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A Tale of Two Sisters
By Molly Harrison
In December 2006 Gail and Rick Lawrenson were excitedly planning for the April 2007 wedding of their youngest daughter, Rachel, when they got some good but shocking news from their oldest daughter, Sarah. Two months after her sister got engaged, Sarah was also engaged – and she didn’t want a long engagement.
The Lawrensons were looking at planning and paying for two weddings in one year. Rick tried to convince his daughters to have a double wedding, and while Sarah was open to exploring the idea, Rachel really wanted to have her own wedding. The girls are very different, and Rachel thought it would be better if they each had the chance to express their own style.
“All I asked was for them to give us a few months between the two weddings,” says Gail.
The sisters settled on dates that were exactly three months apart – April 21 for Rachel and July 21 for Sarah. Even so, planning was tight. They had about six months of planning time for each wedding.
“A lot of people say you need a year of planning, but it was not true for us,” says Gail. “You can plan a wedding in shorter time.”
“Neither of us would have survived a year of planning anyway!” says Rachel.
The Lawrensons had the big advantage of being local and extensively involved in a local church, which gave them a leg up in planning two weddings in a short period of time. Rick is the pastor of Nags Head Church in Nags Head so the location was a given, and members of the congregation offered a great deal of help.
Both Rachel and Sarah knew they wanted to hold their wedding ceremonies and receptions indoors at Nags Head Church. As booking locations is often the trickiest part of wedding planning, the Lawrensons were able to save precious time in that department. And both girls knew they didn’t want to get married on the beach. “It’s pretty, but not always practical,” says Sarah.
Another advantage they had is that Gail is in the local wedding business. She is co-owner with Brenda Korbach of a company called The Embellishers, which specializes in wedding and event flowers, decorations and creative ideas. Having the flowers and decorations taken care of by Mom made it easy on the budget. Many church members also pitched in to help with cooking.
“We definitely had the advantages of knowing people, being involved in a church and having such a good support system,” says Gail.
Of course, being local also meant that the weddings were larger than the typical Outer Banks wedding. Family, friends and congregation members added up to a lot of people, and both weddings were attended by around 200 people.
Rachel and Sarah went to the Outer Banks wedding shows in January to scout out vendors. Gail and Rick gave the girls the exact same budget and told them they could spend the money wherever they liked. Rachel spent more money on the reception, while Sarah spent more money on her dress. In the end, the sisters came up with two very different weddings that related to their personal style – and believe it or not, both girls came in under budget.
“When we gave them a budget, we told them that if they went over, they would pay the difference,” says Gail. “If they stayed under, we would pay them the difference. We are giving both couples the amount of money they did not spend.”
Rachel & Ramon
Rachel Lawrenson and Ramon Sanchez met as students at Manteo High School when they were cast in a musical play together. Their characters in the play got married, but Rachel and Ramon didn’t start dating until after high school. They dated for about a year and a half starting in 2005, though part of that time Rachel was living in Central America. They were engaged in October 2006.
“Ramon proposed on Jockey’s Ridge,” remembers Rachel. “He wrote in the sand: ‘Will you marry me, Rachel?’ and then he walked me up there to see it. He’s a romantic.”
Rachel’s April wedding was all about spring flowers and bright colors. Her bridesmaids wore bright green springy dresses and the church was decorated with lots of greenery. The aisle was sprinkled with pink and red rose petals. Her traditional billowy white dress was, as her sister described it, “like a cupcake.” Ginny Holcomb of Cloud Nine in Nags Head designed Rachel’s jewelry to match the beading on her dress.
Rachel’s grandfather married the couple, and the ceremony service was bilingual. Ramon repeated his vows in Spanish, for the benefit of the Spanish-speaking members of his family.
They had perfect weather, though there was not enough wind to fly a wedding kite that Rachel had wanted to fly over the church. After the ceremony, Rachel and Ramon posed for their wedding portraits on Jockey’s Ridge. The bridal party and family photos were taken at the church, with Jockey’s Ridge in the background.
Rachel’s reception featured heavy hors d’oeuvres. Ramon’s mother and Gail did quite a bit of cooking, and the ladies of the church helped out with cooking food that Gail had purchased. A local caterer also helped out with some of the food. Rachel and Ramon’s traditional white-iced cake was decorated with gorgeous fresh flowers. The cake was so good, Rachel says, that she and Ramon finished off their anniversary topper the minute they returned from their honeymoon.
Rachel and Sarah’s brother, Nathan, a.k.a. The Unofficial Wedding Singer, sang at the reception while Rachel and Ramon danced. At the end of the reception, Rachel and Ramon were showered with birdseed and drove away in a friend’s 1955 Chevy. Their friends and family took home little boxes of chocolates.
Rachel and Ramon spent a romantic first night at the First Colony Inn in Nags Head before heading off to their honeymoon at a resort in Orlando.
Wedding Details
Rehearsal Dinner: Western Sizzlin’
Catering and Reception Orchestration: Sherry Laughridge
Cake: Chris Carroll of Sweater Box Confections
Flowers and Decoration: The Embellishers
Photographer: Michelle Haber of Outer Banks Productions
Hair: Cinnamon Goodman from Hair Flair
Jewelry: Ginny Holcomb of Cloud Nine
Rentals: Metro Rental
Wedding Night Accommodations:
First Colony Inn, Nags Head
Sarah &Terry
Sarah Lawrenson and Terry Moore met when she came back to the Outer Banks from college. Terry is on staff at Kitty Hawk Baptist Church, and he and Sarah met in a small group meeting at Nags Head Church. It was love at first sight. The couple met in May, started dating in September and was engaged by December. Terry proposed on the beach on December 15. Sarah couldn’t see the ring because it was so dark, so she had to run back to the car to look at the ring in the light.
Sarah found a black and white dress that she loved and built her wedding theme around it. The black and white wedding had a very formal look, with bridesmaids dressed in black, but it was a casual mid-afternoon wedding. The ceremony was short and to the point, lasting only about 10 minutes.
“Six months of planning for 10 minutes of wedding,” jokes Rick.
An uncle married Sarah and Terry, as the sisters had decided to ask family members to marry them so that their dad could watch their weddings. Brother Nathan sang for the recessional.
Sarah and Terry took a different theme for their reception fare – desserts only. They had a beautiful black and white wedding cake, a chocolate fountain spouting dark and white chocolate, and a variety of other desserts, some purchased, and some made by Gail or the ladies of the church in a great team effort. Guests washed down all that sweet stuff with a piña colada punch.
“The dessert reception was a big hit,” says Sarah. “Though I would not recommend having a big cake if you’re having a dessert reception. We did a cake for 100 and we had plenty left over. People can only eat so much dessert.”
For wedding favors, Sarah and Terry offered a big table filled with bowls of candy and candy topiaries where people could fill up their own goodie bags with the candy of their choosing. “Everyone loved it. The adults as much or more than the kids,” says Rick.
Sarah and Terry left their wedding under a shower of rice and drove away in a 1960s Galaxy 500. They went straight to Norfolk to spend the night before flying out the next day for Orlando.
Wedding Day Details
Cake: Cakes by Linda Bradley
Chocolate Fountain: Outer Banks Original Chocolate Fountain
Flowers and Decorations:
The Embellishers
Photographer: George Farah of
A Day to Remember Photography
Hair: Cinnamon Goodman from Hair Flair
Rentals: Metro Rental
Wedding Tips from the Lawrensons
Hire sitters to watch small children and babies during the ceremony. Rachel and Sarah hired workers from a local daycare to watch small children in the church nursery during their ceremonies. The children were welcome at the reception.
Delegate the last-minute details to someone else. “Don’t do it all yourself,” says Rachel. “Both of us were stress-free brides because we let other people take over the last-minute stuff.” Adds Sarah, “We let Mom stress out at the end. If something went wrong at the last minute, we didn’t even know about it.”
Hire a wedding-day coordinator. Rachel and Sarah both used a friend to coordinate the flow of the wedding. She told everyone what to do when, and that allowed the girls to relax.
In the end, everyone was happy with the weddings.
“Two gorgeous weddings, two broke parents,” says Rick with a laugh, though Gail says she is proud of her girls for spending less than the typical brides.
“I’m in the wedding business so I know how much people spend on weddings these days,” says Gail. “Rachel and Sarah could have spent so much more. Both achieved beautiful weddings on a reasonable budget, without going over the top.”
Sarah and Rachel agree that their special days were “perfect.”
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