Real Weddings
Grace and Will’s Fearrington Wedding
College sweethearts Grace and Will downsized their Fearrington wedding from 250 to 50, and wouldn’t do it any differently!
How did you and your partner meet?
We met at UNC our sophomore year of college and started dating two years later, then engaged three years after that!
Tell us about the engagement.
Will was able to trick me into getting on the porch of the Chapel Hill house I lived in in college and proposed there with a letter. The porch of that house is special to both of us as it’s where he asked me on our first date, where we made our relationship “official,” and where we spent countless hours with our best college friends.
What made Fearrington the place for you to say “I do?”
It was the first venue we visited and we immediately felt completely at ease. We love Chapel Hill, and the setting of Fearrington is just gorgeous. Beautiful and luxurious but also very comfortable and inviting. We chose Fearrington because we wanted simple and stress-free wedding planning–although we didn’t know we were signing up for planning an event during a pandemic!
Describe the highlight moment of your wedding day.
Our sit-down dinner with our families was definitely a highlight. Due to NC restrictions, we had two parties of 25 people outside. While our wedding party ate on the Barn patio, we ate with our families and a few close family friends at a long farm table under lights on the Garden Terrace. The sun was setting, the temperature was cooling, and the nerves from the big day were relaxing. We got to eat a delicious meal from the Fearrington Restaurant and actually spend time with some of the people we love most. Then we enjoyed drinks and dancing with our wedding party down at the Barn patio!
What was the biggest surprise of the day?
We were both pleasantly surprised at how easy and natural the day felt, even though we were working with strict pandemic restrictions and separate parties. This was our biggest worry after significantly cutting the guest list and creating two parties for our wedding day. Even though it was very different than we had originally planned, we felt so loved and supported by friends, family, and Fearrington staff.
What was your biggest surprise about wedding planning?
We quickly learned during the second half of our engagement to really consider what is most important to us during wedding planning. Although we’re still sad many of our guests were not able to join in-person, this pandemic allowed us to focus on what matters most. While we still had a gorgeous wedding, we stopped caring as much about all the fancy details and realized how fortunate we were to be able to have our closest friends and family with us on our original wedding date.
Anything you want to add about your wedding story?
We are so thankful for Fearrington working with us to make our wedding the perfect day! We went from a 250-person church ceremony with an indoor Fearrington Barn reception to an intimate outdoor wedding with ceremony and two separate receptions, all at Fearrington. Now we can’t imagine that day any differently!
Photographs: Krystal Kast Photography
Venue: The Fearrington House
Flowers: Fearrington Village
Cake and Catering: The Fearrington House
