TOPS: First of all, a big congrats! Your wedding looked gorgeous! Was it everything you dreamed of? LBB: It was more than what I dreamed of. It ended up being so quintessentially “us” and even the things that did not go as planned have now entered our repertoire of hilarious stories to tell at dinner. I planned a majority of the wedding and what happens when you do that is EVERYONE calls YOU. That was hard to manage leading up to the wedding, but once the ceremony started, I was fully present and enjoying myself. I have said a couple of times that I wish the wedding day was like Groundhog’s Day and I could just keep doing it over again until it’s perfect… but then, I wouldn’t have any good stories to tell. TOPS: It looks like you added some Kentucky flavor to the wedding! LBB: We did! We wanted to get married in California against the mountains, and we thought it would be fun to have our families come out to our home and visit. A destination wedding of sorts. We also happen to live about 10 minutes away from Santa Anita Racetrack, and being a Breeders’ Cup Ambassador, I’ve spent quite a bit of time there. So we got married after a race day and had the first wedding and reception in the infield that Santa Anita has ever had. It most definitely had a Kentucky Thoroughbred racing theme. Some of our guests actually went to the races during the day, and then walked through the tunnel to the infield for our wedding. We had so many amazing Kentucky elements. My step father built these barn door façades made from reclaimed barn wood that I found here in Kentucky. That’s what we got married in front of and now they are hanging in our house, which is so special. I was most excited and proud of that element, because it was so authentically Kentucky. Angel’s Envy made all the signature cocktails and put them in mason jars that people got to take home. We used authentic horse shoes that we spray painted gold and put on every place setting. Each table was named after a Stakes race (Bluegrass Stakes, Kentucky Derby, etc). In order to find your table, you had to look in a racing program to find your race (table) and your horse (seat). We used bourbon barrels in the décor for the bars, cocktail tables and lighting. We had large silver mint julep cups and silver horse trophies as vases. We had lawn jockeys at every entrance, and built a large wall to look as if it were an open air barn. We made sure to incorporate Kentucky food into the wedding, too. One of my best friends is the owner of Olivia’s Beer Cheese so we served that at the cocktail party. There were three cakes. The main cake, I wanted to taste like Derby Pie. We also had a University of Kentucky Wildcat
“To quote Elle Woods, ‘Sisterhood is forever.’ You don’t forget where you came from.”