WOW Wedding: Ashley and Steve

By Amanda Harper Posted: March 2nd, 2010



For Ashley & Steve Bolger, love at first sight led to a truly romantic tale of twists and turns. The couple met on a Carnival Cruise in 1999. Both were in high school and on spring break vacations with their families, Ashley living with her family in Winchester while Steve was living in Atlanta with his. The pair dated long distance for a couple years, but lost touch as they graduated and moved on to attend different colleges.

Almost ten years later, Steve learned that his job would take him from Birmingham, Alabama to Lexington for a few days. He knew right away that he would try to find the girl from Kentucky he had loved so long ago. Renting a car and scrambling for clues, Steve spent an afternoon trying to locate the house where Ashley had lived with her family.
When Steve finally located the house, he was disappointed to find that no one was home. However, he left a note saying,


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“I used to know a girl who lived here named Ashley … if you know where she is, please let her know I’m trying to get in touch with her again.” While Ashley’s family had moved away from the house some years before, fate intervened and the note made its way to Ashley, who had never forgotten her instant connection with Steve.

The wedding ceremony was held in the flower garden of the Hunt-Morgan House on a cool July morning. A harpist and violinist played as Ashley walked down the historic brick walkway, dressed in a blush-colored gown from the Jim Hjelm Occasions line, featuring a shirred bodice trimmed in Swarovski crystals. The gown’s trumpet silhouette gave way to a beautiful, full pleated underskirt with chapel train. The bride’s elegant updo was done by Chris Johns with Caswell Carol Salon.
The bridesmaids also wore selections from the Jim Hjelm collection. Their shirred ivory bodices were tied with blush-pink sashes atop pale toffee silk taffeta skirts, a perfect complement to their pink, green and cream bouquets. The groomsmen wore formal tuxedos with tail coats.  The flower girl, Steve’s 4-year old niece, carried a small bouquet of rosebuds and wore an ivory dress with a sheer, monogrammed overlay.

The couple was swept away from the ceremony in a vintage 1956 white Bentley.   The celebration continued at the brunch reception held at the Andover Golf and Country Club, where the couple danced to selections from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera”. A friend of the bride’s family, Timothy Caudill, played the piano as entertainment for the couple and their guests.

The reception featured a wedding punch, a favorite of the bride’s beloved late great-grandmother. Guests enjoyed prime rib, grilled salmon and mimosas, along with traditional southern breakfast favorites. The white wedding cake was built with four tiers with raspberry filling and decorated with butter cream icing and piping. Adorned with fresh peonies and hydrangeas, the cake was wrapped with a green fondant ribbon bearing a monogram. The groom’s cake paid homage to the groom’s college fraternity, Sigma Chi. Both reception cakes were created by Sugar Forest in Nicholasville.

The reception seats were covered in satin slipcovers and tied with blush-pink sashes, picking up on the wedding’s theme colors. Pink napkins encased the wedding menu, beautiful against the gold-embroidered tablecloths. Tall centerpieces of hydrangeas and stargrazer  lilies by Trudy Thornton made a beautiful pop of color against the ivory, gold and stone of the Country Club. The formal and unique brunch reception allowed guests to enjoy a beautiful summer morning in Lexington.

The couple honeymooned in St. Thomas and now resides in Birmingham, Alabama.


Photography by Spectrum Photography

 


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