The Bride Wore a Dramatic Taffeta Train to Marry Among the Magnolia Trees at Blackberry Farm
Serena Marron and Nick Rugoff’s first date took place in August 2019 at Sant Ambroeus in Nolita, just two weeks after meeting at a mutual friend’s birthday party. The two have been inseparable ever since, and after dating for almost four years, they got engaged on a trip to France in June 2023. “Nick surprised me with a beautiful private dinner on a beach with all my favorite foods,” remembers Serena, who was a competitive equestrian and is now studying to become a life coach.
They got married almost two years later, on May 10 at Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee. “Blackberry Mountain was our first ever vacation together as a couple and has become our happy place over the last six years,” Serena explains. “Nick’s mom grew up in Tennessee, and we’ve always come back to Blackberry for birthdays and other meaningful events with our families. It had been our dream to share our special place with everyone we love.”
The couple worked with Stefanie Cove to plan every element. “Stef was a joy to work with and made everything flow seamlessly,” Serena says. “We cannot recommend her enough.” In addition to collaborating with Stefanie, Serena and Nick also leaned on family throughout the planning process. “We are so grateful to my mother Catie Marron, who organized a spectacular weekend and invited everyone to be our guests at both properties,” Serena says. “Sandy Beall, the founder of Blackberry Farm, became a mentor to Nick a few years ago, and he and the Blackberry team were also incredibly helpful to us throughout the whole process.”
The weekend began on Thursday night with the rehearsal dinner at Three Sisters, the main restaurant at Blackberry Farm. “We went with a green and yellow floral theme, with vases that my mom and I picked out at La Soufflerie in Paris,” Serena says.
On Friday, the bride and her friends hiked to the top of Goat Hill before a hoedown later that evening, where the suggested dress code was suede, fringe, cowboy boots, and prairie dresses. “I loved getting to show my best friends some of my favorite parts of Blackberry,” Serena recalls. Dinner that night was in the Firetower, a 1950s lookout tower that Blackberry restored and transformed into a cozy dining space. And afterward, the band, the Mobile Homeboys, got everyone on their feet, while Bubba, the group’s line dancing instructor, put the group through their paces. “Many blisters were acquired, but nothing was going to slow us down,” Serena jokes.
On the morning of the wedding, Serena awoke to a minor earthquake that served as the communal alarm clock. “Fortunately, it wasn’t a serious earthquake, so nobody was injured and no damage was done,” Serena says. “But it gave us a dramatic start to the day!”
Serena and Nick really wanted the natural beauty of Blackberry Farm to shine through on their wedding day. “We tried to keep everything as organically tied to the land as possible,” Serena says. “Many of the flowers along the aisle were actually gathered by florist Gabriela Salazar from the nearby hills and wrapped in moss to look as if they were coming directly out of the ground.”
For the service, Serena wore a strapless Oscar de la Renta wedding dress with a long train of flowing taffeta. “The team at Oscar made the process of designing the dress personal and special,” Serena explains. “I borrowed a pair of my mother’s antique diamond earrings that were a gift from my late father to her many years ago. I also wore a bracelet that was a birthday gift from my husband.”
Nick wore a suit from his tailor, P. Johnson. “I loved seeing him in a white jacket,” Serena notes. Meanwhile, the bridal party dresses were chosen to represent the different shades of a pink and orange Tennessee sunset. Each bridesmaid picked her own dress, and a similar color palette was used for the flowers and design elements on the wedding night. “We thought it all came together beautifully,” Serena notes.
Around 170 family and friends attended the weekend’s events, and the couple’s brothers officiated the wedding together. “This meant the world to us,” Serena says. “They did a perfect job capturing the key details of our story together and spoke deeply from the heart.”
The bride describes the ceremony as her favorite part of the weekend. “I remember waiting in the carriage house for my turn to walk down the aisle and making eye contact with each of my bridesmaids as they started to head down,” she says. The bride’s brother Will—who is also her best friend—walked her down the aisle. “He cracked inside jokes from our childhood as we started our walk to help me hold back tears,” Serena remembers. “Then, of course, I started crying with laughter, and the battle had officially been lost. I borrowed his handkerchief many times throughout the ceremony. I remember looking out at our friends and family all nestled in their seats, tucked into the gorgeous valley in this place we love so dearly, and thinking to myself, how incredibly lucky and grateful I was to be here.”
Despite the long guest list, Serena notes that from the altar, “it seemed cozy and intimate, and I felt all the love we had surrounding us.” After the couple shared personal vows—to plenty of laughter and happy tears—there was another humorous moment. “The only thing that I could say went ‘wrong’ was that our microphone was too short,” the bride says. “We are tall and kept having to bend down to speak into it. At one point, Nick actually picked up the microphone stand and held it up for me as I spoke. It made the crowd and me burst into laughter, and people kept telling us afterward how much they loved it.”
Looking back, there’s only one thing Serena missed on her wedding day. “I wish more than anything that my father could have been there to walk me down the aisle himself,” she says. “But I felt his presence during the ceremony and throughout the whole weekend. I am sure he would be proud to have his two children walk down the aisle together.” Indeed, while there were supposed to be storms throughout the weekend, at the last minute the forecast changed, and the weather turned out to be beautiful. Then, an hour before the ceremony, it started to drizzle. “Amazingly, it stopped just before we headed down the aisle,” Serena says. “I felt particularly at that moment that my dad was there with us in spirit.”
After the service was over, the newlyweds hopped on a golf cart decorated with the traditional cans and a “Just Married” sign and went for a joyride, sharing a glass of the bride’s favorite Champagne, before everyone moved into the red barn for dinner. After the meal was over, the couple danced to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” an apropos choice for a wedding in the Smoky Mountains—and afterwards, the bride changed into a sparkly dress by The LG Project by Lauren Gabrielson and Sound House took the stage.
Now that the wedding is behind them, the couple has spent the summer reminiscing: “We’re reliving the weekend through photos and videos,” Serena says. “And we’re very thrilled to finally be able to put down the weather app for good!”
Photo: Norman Blake1/69First day of our wedding weekend! We wanted our guests to experience Blackberry in its sunny glory and had been worried all week, as the weather forecast was calling for pouring rain. We felt relieved and lucky when the storms turned, and we woke up Thursday to a beautiful day.
Photo: Norman Blake2/69Ready to kick things off.
