaped ottomans for the reception lounge area. One ottoman was covered with brown spandex fabric and the other was covered in fuchsia spandex.
In keeping with the balance and harmony theme, Cam incorporated feng shui elements and colors into the decor. Each table included all the colors (white, black/brown, yellow, green, and fuchsia) and elements (wood, metal, water, fire, and earth).
The wedding programs were placed on every other chair and also available in a basket near the beach entrance.
Cam ordered silk lanterns of varying shapes and sizes from her home village in Vietnam and had them hung throughout the reception space.
Cam and Scott were married on the sand beneath a bamboo arbor draped in gold chiffon and decorated with palm fronds and roses. Rows of white, padded chairs were arranged in a semicircle facing the couple and the ocean behind them.
Cam’s six bridesmaids wore strapless, white J.Crew dresses with yellow flip-flops. Cam added the rhinestones. The groomsmen wore tan Jos. A. Bank suits with yellow ties, and Scott stood out in a fuchsia tie.
For their first dance, Cam and Scott chose Ingrid Michaelson’s “The Way I Am” because they liked the way the bongo drums in the song fit their casual, beach-wedding atmosphere. They also found strong meaning behind the lyrics: “This was how we wanted to approach our marriage and our love -- accepting one another with all our faults,” Cam says.
The ceremony programs were actually cotton fans with wooden frames. The program wording was silk-screened onto the fans.
Cam and Scott’s four-tiered buttercream-iced wedding cake was decorated with chocolate swirl piping and topped with a fresh fuchsia peony to match Cam’s bouquet.
Seashell cardholders held the brown table number cards, which had been hand-printed in silver.
Cam carried a bouquet of fuchsia peonies and green cymbidium orchids wrapped in white satin.
To match the lanterns that decorated the reception space, Cam also bought smaller lanterns in three different shapes to give out as favors. The shapes represented the three stages of an opening water lotus (closed, half-open, and fully bloomed). Guests’ names were printed in gold foil along the wooden bases so that the lanterns could be used as place cards.
So that her hair wouldn’t fly across her face if the wind picked up during the beach ceremony, Cam wore a low bun with a silk and ostrich-feather hairpiece from Bella Mia Bridal.