Sutton Satcher and Robert Barrow were married at the Reserve at Lake Keowee. Bridesmaids front row: Lindsey Bynum, Samantha Coyle, Stewart Johnson, Rainey Dinkins, Mary Margaret Barrow, Kelsey Solts, Larkin Dalpiaz, Sarah Kate Satcher, Brooke Wilson, Maggie Charpia, Emily Brock. Groomsmen back row: Matthew Hahn, Steven Barrow, Tuller Gibbs, Brandon DeJong, Wright Bynum, Andrew Smith, Joel Reighard (not pictured: Robert Satcher, Benjamin Satcher, Mark Barrow, Graham Pitman, Matthew Hancock).
Sutton Satcher’s family moved onto the same street in King’s Grant as Robert Barrow’s when she was in fifth grade. Theirs was a street full of kids who spent their days in a way rarely seen anymore — playing outside. The band of kids played in the woods and made forts. When they were older, they rode golf carts around the neighborhood until they ran out of gas, then pushed them home. “It was an innocent, playful childhood,” Sutton says. “Robert and I were friends. Really good friends.”
When Sutton and Robert reached middle school age, feelings started to change. “I always thought he was cute,” says Sutton. “All my friends at Ben Lippen did, too!” Sutton was the lucky one, though, who lived beside Robert. Just before they started high school, the friendship made that important leap when Robert, standing in his parents’ driveway, told Sutton he really liked her. “And that was it,” says Sutton. That was “it” for five years.
The young couple dated until their first year in college at Clemson before breaking up. The still-friendly couple went their separate ways and, for a time, rarely saw each other. After graduating from Clemson with a degree in communication and nonprofit management, Sutton moved to Nashville, working remotely for Softdocs.
“Nashville was a fun place to live right after college,” Sutton says, “especially with so many friends around. And although I still saw Robert occasionally, our time apart was important because it gave us both a chance to experience life without the other.”
Five years after breaking up, the romance rekindled at a wedding for mutual friends. But that took a bit of a nudge because Robert thought she was dating someone else. “My cousin Wright Bynum, also Robert’s best friend,” Sutton says, “convinced him to ask me to dance. After that, there was no going back.”
Sutton soon returned to Columbia while Robert was finishing his years at the University of South Carolina School of Law. “I thought perhaps he would propose sometime after he finished law school and before he started studying for the bar exam,” says Sutton. She suspected he was working on an engagement ring when he would receive a message on his phone that he hid from her.
“I’d given him an idea of what I wanted,” she says. “In the end, he did a lot of the design himself.” The ring, from Harlin Diamonds in Atlanta, features an old European cut in a modern bezel.
On an evening in March 2022, Sutton planned to go to a girls’ dinner at Halls Chophouse for the birthday of a friend, Nan Spacek. Nan and Larkin Dalpiaz, Sutton’s best friend, also grew up on the same street as Sutton and Robert. “I think she was making sure I was dressed up,” Sutton says. Robert arrived to pick up Sutton as the group’s guy-friends were going to cook out before joining the girls for dinner. This explained why Robert was dressed up.
“But, I’d decided to try this new hairstyle. When Robert arrived, I had these huge Velcro rollers stuck in my hair!” Sutton says with a laugh. The two worked for 20 minutes to free Sutton’s long hair without resorting to cutting it. Meanwhile, Robert was coordinating with friends and family about the delay in his proposal.
Finally freed, the couple walked down to the Barrows’ house where Sutton was to pick up a gift for Nan from Margaret Barrow, Robert’s mother. On their walk, Robert started talking about all their shared memories from living on the street together and how he wanted to bring everything back to where it started. They reached Robert’s back porch.
“He had decorated it with candles and a pretty rug,” says Sutton. Robert proposed, and then their immediate family popped out of the house, where they had been watching the scene unfurl. The two families then walked over to the Spaceks’ home where extended family and some friends waited to celebrate with them.
Sutton and Robert planned to marry the following March. Sutton enlisted the help of Haley Kelly, a Charleston wedding planner, who helped bring Sutton’s vision to life. In choosing a venue, Sutton and Kelly Satcher, Sutton’s mother, kept coming back to the club at the Reserve at Keowee, where the Satchers own a vacation home.
“We call it our happy place, and we wanted to share it with our favorite people,” says Sutton. She wanted their wedding to be fun, featuring neutral colors like chocolate brown, cream, and ivory with a pop of red. “Robert only cared about the band,” Sutton says with a laugh. The couple chose I Love This Band from Atlanta. “They were really great and really fun.”
Wedding dress shopping proved daunting at first. “I thought I knew what I wanted, something with long sleeves, silk or satin — a more modern look,” says Sutton. Every dress she tried on was a disappointment. Then, at Ladies of Lineage in Charlotte, Sutton was encouraged to try on a dress that was nearly the opposite of what she wanted. Strapless and form fitting, the Sareh Nouri dress was the perfect one. Sutton chose a Sassi Holford lace bolero to wear for the wedding ceremony, which she slipped off for the reception.
Kelly wore a dress designed for her by Heather Campbell of The Blake. “Heather was so wonderful,” Kelly says. “She even came up to our house the week of the wedding to make sure everything was perfect.”
Flowers were easy — Sutton wanted only roses. “No greenery, no ribbon, just roses,” says Sutton. “I wanted to stay in keeping with the natural beauty of the Reserve, so I just had two arrangements of white roses for the ceremony altar. They looked like clouds against the mountains and were my favorite thing.”
The reception tents had just two large red rose balls in large urns on each side of the band, while the tables each sported red rose balls of their own, with one large statement piece at the entrance, inspired by the Baccarat Hotel in New York City.
Attire for Sutton and Robert’s wedding was black tie, and all guests were requested to wear black. Kelly and Margaret wore fun dresses that complemented the color scheme, and the bridesmaids wore long brown dresses and carried white roses. They were followed by a sweet group of white-frocked flower girls and the flower dog, Donna, Sutton’s Cavapoo, a cross between a Cavalier King Charles spaniel and a poodle.
Sutton and Robert Satcher, her father, rode to the wedding ceremony in a white vintage Rolls Royce. Sutton and Robert’s friends waited at the club’s croquet lawn overlooking the stunning mountain setting. Despite storms the night before, the weather on the wedding day was perfect. “It was a special ceremony, facing God’s creation,” says Sutton. “The Lord just changed the weather. We knew the hand of the Lord was there, and we were grateful.”
The ceremony had many special moments. It was officiated by Stephen Dinkins, Sutton’s uncle, who is a missionary in Kenya, and David Gentino, Sutton’s pastor at Columbia Presbyterian Church. During the ceremony, the two families shared a prayer with the couple while Cecily Hennigan, a Nashville musician and Sutton’s friend, sang “The Blessing” by Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes. “I was overwhelmed,” says Kelly of that moment. “It was so special to see them so in love.”
Following the wedding ceremony, Sutton and Robert’s guests walked down around to the back of the clubhouse for the cocktail hour and then down the hill to the reception on the Great Lawn, which was hosted in three large tents with astounding views of the mountains. The newlyweds cut their cake made by Mary Palmer Tucker and Elizabeth Richards. Then they, along with most of the guests, stayed on the dance floor throughout the evening, finishing with a late night snack of chicken biscuits and fries.
At the night’s end, Sutton and Robert stole into the Rolls Royce, now festooned with red heart shaped Mylar balloons, and rode away into their future together.
