The Bride Wore a Skirt Set by Sergio Hudson for Her Winter Wedding in Charleston
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Vogue’s goal in our coverage is to celebrate responsible wedding planning, showcase a love story, and shed light on the questions that engaged couples are asking themselves now.
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Megan Pinckney, the digital content producer behind the blog Shades of Pinck (and former Miss South Carolina USA), and Todd Rutherford, the Democratic Leader in the South Carolina House of Representatives and an attorney, were introduced by a friend of his who had dated a friend of hers. Years later, they were on a vacation in Santorini when Todd chartered a boat so that they could cruise around the island for the day. During the tour, he took the opportunity to get down on one knee, and Megan promptly said “Yes!”
Once engaged, the two got straight to planning. Their original wedding was scheduled for Friday, November 6, 2020, in Charleston. The guest list was 500 people strong, and the Gibbes Museum—where Megan serves on the board of the young professional group Society 1858—was booked to host.
“It took us months to decide where we wanted to actually host our wedding,” Megan admits. “My poor planner had gone down the path of a ceremony in South Africa, Paris, and even Montenegro up until February 2020, when my mom and grandmother convinced me to do it in my hometown of Charleston.” The following month, Megan booked the museum, and then two weeks later, the world shut down. “Of course, at the time, we all thought everything would blow over by the end of the month,” Megan adds. “But when it didn’t, we knew a wedding that large was not going to happen anytime soon.”
“At the time, my idea of a wedding was a party with everyone we’ve ever known and loved celebrating our union,” Megan says. “So we decided to wait it out until we could host that kind of event.” Once Megan and Todd canceled their initial wedding, the planning process came to a complete halt. “We stopped talking about it,” Megan admits. “And honestly, I stopped thinking about it. I was so discouraged because there wasn’t an end to the pandemic in sight.”
Eventually, it occurred to Megan that this milestone wasn’t really about anyone other than her and Todd. “We decided we should just leave the idea of celebrating with ‘everyone’ behind and go for it,” she says. She reached out to her planner, and they started dreaming again. In a little over a month, they planned an entire wedding. “I kind of preferred it this way because instead of spreading the process out over a year, I was able to focus on it for a few weeks and that was it!”
They rescheduled for December 11, 2020, and Megan worked with Alexandra Woodlief of Alexandra Madison Weddings to plan it all. The two had become friends while Alexandra was the marketing director for the Columbia City Ballet. “I served on the board of directors for the organization, and she and I were given the task of planning the company’s annual galas,” Megan remembers. “We’d worked together planning so many parties and I loved her visions and respected her expertise.”
The first order of business for Megan was finding a wedding-day look. “My wedding dress was actually not a dress at all,” she says. “I knew I wanted a look that was glamorous and timeless, but something that didn’t feel so expected. I’d modeled a ton of wedding dresses during my career—and tried on a ton of pageant dresses in my day as a former Miss South Carolina USA—but none of those gave me the feeling I knew I wanted for this day.”
Over the course of her career, Megan had formed a relationship with luxury womenswear designer Sergio Hudson—a native of South Carolina and the designer of Michelle Obama’s memorable Inauguration Day outfit. At various points, she’d mentioned how she wanted him to one day design a wedding dress for her. “I was scrolling on his website one night and came across this gorgeous bodysuit from one of his past collections, and it spoke to me,” Megan says. “Initially I wanted to pair it with a miniskirt, but he insisted on designing me a maxi with a little train and one of his signature belts. It was perfect!”
Because of COVID, and the fact that there was less than a month to plan, the two weren’t able to meet for a fitting in L.A., so Megan sent measurements and trusted Sergio. Luckily, the look required only a few minor alterations that the bride’s grandma’s cousin was able to do the night before the wedding.
