Welcome to the sixth installment of Wedding Wednesdays. Semi-regularly, we will share a lovely handmade wedding with you. Check out our previous installments here, and if you know of a wedding that we simply need to feature, please email us!

Thank you to Monica Parcell for putting this post together, thank you to Jessica for providing the amazing tale of her hand-hewn wedding, and thank you to photographer Sherry Lee for the beautiful photos.

This wedding, from a dashing couple in Charleston, South Carolina, proves that you don't need to wear white or have a fancy string quartet for the bridal march, and you can make all of the food yourself (while still having a great time).

Jessica and Ben, in the rain and loving it!

Jessica and Ben Garbee both have tons of (DIY) style, but, as partners in a start-up personal chef company and catering business, not as much cash. So when the Charleston couple got married last fall, they looked at each aspect of the day as an opportunity to use local resources—and their own resourcefulness—to make it a personal, and stylish event. “We knew that the only things that would keep us really happy would be good food, good beer, and style,” said Jessica. They roasted oysters and cooked up Southern barbecue for friends and family, set their wedding in a sculpture-filled park on the Cooper River—and the bride wore gold.

Jessica says: "After six years of un-wedded bliss, Ben and I decided to tie the knot. And, of course, this decision was made in the most conventional of ways—we were eating chicken wings and drinking beer at a bar on Bleeker during a trip to New York, when the thought occurred to me that now might be as good a time as any to become officially engaged. Iʼm not sure that Ben ever truly recovered from my beating him to the punch on the whole proposal thing, but he made up for it when my ring was finally made. One night I returned home from work where I was met with the smell of Benʼs mind-bogglingly good fried chicken, and my cat Rootbeer looking very grumpy with a little Santaʼs elf hat tied to her head. Cue the Vanilla Ice (our song is “I Love You”), Ben on one knee, untying my ring from the grump-inducing hat on Rootbeerʼs head. Perfect."

We were married at Riverfront Park in the Navy Yard at Noisette--a defunct Naval Base where unused Navy Ships in the background gave the day a very vintage feel that matched perfectly with my repurposed vintage dress.

As with the guy, sometimes The One isn’t the one you expected. “It’s not white,” says Jessica. “I was looking at everything traditional and I was kinda sick of looking at white things. Then I thought, ‘I want to wear gold.’” The dress was re-styled from a full-length 70s number with a Peter Pan collar that she spotted in the window of vintage shop in town, Culture Vultures. “The dress itself was awful, but I loved the shimmer of the fabric—it was gorgeous.” She teamed up with Heather Koonse of The Rose Knot, a clothing design studio in town (they do everything from alterations to recycling vintage pieces). Koonse used the skirt of the original to fashion a flirty one-shoulder cocktail dress with a soft, sheer waistband. “When I told some people that this was my wedding dress they looked scandalized, but my friends said, ‘That looks like Jessica.’” [Cost: $75 for the dress plus $175 to repurpose it.]

"Both my rings and dress are works of pure art," Jessica says.

It was love at first sight when Jessica discovered some pieces by local jewelry designer Beth Coiner at Worthwhile in downtown Charleston. “The girl has such style and wit in her pieces and evokes an antique and well-loved look in all her jewelry.” With a family ring handed down from Jessica’s grandmother and a Yogo sapphire cut for her by a family friend, Coiner recycled the gold and designed a white gold engagement ring that sets off the sapphire, and a peach gold wedding band with tiny chocolate diamonds.

Jessica says: "Beth met me in Evo Pizza to give me my wedding band and the two put together made such harmony I literally ran around the restaurant showing total strangers my new toy."

"We threw a pre-wedding party at James Island County Park. We catered the event with pulled pork and smoked chicken salad, and most importantly, a local oyster roast in the glow of tea lights after dark," Jessica says.

They didn’t stage a rehearsal dinner, per se, since their ceremony would be small and intimate, but they catered their own party the night before at James Island County Park. On the menu: pulled pork, smoked chicken-and-pimiento-cheese salad, and local oysters, roasted and shucked at the table, Lowcountry-style. Pulse Trio, a local jazz band, provided the soundtrack for the shucking, jiving, and dancing.

"And the party would not have been equipped without our handmade decorations inspired by a ReadyMade idea. This is our blue ninja snow globe.," Jessica says.

"Benʼs brother, Greg, and my best friend, Nancy, served as our best man and maid of honor. Nancy referred to herself as 'the keeper of the ring,' as Benʼs ring (100 years old) had a certain “one ring to rule them all” feel about it. Here we are overlooking the Cooper River right as Josh declares us married," Jessica says.

“We found a free venue [for events with 50 people or fewer] to hold the ceremony in the magnificent but underused Riverfront Park in North Charleston,” says Jessica. “It’s one of our favorite spots.” With just immediate family and their attendants, “we basically showed up the day of the wedding, picked out the spot, and set up the decorations.” They didn’t need more than several vases of fresh flowers. The park is filled with sculptures and art installations—one of them, an old wooden boat, served as an altar during the ceremony. Some of the others made for one-of-a-kind photo ops that didn’t require a high-priced photographer to art direct or capture. Even the music was DIY: “We had our families play “Here Comes the Bride” on kazoos as I walked down the aisle with my grandpa.”

These lovely women are Benʼs mom and grandmother playing "Here Comes the Bride," kazoo-style.

"The park was full of functional art which we used as our alter and various photo opportunities. This one, of course, highlights our use of sneakers in our wedding. In my opinion, this was the key to our dayʼs success," Jessica says.

Jessica says: "I told Ben before the big show that I would be hesitant in calling it the happiest day of my life. I could certainly find some time, some point in my 28 years or even later down the road that I would be calmer, less stressed maybe, more pleased with the outcome. But no, Ben was right. When all was said and done, it really was the happiest day of my life."

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