Her Mother Brought A Vintage, Yellowed Veil Back to Life With This Trick

Real Weddings

Liz and Andy's intimate wedding transported us to Old Hollywood, The Mediterranean Sea, and, oh yeah, Easton, MD, which is always dazzling.

The couple: Elizabeth Walk + Andrew Geiger

Wedding date: August 1, 2020

Number of guests: 14

// How They Met

A mutual friend tried to set Liz and Andy up, but besides following Liz on Instagram, Andy didn’t make a move. Fortunately, eight months later, work did what peer pressure couldn’t. Andy was opening a new hotel, and Liz, employed by a tourism trade association, DM’d her new follower to get the scoop.

// Oh Happy (Birth) Day!

Andy proposed on December 30, 2019, in a very romantic parking lot. (It was where the couple had their first kiss.) Conveniently for Liz, this day also happened to be Andy’s birthday. “He said marrying me was the best gift he could ask for,” Liz says. “I’m happy that I don’t have to get him anything for his birthday anymore — its me!”

// Not the Plan

The pair booked a beautiful waterfront venue, paid their deposits, and sent save-the-dates — and then the vendors started calling. All their careful planning had been hit by the corona-bus. With guests traveling from all over the country and dreams of a dance floor and large live band dashed, Andy and Liz decided to pivot to a small, immediate-family only, socially-distanced wedding.

// Mediterranean Maryland

Liz was gravitating toward a Mediterranean color palette of vibrant yellows, blues, and reds, so when she discovered a Williams and Sonoma table runner with those exact hues, she fell in love and incorporated the linen as her reception focal point. She supplemented the breezy look with oyster jars, sourced from an Eastern Shore flea market, and looped in her florist Little Miss Lovely to find local blooms to match.

// Signature Drink

When Andy and Liz were dating, Andy only had one day off on the weekends, so the pair would plan elaborate dates to maximize their time together. They took the ferry to Cape May, searched for horses on Chincoteague, perused Baltimore’s neighborhoods. But there was one unwritten rule with every date: everywhere the couple went, they’d look for a raw bar and have an oyster shooter. In keeping with tradition, Liz worked with her caterer Blue Shore Kitchen to serve the couple’s signature drink. They carried the theme into their escort cards, too, with discarded oyster shells Liz salvaged from Andy’s former hotel restaurant and repurposed with some serious scrubbing and paint.

// Required Reading

As with many heterosexual couples, Liz spearheaded the majority of the wedding planning, but one decision that meant a lot to Andy was finding the right ceremony reading. “It was very important to both of us to get married in a church, so when our plans turned upside down, our rector, who was amazing, said he would do whatever it took to marry us,” Liz explains. As part of their pre-marriage counseling, Liz and Andy were given a Book of Common Prayer and a Bible, which their rector asked them to read to identify verses they might want recited during their wedding. “Andy was so disciplined about us reading one each night,” Liz says. “He heard Ruth 1:16-17 and immediately said that was going to be the one:

‘But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.’”

// The Power of the Florida Sun (+ A Dedicated MOB)

For her “something old,” Liz planned to wear a stunning vintage veil belonging to her grandmother. “It was given to my Nana at her confirmation and she wore it for her wedding to my grandfather in 1947,” Liz explains. The only problem with the lacy legacy was that age had stained it yellow. “My mom was the real MVP here,” Liz says. “She put [the veil] in the Florida sunlight day after day to raise the color. I can’t thank her enough for allowing me the opportunity to wear such an amazing family heirloom.”

// The Right Team

Assembling a vendor team came naturally to Liz, who used to work in event planning. She simply reached out to vendors she already knew personally or businesses she loved and frequented. “Our cake was made by our favorite bakery in the town that we live,” Liz says. “And everyone says it was the best wedding cake they’d had.” She stumbled upon her photographer, Laura’s Focus, online. “She was the best to work with,” Liz says. “It ended up that she had shot our caterer’s wedding, and we had no idea until we started chatting about the details.”

// Credits

Bride's gown: Sincerity by Justin Alexander / Cake: Baked Dessert Café / Caterer: Blue Shore Kitchen / Florals: Little Miss Lovely / Rentals: Dover Tents & Events (tent, tables, white linens, chairs) / Officiant: Father Matthew D’Amario from St. Paul’s by the Sea / Photographer: Laura’s Focus Photography / Rings: G.B. Heron & Co Goldsmiths (bride) + Treasure Chest (groom) / Venue: private residence in Easton