Pretty, Sweet, & Southern

Although Jason Padgett proposed to Jordan McLain on top of a mountain in Jackson Hole, the Nashville residents came down to South Carolina’s Lowcountry for their nuptials. “My parents have a beach house in Debordieu,” Jordan explains. “And it was my childhood dream to get married on a plantation in nearby Charleston.” A grown-up Jordan ultimately wanted a more traditional ceremony than such an outdoor fête could yield, so she opted to exchange vows downtown at Second Presbyterian Church. But Jordan lived out a bit of her plantation dream, too, when she and Jason, who owns a boat dealership, chose Lowndes Grove on the Ashley River for their reception.

Jordan lived out one more fantasy when she hired Soirée by Tara Guérard. (“I have had Tara’s Southern Weddings book for a long time,” she gushes.) She and her mother brought Tara and Kate Badger Little magazines with pink and champagne-colored this-and-thats and tearsheets of flowers for inspiration. To suit the self-professed “girly girl” bride, Soirée devised a beribboned event abound with candelabras, crystal chandeliers, tuxes, and formal gowns.

When August 15 came, light poured through the stained glass windows of the church as Jordan and Jason said their vows. Afterward, the couple and 200-plus guests boarded trolleys to the plantation, where they sampled fried green tomato and BLT appetizers as Voices of Deliverance sang on the piazza. Later, guests floated between a dining pavilion and sweets station to the terrace dance floor and an open-air lounge overlooking the river. Her dreams fulfilled, Jordan says, “I would not have changed a thing.”

Bar service & catering: Fish Catering
Cake: Wedding Cakes by Jim Smeal
Ceremony location: Second Presbyterian Church
Event coordination, design, & florals: Soireé by Tara Guérard
Painter (plein air reception painting): Laura Swytak
Music: Debut Entertainment (string quartet); Julie Logan (soloist); Jimmy Ryan (bagpipes); Voices of Deliverance gospel choir; Party on the Moon (band)
Photography: Liz Banfield
Reception location: Lowndes Grove
Rentals: Snyder Event Rentals
Transportation: Absolutely Charleston; A Star Limo
Videography: Artistic Eye Productions