Heather & Branch
June 25, 2016
When Heather first saw Branch at Balliceaux, she didn’t want to leave her group of friends to approach him, so she did the natural thing: wrote it on Craiglist’s Missed Connections page! As fate would have it, Branch answered, and six years later, they are married with a beautiful daughter. Branch proposed to Heather at Inlight at the VMFA with a ring he designed himself. He had arranged for a bicycle rickshaw to take them to Quirk Hotel where a bottle of Heather’s favorite champagne was waiting.
Their wedding, Heather says, “was a replay of our engagement with a rehearsal dinner at the VMFA and the wedding and reception at Quirk Hotel! The Quirk is just our style; bright and modern with lots of fun colorful art. We knew that our guests would love it and that Maple and Pine would knock the cocktail hour and dinner out of the park — and they did!”
Heather, a wedding planner herself, used the bright, modern style of Quirk to create a refined “Modern Tropical” theme complete with bold colors, tropical florals, milk glass, and one epic cake. She says, “I had so much fun designing our wedding with Branch. We both love art and color and modern design, so it really was a treat to work with such a unique venue. My favorite part was planning the florals with Amanda Burnette, and she really outdid herself with the unexpected arrangements! I wanted lots of king pink protea, my mom’s favorite, and also peonies, which I adore. Our home is full of plants, so I wanted to bring that element as well with tropical greenery and ferns in the balloon arch and all over the reception and on the cake as well!
The linens were white and pink to tie the rooftop to the lobby and the lighting was strung by a friend who works in the film industry. They are actually still up! We chose strings of bistro lights and strung them from the terrace to the rooftop to provide soft lighting for the dance floor and also had glass hurricanes and candles on the bars and tables.
Quirk already had great seating, and we also brought in a vintage loveseat from Paisley and Jade for Branch and I to share. Paisley & Jade also provided the gorgeous gold gilt mirror that we used for our seating chart and their in-house calligrapher did the hand lettering. For a guest book, we used an Instax camera that Branch bought me for my birthday earlier that month and had guests snap a selfie or group shot to washi tape into the guestbook. We came away with so many fun extra shots!
The ceremony was very special and was private for our family. I bought a special pink overdyed oriental rug for us to stand on and the amazing Terry Wolfe created the balloon arch, which was my favorite decor element of the day! My bouquet was gorgeous, Branch looked so handsome and our daughter so cute in her tu tu dress.
For cocktail hour, we invited all of our guests for oysters and champagne and had the wonderful Frank Cubillo, or Frank sings Frank, sing Sinatra for the hour. After that everyone went up to the rooftop and the weather was perfect! We were very worried it would be scorching or raining but it was just perfect. We are so lucky in every way!”
From the bride: “My favorite part of the day were Branch’s vows. We wrote our own and they were so heartfelt and beautiful. I bawled the entire time and actually did not get my vows I had memorized out! But I told him how much I loved him and he understood. He also reminded me to not bolt down the aisle (something I always tell my clients but didn’t remember myself!) and made sure we took a moment to enjoy our family after the I Do’s. Also the cake was so, so, so good. I’m pretty sure there are some photos out there of me shoveling in multiple slices in between dances and toasts. I loved dancing with our friends and seeing everyone so happy!
From the Groom: “The best part of the day was when Heather walked down the aisle, of course! I also loved the view and how the bistro lights looked after the sun went down. The hallway full of balloons was also a highlight!”