SOPHISTICATED WEDDINGS

Two Nashville cousins achieve their dream weddings during COVID-19

KATIE DAVIDSON & TURNER HENDERSON / August 8, 2020

Photography by Mary Rosenbaum

With an original date set for June 13th, high school sweethearts Katie and Turner scaled back their guest list from 200 to 100, and then to 34 with just family members and their wedding party. “Though the decision to decrease the guest size was a difficult one, they knew that we still wanted to get married, and in the end, we had the best time!”

The special evening took place in the bride’s parents’ backyard in a spectacular clear tent with guests spread out in the original space with an expanded dance floor and Lt. Dan from Lightning 100 providing the music instead of a live band. They loved the “intimate night with their families and were able to focus on each other and the true meaning of the day,” said Katie. The revised date coincidentally coincided with Turner and Katie’s high school anniversary, so they found that particularly special.

Turner is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and Katie is a graduate of Furman University. Both attended graduate programs at Vanderbilt University, where they were reunited and “picked up right where we left off.” They enjoyed a brief mini-moon at The Pearl Hotel in Rosemary Beach and hope to take a proper honeymoon somewhere exotic in the new year. The couple lives in Sylvan Park in Nashville, where Turner is an attorney with Bass Berry and Sims, and Katie is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at Vanderbilt with the Transplant Center.

JESSIE DAVIDSON & KEVIN VIRGIN / September 11, 2020

Photography by Nick Breedlove

Jessie and Kevin originally planned on getting married on July 11th with 250 guests at the Farm at Old Edwards in Highlands, NC. In May, they decided to postpone the wedding until September 11th. “We decided not to push it back a whole year because we knew what mattered most to us was being married,” said Jessie.

Their revised game plan was to reserve all 34 rooms of Half-Mile Farms’ hotel and cut their guest list to only family and their wedding party. All wedding weekend events were held on-site, and guests enjoyed many outdoor activities throughout the weekend. Jessie and Kevin met at Miami University of Ohio. For their honeymoon, they drove the coast of California from Wine Country down to Carmel-by-the-Sea. The couple is living in the Virginia Highlands neighborhood in Atlanta, where Kevin is on the Investments team at Cousins Property and Jessie is a 4th Grade teacher at Hollis Innovation Academy. They are renovating their first home and hope to move in by Thanksgiving.

The Davidson cousins and their fiancés elegantly negotiated the necessary compromises to comply with the restrictions of Covid-19. Though their experiences were different from what they had initially planned, they both say that they are reminded about what is important and celebrated their special weddings with one another and their family and friends. Cheers to the newlyweds!