A spectacular destination wedding in Ireland

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Whenever I hear a bride or groom works in weddings, I'm always excited to see what kind of day they've planned for themselves. And today's real wedding does not disappoint. A wedding planner and an art director respectively, Rayna & Joe are a Kentucky couple who flew to Ireland (with more guests than they'd initially expected!) to tie the knot in beautiful Mount Juliet. With extreme attention to detail, the couple created a stylish celebration that's equal parts lavish and laid-back. With dark, romantic style, luxurious florals, and exquisite stationery, Tomasz Kornas captured every last detail of this one-of-a-kind wedding.

Mount Juliet Wedding in Kilkenny by Tomasz Korna

Rayna & Joe met while at a summertime street party in Lexington, Kentucky with friends, all thanks to a delayed flight, as Rayna tells us, “Joe was traveling for work with Victoria and it was meant to be a quick day trip. After they found out their flight had been delayed and they found himself at Thursday Night Live. Joe noticed me on the dance floor earlier in the evening and made his move hours later. We spoke for less than an hour, exchanged contact info and the rest is our love story. Four months later he invited me to visit him in San Francisco.”

The stationery already gives you an idea of the gorgeousness to come!

These spectacular antique-style florals by Lovebird Designs look like something straight out of a painting.

Joe moved from his hometown of San Francisco to be with Rayna in Lexington, and three years later they bought their first home together, “We knew we'd get married. So we've discussed it a few times, but the first night in our new home we opened a bottle of Champagne and was sitting in the floor of our new living room with no furniture except for our huge travel wall map, dotted with places we've been and spots of where we want to go. That evening we decided to host a destination wedding! Of course, I started brainstorming almost immediately!”

Rayna tells us exactly how the unexpectedly romantic proposal happened, “We'd been in the middle of so many home improvements, and painting projects, that we were constantly visiting Lowe's Home Improvement store. I knew the ring had come in, and it must have been burning a hole in his pocket! So on the night of the super-moon - in the Lowe's parking lot - Joe surprised me, got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. It was the most perfect moment! We've traveled all over the world and he found the moment we were working on our home to propose! We kissed and were so happy, then went inside to pick up our items. It was near the holidays, so we picked up a special Christmas ornament, and snapped a few selfies at Lowe's, so we'll always have a little piece of that moment.”

Joe says the first look was one of his highlights from the day, “The anticipation and anxiety of waiting to see Rayna, and then when she walked up to me. It was like time stood still, for just a moment.”

For Rayna it’s hard to pick a stand-out memory, “There are so many! But If I have to pick, the photo session with just me and Joe. It was the most romantic part of the day – just us, kissing in the gardens. AND the dancing! Oh how we danced!

Tossing the rulebook out the window - I love that Rayna went for a dramatic black wedding dress!

As a wedding planner herself, Rayna knew exactly what she wanted for her and Joe’s wedding, “Our wedding day theme started as a botanical garden, and quickly transformed into a moody rose garden theme, since we got married in the Walled Rose Garden at Mount Juliet. We loved working together on all of the collateral for our wedding. Joe's an accomplished graphic designer and I've been planning and designing weddings for over 10 years, so we had some high expectations from ourselves and our peers.”

Rayna says she and Joe love the wedding they created together, “We wanted something utterly romantic, modern with an antique flair, and moody jewel tones. We both love blue, so we added subtle touches of blue and since we love the overall experience we focused on making every moment feel intentional and welcoming. We love the finished project, it's simply gorgeous and perfectly us!”

Rayna says planning her own big day wasn’t quite what she expected, “Since I own a wedding planning and design firm, I thought planning our own wedding would be like any other client, but I was completely wrong! We both come from an extensive luxury event background — Joe even went to culinary school, so high expectations didn't even begin to describe how we felt. Initially we were planning on traveling for six weeks and joining a handful of friends in Ireland for a formal celebration. Having seen so many weddings, we wanted something completely different.”

But the couple soon realised they might have more guests making the trip to Ireland than they’d expected, “Those plans quickly changed once we sent our beautiful invitations and guests started to RSVP. Once we got to 35 guests we realized that we had an actual wedding on our hands and had to make some adjustments. As our numbers grew to 46, so did the overall experience, and our six weeks of traveling cut down to accommodate a full Irish experience. Not going to lie, it was definitely stressful at times. But in the end it was worth every single second of the planning!”

The couple had a fabulous garden party set-up for their cocktail hour. Cotton Club Quartet serenaded the guests and got some dancing on the lawn!

For their reception, the Rayna & Joe already had a beautiful setting to work with, but the added height of the floral centrepieces really added to the opulence of the space.

Rayna & Joe were hands-on with every aspect of their wedding, “Since we both work in creative fields, and I've been crafting welcome bags and such for years, DIY takes on a whole new definition with us. That being said, we absolutely had our hands on almost every element of this wedding. We spent days working on the perfectly designed collateral, and hours sourcing and crafting the many elements and surprises for the guests. From the custom imprinted welcome bags and monogrammed cloth napkins to each of the printed pieces and everything in between, ending with the hangover recovery kits. We love crafting hi-touch experiences for our clients and created the ultimate experience with our own fabulous wedding.”

But Rayna tells us being so involved could be overwhelming, “In the end, we were almost consumed by all of the details, and often found it to be the topic of conversation when entertaining, so thankful our friends loved it almost as much as we did, or at least pretended to!”

As both a planner and a bride, Rayna has plenty of wisdom to impart, “Hire experienced professionals who love what they do, so you can relax and enjoy the big day. We spent countless hours working on the wedding, even up until the day before, but on our day I was able to let go and trust the talented vendors on our team to make it all happen. We both felt relaxed and it shows in our photos and video.”

Fresh fruit decor makes such a stylish alternative to flowers, for a fine art feel.

She also says it’s important to go all in on your priorities, “Go ahead and spring for the bigger band—or whatever else is important to you! Our venue was tight and we were nervous that our bigger band would give us a smaller dance floor. We almost cut the sax and trumpet at the last minute! Thankfully we didn't and our reception was beyond perfect. The smaller dance floor just meant it looked full all of the time and the band was amazing!”

As with every other detail from this wedding, the cake by The Cake Cuppery was chic, unique and pretty spectacular!

Thanks so much for Rayna & Joe for sharing their stunning wedding with us - and of course, thank you to Tomasz Kornas for sending this beautiful photographs our way!