The Dish

♦ SCOTT AND AMY KUHN

Scott Kuhn never had to worry about where to host his reception. His Driftwood Restaurant Group owns a number of area eateries, including Cibreo in Playhouse Square and Washington Place Bistro and Inn in University Circle. But he didn't want to end up working right after saying "I do" — he loves his job so much that he just can't stop himself from pitching in, he explains. His fiancé, Amy, a brand manager for housewares design, manufacturing and marketing company InterDesign in Solon, had always wanted a destination wedding that indulged their passions for food and travel, especially in the American South. So the couple staged their Sept. 28 nuptials at The Inn at Palmetto Bluff, an upscale resort on the May River near Savannah, Ga.

Amy dictated the atmosphere for her wedding day — "light, romantic and airy," yet casually elegant — with her dress, a strapless A-line gown of off-white silk organza with a pleated bodice and long train bordered in French lace by Fyodor Bridal Atelier at La Place in Beachwood. Her five bridesmaids wore a similar style in pale-pink silk chiffon from Brides by Demetrios at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst. The bride walked down the aisle of the resort's tiny chapel at 5:30 p.m. as national recording artist Ernie Halter ("A friend of a friend of a friend," Scott explains) sang "Lighthouse," one of the couple's favorite songs.

"For me, that's when the tears came," Scott says.

The singer/songwriter also performed during cocktail hour on a lawn by the water. Guests sipped signature cocktails handed out as they left the church — Peaches and Bourbon (Maker's Mark, local peach cider and lemonade) for the men, Kir Royale (Chambord black raspberry liqueur and champagne) for the women — and nibbled on miniature crab cakes, poached shrimp, crispy Benton ham on compressed melon and barbecued chicken on miniature biscuits.

Coastal Southern cuisine also dominated the menu Scott chose for the sit-down dinner in the resort's ballroom. Guests started the meal with a pan-seared diver scallop with stone-ground grits and an applewood bacon-onion jus, then dined on Sea Island red-pea salad, pan-seared local grouper with succotash in a tarragon emulsion and sliced ribeye with sweet potato puree, charred okra and a classic bordelaise sauce. A pair of miniature pies — peach with buttermilk cinnamon ice cream and pecan with bourbon chantilly — and a chocolate pot de crÃÆ'Æ'Õ¨me replaced the traditional slice of wedding cake for dessert.

After an evening of dancing to a 10-piece band, the Kuhns exited the ballroom through a tunnel of sparklers held by their guests to a late-night snack of cheeseburgers, french fries and milkshakes by the resort's fire pits. The Southern food fest resumed the next morning at a biscuit bar laden with a variety of biscuits, spreads and meats as well as sausage gravy and scrambled eggs.

♦ JOHN AND CHANTE OWEN

John Owen proposed to Chante Lamont in Napa Valley, Calif., with the intention of marrying her there. The place has special meaning for the wine-lovers. The first bottle of vino they shared was a syrah from Nickel and Nickel Winery, a sister property of Far Niente Winery, where he popped the question. But their plans for a June 1 destination wedding changed when his father was diagnosed with cancer. The proprietor of hotspots such as the Blind Pig sports bar in downtown Cleveland and Market Rocky River restaurant began planning a local event with his fiancé that combined mid-20th-century glamour with a wine theme.

"Our vision was to create something that was very elegant and classic," John says. "And yet, we could put our own twist on it."

The couple began making that vision a reality by reserving the pink-marble lobby of Severance Hall for the 5 p.m. wedding. "John and I like going to the orchestra," says Chante, a senior account executive for Stamford, Conn.-based information-technology research company Gartner. She descended one of the twin staircases in a form-fitting, off-white, satin charmeuse gown with a sweetheart neckline, keyhole back and rhinestone-embellished silver embroidery on the shoulders and belt from the Perfect Bride in Rocky River. Chante's matron of honor preceded her in a one-shoulder, floor-length dress in blush chiffon from Leonardo's Bridal and Formal Boutique in Rocky River. Both women carried loose stem-tied bouquets of white and pink peonies.

John, his best man and three ushers sported khaki suits. John distinguished himself from the group by adding a champagne vest and tie. The others wore bright-pink-and-lime-green collegiate-stripe ties as well as a subtle tribute to a brother the groom lost to cancer.

"My brother was a master scuba diver, so all of my groomsmen wore scuba-diver cufflinks," John says.

After the ceremony, the Owens and their 250 guests traveled to Market Rocky River for a wine-themed reception. While Chante and John posed for pictures with an emerald-green 1950s Cadillac, guests sipped French 75s and Moscow Mules to Frank Sinatra tunes while they signed a wine barrel in lieu of a guest book. They queued up at various action stations: a Prohibition-style whiskey bar with nine tapped barrels on a barrel rack; a prosciutto station featuring a bright-red antique prosciutto slicer; a massive "crustacean station" laden with shrimp, crab claws and sushi; and a cigar cart. At 7 p.m. they filed into a tent lit by crystal chandeliers and furnished with square and round tables covered in burlap and purple crushed linen from L'Nique specialty linen rental in Valley View. Centerpieces consisted of vibrant arrangements in wooden boxes from Al Wilhelmy Flowers in Kamm's Corners and large white candles, each surrounded by a clear cylinder of wine-bottle corks the couple had collected.

"We did have a party planner who helped us the day of the wedding," Chante acknowledges. "But John did an amazing job — he was really the creative mind behind our wedding and reception."

After a duet-plate dinner of grouper in lemon-butter sauce and a filet, Chante and John cut a buttercream-iced white cake with raspberry-apricot filling from Wild Flour Bakery in Rocky River, then started the evening's entertainment on the restaurant's rustic, covered patio with a trip around the dance floor to Etta James' rendition of "At Last." "It was very appropriate," Chante says — she and John dated for 10 years. Although the disc jockey from Music Therapy stopped playing music at midnight, the newlyweds and their guests continued celebrating at John's Wine Bar Rocky River until 3 the next morning.

♦ Chris and Jacquelyn Hodgson

Chris and Jacquelyn Hodgson assumed they'd plan their May 25 wedding together. But a week after the couple's Dec. 21, 2012, engagement, the food-truck pioneer and partner in Driftwood Restaurant Group (which includes his eponymous Hodge's and Hodge Podge food truck and club-level concession stands at FirstEnergy Stadium) learned he'd been chosen to compete in Season 9 of the Food Network's Next Food Network Star — an opportunity that required him to fly to Los Angeles a week later and remain incommunicado for two months. Jacquelyn, operations manager for her family's Romanin Concrete in Cleveland Heights, wasn't sure she could execute their idea of staging the ceremony and reception on the Superior Viaduct Bridge.

"You'd have to bring in restrooms, you'd have to bring in lighting, electricity," she explains. So the couple opted for a church wedding.

Jacquelyn's choices of where to book the 4 p.m. ceremony and 6:30 p.m. reception were simple: Grace Lutheran Church in Cleveland Heights, which agreed to allow Anthony Omoijuanfo, founder and president of Shaker Heights-based Glean Ministries — a longtime friend and mentor Chris calls his "Nigerian papa," — officiate at the ceremony, and the Ariel International Center in downtown Cleveland, a location Chris suggested before his departure.

Finding dresses was more complicated. "Since I was getting married in five or six months, people were really trying to pressure me to buy a dress," Jacquelyn explains. Laura Smith of A Brides Design in Avon ended Jacquelyn's wedding-dress search with a custom, strapless, fit-and-flare gown of satin-lined ivory lace with a sweetheart neckline, plunging back, crystallized beaded belt and handmade buttons on the chapel-length train. She let each of the 10 bridesmaids select her own Dessy-brand, floor-length style in a grayish-purple shade of lux chiffon.

Friends and family fulfilled many of Jacquelyn's needs. Although Susan Young Design in South Euclid produced the white-and-ivory bridal bouquet and floral arrangements — "I wanted everything very simple and elegant," Jacquelyn explains — her aunt, Valarie Seminaro, created bouquets for the bridesmaids, flower girls and mothers of the bride and groom. Deborah Kushlan — "the first lady who ever taught me how to cook besides my mother," Chris says — made the couple's white wedding cake, five tiers covered in ivory fondant. And Driftwood Catering, a division of the Driftwood Restaurant Group, catered the event. Although Chris reluctantly agreed to oversee the operation at Jacquelyn's insistence — "There's no better food in town," she says — he ended up embracing the task.

"I refused to not work," he says. "I was there setting up tables and chairs. I was doing prep."

The reception began with a cocktail hour of passed hors d'oeuvres and charcuterie boards ("We love cheese and meats," Jacquelyn says), followed by a sit-down dinner of cedar-planked salmon with pink, purple and green asparagus, lamb chops with roasted fingerling potatoes, half chickens with mashed potatoes and rosemary jus and Washington Place Bistro and Inn's macaroni and cheese.

"It was all of our families' favorite stuff combined into one meal," Chris says.

While the 200 guests continued dancing to music chosen by a disc jockey from Rock the House Entertainment, Chris and Jacquelyn slipped out at midnight for a nightcap at the Velvet Tango Room.

"There was a pianist there, and I was still in my wedding dress," Jacquelyn remembers. "We talked and just enjoyed the rest of our night together."