"Envy is so unbecoming," my mother used to say. But who could not be just a bit jealous of the three Memphis weddings we present on these pages? Hardly had the groom gotten off one knee (yes, the formal proposal made a big comeback in 2017), before their brides were pushing the creative envelope to showcase bowers of orchids, Astaire-worthy first dances, fascinating menus, even a hand-painted wedding gown. The venues were just as enviable: a Victorian mansion, a downtown landmark, and the garden of an East Memphis restaurant. And now we present: Great Memphis Weddings of 2017.
SCHOOLED IN TRADITION
Jefferson and Nicole Willey Warren at Annesdale Mansion.
April 22, 2017
photography by savannah and philip kenney
Jefferson and Nicole Willey Warren’s romance began on a subway platform in Brooklyn. Many stops and six years later, it finally reached its destination, the upper platform of Paula & Raiford’s Disco on Second Street early in the hours of April 23rd.
“I walked into the after party at Raiford’s holding my bouquet and the first thing somebody handed me was a 40-ounce Bud Light,” Nicole recalls, laughing. “Now all our friends from college want to open a Raiford’s in New York.”
The couple were wed April 22, 2017, at Annesdale Mansion, the Italianate villa in Midtown where Jefferson had once hidden in the woods with friends at a childhood birthday party.
Family and friends from the East Coast, including contingents from Yale, where Jefferson graduated, and Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, the bride’s alma mater, got a crash course in Southern culture on a misty spring weekend. Bride and groom are both educators: Jefferson is director of operations at a charter school opening next year, Believe Memphis Academy, and Nicole teaches math at Aspire Coleman Elementary School.
Freshly minted teachers working at the same elementary school in Brooklyn, Jefferson and Nicole met in the classroom and soon discovered that they took the same subway train. “Our first meeting was on a decrepit subway platform, surrounded by wrecked cars. Very romantic,” he recalls. “Nicole had a big crush on me from the very start; she just didn’t know it yet.”
Soon a steady couple, Jefferson and Nicole graduated from the subway platform to include restaurants and travel in their courtship. A surprise proposal in Naples, Florida, made their engagement official. While his mother and grandmother (KC Warren and Kitty Cannon) conspired upstairs in the family condo to have champagne and flowers for Nicole, Jefferson proposed on the beach. A passerby saw him get down on one knee, shot an impromptu film of the moment, and shared it with them to keep.
With a year to plan, the couple turned their wedding day into a lesson in how it’s done down here — with a flair for originality and meaningful touchstones for bride and groom.
Such as:
- A seated dinner in an airy white tent featuring Southern fried chicken.
- The same pastor who baptized the groom, the Rev. Jesse Garner, former pastor of First Presbyterian Church downtown, traveled from Philadelphia to officiate the ceremony on the grounds.
- The drummer from Party Planet, the R & B band for the reception, was James Robertson, Jefferson’s band instructor at Snowden Middle School
- The “getaway” car, a champagne-colored 1939 Packard, belonged to the groom’s grandfather.
- A gossamer illusion train cascaded from a comb loosely worked into Nicole’s French braid. After choosing a pearl silk-and-tulle gown for the ceremony, the bride changed into a fierce candlelight satin jumpsuit for the late night revels.
- The bride’s parents are Jennifer and Bud Willey of Lewiston, Maine. She is the granddaughter of Ted and Gail Quigley and Jaciel Willey, Helen Willey, and the late Lloyd Willey.
KC and Dr. Jeff Warren, parents of the groom, are long-time Memphians. The groom’s maternal grandparents, Kitty and the late Robert Cannon, are the philanthropic family behind the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts. His grandparents on his father’s side are the late W. Jefferson and Hope Warren.
With her attention focused on the reception, Nicole wasn’t prepared for the service itself to be so memorable. “When I think back on it, the ceremony was the most magical part of the day,” she says, “and still the part I think about the most.”
After the wedding, the couple went on safari in Kenya with a side trip to the beaches of Zanzibar.
Photography by Savannah and Philip Kenney
A BINDING AGREEMENT
Morgan Hanna and Joseph Adams at The Columns.
July 22, 2017
photography by chris hillard
When the party of the first part,law student Morgan Hanna, met the party of the second part, information technology specialist Joseph Adams, they had little idea that a binding contractual agreement (hereinafter known as “the wedding”) was in their future.
“We were friends first, then best friends, then we dated, then we became engaged,” says Morgan, who graduated from Rhodes College in 2013. When Joseph’s work took him to California and her studies kept her in Tennessee, it was not unusual for them to have six-hour phone conversations. “We knew each other so well. It’s awesome to be best friends first.”
So after surprising Morgan with a “dream proposal” at The Peabody on October 29, 2016, Joseph let her run with the wedding planning. Morgan says she and her team considered using a professional, but realized the “type A” in her would be second-guessing every choice. (Editor’s note: Being wishy-washy doesn’t propel one through the advocacy and dispute resolution track at UT College of Law in Knoxville, where she’ll finish in May.)
Morgan planned a wedding for 200 over the winter and spring breaks, while also balancing law school finals, leadership events in Nashville, and mock trials. The dress, a ball gown style with crystal bodice, was the landmark decision. She regularly interviewed vendors with 20 questions each, scheduled cake testings for long weekends, designed her own invitations, and selected and prepped seven attendants from her middle school, college, and sorority days.
So guests wouldn’t starve while waiting for the couple to be photographed, Morgan planned a cocktail hour at her venue, The Columns, featuring D. Arthur’s signature collard green egg rolls. Friends enjoyed grilled salmon, chicken stuffed with spinach and goat cheese, and another of Frost’s showpiece cakes.
A week before the ceremony, she and Joseph went to the gym to choreograph a first dance to “When I First Saw You” by Beyonce and Jamie Foxx. They even did a mini-run-through in the limo between the church, Annointed Temple of Praise, and the reception. “We had a couple of big moves that made it look splashier than it was, but the best part was just being out there with him,” Morgan says.
The couple postponed a honeymoon until summer 2018 between law school graduation and the Tennessee Bar exam. Planning the honeymoon is strictly Joseph’s department: All Morgan knows is that she’s supposed to have a valid passport and pack for the beach.
Photography by Chris Hillard
chrishillard.com
REAL LIFE ROM-COM
Sophie Jones and Chad Cunningham at Acre.
September 23, 2017
photography by Massey Wening Photography
When Sophie Jones married Chad Cunningham on September 23rd, they already had a working screenplay. After all, their first date as adults had been a marathon wedding weekend that had all the earmarks of a romantic comedy film.
Rewind to 2015: After five years of working in New York in the textile design and women’s runway departments at Ralph Lauren, Sophie is preparing to move to Nashville. Chad, now a banker with Commercial Bank and Trust, phones Sophie out of the blue and invites her to be his date for a family wedding there in Manhattan. Since they were prom dates in 2004 as students at CBHS and Hutchison, Sophie says yes. The wedding is the Saturday night before the movers are coming, so she pulls a suitable dress out of the wardrobe box.
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Chad flies in mid-week and says something like, “Oh, I should have mentioned it, but I need you for Thursday night, Friday night, the wedding Saturday, and Sunday brunch.”
“I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ “ Sophie recalls. So she unpacks more outfits, and gamely plays wedding date for a four-day booking.
Between Chad flying back to Memphis and Sophie moving to Nashville, a dropped text message could have scotched the whole deal. But Chad persisted and phoned one more time, setting the stage for further dates. They moved their romance to Tennessee, burning up I-40 on the weekends until Sophie moved back to Memphis for an opportunity with Hemline, a marketing and branding firm on South Main.
Chad’s proposal involved a conspiracy between Sophie’s boss, her mother, and The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, where they were to attend a reception February 17, 2017. Sophie’s boss sent her on an errand to get her out of the office early, and her mother festooned her with jewelry before meeting Chad at the Dixon. When she saw champagne in a silver ice bucket and Chad dropped to one knee, all the mystery detours finally made sense.
On September 23, 2017, The Rev. Steve Montgomery of Idlewild Presbyterian Church performed the outdoor ceremony at Acre on Perkins. Floral designer Jama Thomas at Millstone Market & Nursery of Germantown had fashioned a 10-foot arch of hundreds of orchids, white hydrangea, and stephanotis creating a graceful espalier for the vows. When the couple turned to face the minister, the late afternoon shadows highlighted the spray of orchids that Sophie’s colleague Rebecca Phillips had painted on the back panel of her Maggie Louise gown. “Rebecca came over and painted all the intricate leaves and blooms every night the week before the wedding. The dress was satin and the paint was opaque so the contrast in textures would set it off,” Sophie says. “I’m going to frame it.”
Wedding guests, who numbered above 400, enjoyed a taste of everything the couple loves: Cuban sandwiches inspired by Cafe Habana in New York, shrimp and avocado on toast, kim chee rice puffs, tandoori chicken, and a towering bridal cake by Frost Bake Shop.
“I knew from the beginning that I wanted our reception to be centered around food,” Sophie says. “Most brides don’t eat a bite at their weddings. That’s all I did.”
After dinner and dancing in the glowing white tent, the couple was whisked away in a vintage 1962 Cadillac owned by the bride’s uncle, Price Ford. Mercifully, the hurricane season largely missed Barbados, where the couple honeymooned for a week.
Photography by Massey Wening Photography
masseyweningphoto.com
