The abundance of wedding venues in the South, all seemingly as elegant, romantic, and steeped in history as the next, can overwhelm. But these classic, standout locales offer the best of the region’s hospitality while also showcasing its diverse beauty—whether you’re looking to tie the knot amid the pines of a sporting sanctuary, in the heart of a charming city, with an ocean view, or on top of a mountain that rises from the mist.
In the Great Outdoors
Barnsley Resort
Adairsville, Georgia
This three-thousand-acre escape teems with amusements straight from a sportsman’s bucket list. Between wedding events, try your hand at such activities as horseback riding, wing shooting, and archery—all against a backdrop of Georgia pines and historic ruins—which make this recently renovated resort, with its English country cozy inn and cottages, a mainstay in the Southern sporting scene.
McLemore
Rising Fawn, Georgia
At this Lookout Mountain retreat, “guests aren’t just here for your wedding,” says McLemore’s Keely Sanders. They also come for the two world-class cliffside golf courses surrounded by fifty miles of picturesque vistas. At 2,300 feet above sea level, guests can tee off aloft the clouds and then retire to the resort’s newest accommodation, a 245-room hotel with luxe lodge vibes (and a mountain-view infinity pool) aptly named Cloudland.
The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee
Greensboro, Georgia
The shoreline spaces at the Ritz-Carlton’s Lake Oconee perch offer idyllic immersions into the Peach State’s beauty. An intimate crowd can gather in pews at the Pointe and watch the happy couple boat off, post-vows, into the sunset. Or, if narrowing down the guest list is too daunting a task, six hundred guests can take in a shimmering waterside ceremony under the pergola at the Landing venue.
In the Heart of the City
The Apiary
Lexington, Kentucky
Downtown Lexington’s best-kept secret garden is also its best-kept secret food destination. “If you are a foodie, there’s no place like it,” says Cooper Vaughan, the owner of the Apiary, an ivy-draped, salvaged-brick-and-stone building with a verdant gated garden planned by celebrated landscape designer Jon Carloftis. Custom menu items dreamed up by executive chef Tony Yalnazov are best enjoyed in the Orangerie, with its vaulted skylight and floor-to-ceiling windows that filter in sunshine from the garden outside. After the wedding, brides and grooms are invited to join the Apiary’s membership club, a weekly dinner series showcasing the best of what’s in season.
The Dewberry
Charleston, South Carolina
You’ll see why Charleston is called the Holy City after hosting a rooftop cocktail hour or a sunset ceremony at this midcentury-modern federal building turned chic hotel across from bustling Marion Square. “You can see pretty much every steeple from up top,” says the Dewberry’s Elliott Boals. After the wedding, keep the party going downstairs in the Living Room bar (one of the city’s best) or elsewhere in the heart of Charleston; the Dewberry, appropriately located on Meeting Street, is an easy central place for wedding guests to convene.
Hotel Drover
Fort Worth, Texas
Nothing less than a truly Texan wedding can be held at Hotel Drover, the leather-and-wood-accented Stockyards stay with a neon cowboy sign that illuminates Fort Worth. Say your vows or sip pre-reception ranch waters in the garden, before dancing into the night beneath the Barn’s 150-year-old reclaimed timbers and shimmering chandelier. It’s hard to be any closer to the action of the historic neighborhood—longhorns (and their drovers) walk the street outside the hotel twice a day past heritage Texas shops and iconic saloons, while musicians perform seven nights a week at the music hall next door.
On the Mountain
Biltmore
Asheville, North Carolina
No one throws a wedding quite like the Vanderbilts. It’s a tradition the Biltmore team has been perfecting at this historic estate for practically as long as the American dynasty has been associated with Asheville. The scenic property’s long list of venues—including a walled garden just outside a tropical conservatory, a transformed turn-of-the-twentieth-century barn, and in front of the circa-1895 Chateauesque mansion itself—can host as few as twenty and as many as six hundred guests.
Cataloochee Ranch
Maggie Valley, North Carolina
It’s hard to make 825 acres feel intimate, but the team at the recently revamped Cataloochee Ranch resort pulls it off. The key is in the simplicity; here, the Smokies’ scenery does the decorating. “Light florals, that’s all you need,” says events and sales director Emma Ledbetter. “It’s beautiful with or without anything.” Also adorning the landscape are twenty-two resident horses. Don’t worry, the Cataloochee cowboy team ensures there will be no equine wedding crashers. But if you rent out the historic property—twelve cozy ranch cabins and a newly reopened six-suite lodge (plus, two more lodges slated to open over the next few months)—for the weekend, guests will have plenty of time to horse around with the herd.
Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards
North Garden, Virginia
“The most beautiful sites make the best wine,” says Allegra Barnes, Pippin Hill’s vineyard production manager. So it’s no surprise that this bucolic, sprawling wedding venue outside Charlottesville also produces a lineup of lauded chardonnays, Bordeaux-style reds, and Barnes’s favorite, a crisp and fruity Petit Manseng. After a stunning ceremony on the Vineyard Lawn, overlooking the vines and the Blue Ridge Mountains, the wines (all available to purchase on-site) make for a party favor worth toasting with. “I’m a romantic,” Barnes says. “When people drink the wine, they can feel that it’s a product of place. It’s a memory.”
By the Sea
The Boca Raton
Boca Raton, Florida
The Boca Raton’s in-house design team executes elegant gatherings like clockwork, whether on the Yacht Club’s Mediterranean terrace overlooking Lake Boca or for barefoot guests on a private beach. “I’m partial to the Cathedral,” says the Boca Raton’s president and CEO, Daniel Hostettler. “Opened in 1930, it still carries that original character: a wood-paneled and painted ceiling, cloister columns, and a carved linenfold door. For a ceremony, the room frames the moment without effort.”
The Breakers Palm Beach
Palm Beach, Florida
With its panoramic ocean vistas and 1896 Italian Renaissance architecture inspired by Rome’s Villa Medici, the Breakers captures the essence of Old Florida luxury, without the bride and groom having to lift a finger. “Behind the scenes, a team of seasoned experts—including award-winning chefs, master sommeliers, and design specialists—curates every detail with precision and creativity,” says one of the resort’s directors, Fernando Teixeira. With the particulars taken care of, the couple (and their guests) can enjoy some pre-wedding R&R at the indoor-outdoor spa or by the four oceanfront pools, before walking down the aisle at one of the property’s twelve showstopping venues.
The Pearl and WaterColor Inn
Rosemary Beach and Santa Rosa Beach, Florida
Just eight miles apart on 30A, the Pearl, a luxury boutique hotel with black-and-white-striped awnings and old-world European flair at Rosemary Beach, and the calm, coastal WaterColor Inn, tucked into the five-hundred-acre WaterColor community along Santa Rosa Beach, provide picture-perfect spots to say “I do.” Pick from among five venues at WaterColor—ranging from the rustic Boathouse to the pine-fringed Lake Park—and four at the Pearl (including a rooftop deck with views of the Gulf’s white sand and aquamarine waves) for a choose-your-own-wedding adventure.
