Diana Kassen and Ezra Mehlman met at a Washington, D.C. consulting firm, where fate sat them at adjacent desks. “I started a few months before Ezra, so when he joined the team, I showed him the ropes,” laughs Diana. The two began dating, and over a six-year courtship they trotted the globe together, getting passport stamps for everywhere from Buenos Aires to Istanbul. Then, to celebrate their respective graduations from business school in May 2012, the pair jetted to Park City, Utah, to celebrate. There, Ezra asked Diana to go on a hike with him, and along the way she stopped to take a snapshot of the picturesque mountains. When she turned around, Ezra was down on one knee. “Of course, I said, ‘Yes!’” Diana says.
They found themselves in South Carolina for their wedding thanks to a favorite haunt. “We’ve been visiting Kiawah every summer and winter since we started dating,” says Diana. “It’s a special place to us. We wanted our friends and families to experience its magic, too.”
To max out that magic, the two, who now live in New York, entrusted Tara Guérard Soirée to organize a Labor Day weekend brimming with festivities. Saturday night, guests gathered for a rehearsal fête with live bluegrass and s’mores. The next evening, on The Sanctuary Hotel’s Grand Lawn, Diana and Ezra said sunset “I dos.” After a cocktail hour, everyone flocked to the dance floor for the hora and partied until the wee hours. The following morning, the newlyweds hosted a farewell brunch.
As lavish as the good times were, the company was even better, says Diana. “The very best part of the weekend was having so many people we love in one place.”
Even though Anna, a Wilmington native, and Bobby, who is from Mount Pleasant, dated for over four years after swiping right on each other, they never really talked about getting married … they just...
Kitty and Kyle met during their freshman year at Clemson, but they didn’t begin dating until they got to know each other as study partners a few years later. After two years, a move to Charleston,...
Bissell and Jack may live in Atlanta, but Charleston has played a large part in their relationship, from their dating days through their engagement and now with their wedding. Bissell’s mother is...
Today’s styled shoot takes place on the patio of 5Church, a downtown church-turned-restaurant that doubles as a wedding venue. Nicki Paige, owner of wedding planning company Nicki Paige Collection,...
Christa met Andrew when she first moved into the same Charlotte, North Carolina, townhome complex as him in 2013. For a while, they were just passing acquaintances, until he asked her out for drinks...
We’ve got the world of modern dating to thank for this gorgeous celebration at Boone Hall Plantation. Christiana and Bud met on Tinder, and after chatting on the app for a while, they met up for a...
Nadja and Ryan both grew up in Sarasota, Florida, but they didn’t meet until they were in college (and on her 21st birthday, no less). A decade of dating later, he surprised her with a 10th...
We so want to be friends with these two Charleston high-school sweethearts. Ask when they met and Jackie will tell you it was went they were 15 years old, she was in braces, and neither could drive...
Charleston is one of the country’s top-tier cities for so-called destination weddings, and any couple getting married here should expect far-flung guests to RSVP an enthusiastic “Yes” to their celebration, especially when this old-school boarding pass, designed by Studio R, debuts your wedding details in high flying style.
