Stephanie Betts married Richard Little beneath this arbor overlooking the Tennessee River at the home of Virginia Love in Hixson. Love, a corporate tax attorney at Baker Donelson, redesigned her front yard into a Japanese garden, complete with koi pond, in order to host the wedding ceremony of her legal secretary's daughter.
Photo by Wendy Tipton
The makeover of the front yard began when Virginia Love, pictured on the flatbed truck, handpicked 5,000 pounds of large rocks and had them hauled from Flat Top Mountain to her home. She added smaller river rock to make the front-yard's water feature.
Stephanie Betts and Richard Little stand on the rock bridge that spans the koi pond.
Photo by Wendy Tipton
Virginia Love planted rose bushes and other flowering plants along the stone retaining wall, above, for the poolside reception.
Photo by Wendy Tipton
Stephanie Betts Little, Virginia Love and Evia Betts, from left.
Photo by Wendy Tipton
Stephanie Betts Little, right, and her maid of honor, Erica Humphrey, on the rock bridge that spans the koi pond.
Photo by Wendy TiptonStephanie Betts and Richard Little originally planned an intimate gathering of 15 to 20 guests for their June wedding. But as so often happens, the list of friends and family kept growing until its number was more than the restaurant could accommodate at the reception.
With just one month left before their big day, the couple was suddenly hunting for a new reception venue.
Evia Betts, mother of the bride, approached her boss and friend, Virginia Love, about the possibility of holding a poolside reception at Love's home in Hixson. Love proposed a better solution: Have the whole wedding at her house.
"I knew she was marrying a guy from New Jersey and would have a lot of out-of-town people here," says Love. "Why have them drive from downtown when we could do the whole thing here? We could set up chairs and an arbor in the front yard and they'd have a view of the river and mountains at the altar. And if it rained, she had a backup plan; we could move it all inside."
Love is a corporate tax attorney at Baker Donelson law firm; Betts has been her legal secretary for 29 years.
"She's my boss, but we're like family because we've been friends so long," says Betts.
"I've known and loved Virginia since I was about 4 years old, so I wasn't surprised when she offered to host our wedding," says Little, who now lives in Laurence Harbor, N.J. "That's the jewel of a person she is. It was a relief to have a beautiful and intimate place where I could have the wedding and reception."
Love says hosting the wedding gave her the excuse to implement a design plan for her front yard that she had been toying with for many years. Her sloping front yard is divided by an asphalt drive that loops across the width of the lawn before curving up toward the house and into a drive-through portico. The driveway creates a large grassy oval, the top of which Love designated for a 60-by-30-foot Japanese garden.
"Eighteen years ago, I made Japanese gardens on either side of my home's double front doors. I've always wanted to extend the gardens to the other side of the portico," says Love. "I grew up in the Orient, my parents were Baptist missionaries, and I've always been partial to Oriental art. Now I have a 20-by-10-foot koi pond with waterfalls on each end. I had a big lotus flower blooming in the pond at the time of the wedding and water lilies.
"We set up an arbor with flowers in it, put white chairs under the portico and made an aisle for the bride. Stephanie came out the front doors and walked across the pond's rock bridge, where the groom met her. A lot of her guests asked what wedding venue this was," Love adds, laughing at the compliment to her home.
Love says she designed her Japanese garden, but never put her plan on paper, just carried it around in her head as she worked. She did a good portion of the work herself, hiring crews to help with digging out the pond and the heavy lifting - such as 5,000 pounds of boulders and mountain stone she bought on Flat Top Mountain and had hauled to her home. Six large boulders are spaced strategically around the garden.
"I picked out rocks I thought were really interesting and unique. When they arrived, I told the crew where to place them."
That, she laughs, was a test of patience when she'd decide a placement was wrong and ask them to move a boulder - again.
The koi pond is shaped in a loose figure-eight with a 4-inch-thick stone slab serving as a bridge where the pond narrows in the center. The water feature is outlined in mountain stone stacked seven to eight layers deep with built-in fountains flowing at either end. Smaller, smooth river rock covers the pond's liner. A teakwood bench is placed in front of the pond for seating.
Near the pond, she added Japanese maples to coordinate with four maples already planted at the front of the house.
In the curve of the drive, on the opposite side of the oval from the pond, Love planted three Japanese cherry trees and several azaleas. Once finished, the two landscaped areas gave a cohesive look to the exterior of Love's home.
"It turned out 'wow!' It was so nice, because the water was flowing and it was so quiet and peaceful," Betts says, adding that she never worried whether the project would meet its one-month deadline.
"When Virginia makes up her mind she's going to do something, she's going to make it happen."
The bride calls the setting "beyond amazing" for her wedding day.
"As I walked across the bridge, the waterfall and greenery were beautiful, the fish were in the pond and the backdrop of the river and city was gorgeous," she says. "Everything was perfect."
Contact Susan Pierce at spierce@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6284.