Chantelle & Richard's intimate New Jersey garden wedding was all about la famiglia. Family, friends and, of course, food!

What do you get when an award-winning Sommelier marries a brilliant executive chef? A wedding menu and wine selection sure to make quite the Garden Statement! 

One of the best parts of being a wedding planner has to be when treasured clients turn into some of my dearest friends. A few years back I had the absolute pleasure and honor of planning Chantelle's sister Emerald's wedding in Atlanta (see their blog here!). I adored working with them and have been lucky to call them friends ever since. So I was overjoyed when Chantelle got engaged because she is the absolute sweetest and I could not have been more thrilled to plan her wedding too!

Richard & Chantelle wanted something intimate, personal and a reflection of them. From the carefully crafted ceremony, to both the bride and groom being escorted down the aisle by their grandparents, every aspect of this wedding was focused on the love they share and the most important people in their lives. They chose the groom's family home in the coastal town of Toms River, New Jersey as their venue and we set to work creating the perfect garden wedding for their Garden State nuptials.

2017 was pretty much the year of the all neutral wedding color palette so when Chantelle wanted to go the complete opposite direction with her colors I was 9000% totally on board! Don't get me wrong, neutrals are totes gorg, but c'mon! Who doesn't get excited to play with summer colors?! We chose a bright, cheerful, summery color palette with coral pink, peach, tangerine, hot pink, pale blush pink, every shade of green in the whole land, and used navy blue to anchor it all together perfectly. She wanted the floral design to be organic, elegant and filled with texture...so naturally we constructed over 75 feet of greenery and floral garlands to hang in the tent and used an aggressive amount of peonies and David Austin Garden Roses! Haha!

And when I say it was a family affair, I mean it for SPD too! As most of you know, I'm a Jersey girl, born and bred, and most of my family still calls the Garden State home. So naturally I enlisted tutta la mia famiglia to pitch in and help make magic for Chantelle & Richard. My three nephews, my niece, two of my cousins, my aunt and my godmother all had a hand in this wedding! Big HUGE thank you to Liza, Dominick, Damyon, Tazae, Asia, Katie, Chuckie, Ryan, Aunt Jill, Uncle Kurt and Aunt Moira!!! LOVE Y'ALL!!!

Enjoy!

love, Sara

Vendor Credits

Planning, Design & Floral Design: Sara Skinner & Liza Sakowski for Scarlet Plan & Design | Venue: Private New Jersey Estate | Photography: Timothy Lee Photography | Tent & Rentals: Ocean Tents & Party Rentals | Bar: Cocktail Caravan | Hair & Makeup Artist: Hair by Andrea | Champagne: Taittinger | Cake: Jeffrey Sytsma | Catering: Bell Works | Caviar Bar: Calvisius Caviar

I was SOOOOOOOOOO happy to work with Andrea, the brilliant hair and makeup artist Chantelle chose. Andrea and I go way back; I won't say exaaaaaaactly how far back and risk giving anyone's ages away, though! Haha! Back when I was a teenager I used to babysit Andrea's 3 precious daughters when they were tiny and we've always stayed in touch!

Can we take a moment to just marvel at those flowers?! We happened to stop at Trader Joe's a day or two before the wedding (for wine, #obvi) and they had BUNCHES OF SIX STEMS OF PEONIES FOR $5.99 EACH!!!!! Obviously I bought literally all of them. My poor 6ft+ tall nephews were crammed in the backseat holding 7 or 8 buckets of flowers on their laps the whole way home as the peonies pretty much fucktupled in size. Bahaha!

We were simply beside ourselves when Chantelle's precious flower girl put on her flower crown! Doesn't she look amazing?!

The giant woodpile in the Corbo family's backyard was the absolute PERFECT backdrop for their ceremony! We adorned it with floral and greenery garlands and tucked fresh blooms in the cracks between the logs.