Jordan Goff married Bryce Page at their family friends’ home, Summerly Estate, on Lake Murray. The ceremony took place under a spectacular arched display of clustered roses for the colossal glass doorway at the back of the home. Charleston Virtuosi sent a harpist and a violinist to play during the ceremony from a balcony above the guests, and Jordan walked down the aisle to a serene rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and recessed to The La’s song “There She Goes.”
When Jordan Goff Page was a little girl, she attended a picturesque wedding with her parents, Donna Richmond and David Goff, at the Biltmore House, and she watched in wonder as the bride walked down the aisle to the music of a harp.
“I remember telling my parents, ‘I’m going to have a harpist at my wedding,’” Jordan says. So, as she prepared for her nuptials to Bryce Page, a harpist was the first thing she requested from her wedding planners at Cricket Newman Designs.
Jordan grew up in Clemson and, after graduating from Daniel High School, went to the University of South Carolina, while her future husband did the exact opposite, graduating from Dutch Fork High School and heading to Clemson University. Their paths crossed for years before they ended up on the road to matrimony.
Bryce, who had met Jordan briefly at a church retreat in Clemson while she was still in high school, shared a college apartment with two of Jordan’s high school friends, Russell Feaster and Nick Mauney. By the time Jordan was in college, when she would visit Russell and Nick on trips home, Bryce would flirt with her mercilessly.
“It was sort of fun to flirt with Jordan because she was not having it, the whole time,” Bryce remembers fondly. He would call her, perhaps a bit too often, and seek her out whenever he was in Columbia. Once, he relentlessly tried to FaceTime her late at night and got a text message asking him to leave her alone. The next time he called, Bryce was shocked to discover that Jordan had blocked his number.
Fast forward a few years — Jordan was teaching first grade in New York City, after earning a master’s degree from Columbia University, and Bryce was working for Dow Chemical Company in Michigan. He decided to use his new work phone to text Jordan.
“It was like a ‘guess who’ text,” Jordan says, “and I knew it was Bryce. I just had a feeling. Then, we started talking a little bit as friends.” Occasionally Jordan and Bryce would have long phone conversations, particularly after reconnecting in person at mutual friends’ weddings.
Jordan’s first inkling that her friendship with Bryce could evolve into something more romantic happened not at a wedding but at the 2018 Carolina-Clemson football game. She visited a tailgate party hosted by Bryce’s parents, Anne and Rad Page, and ended up spending a lot of time with him. Bryce’s mom knew something was up when he kept asking her to come and say hello to Jordan.
A few weeks later, just after Christmas, Bryce and his younger brother, Blake, stopped by Jordan’s family home to visit. After a long discussion at a Clemson coffee shop, Jordan and Bryce decided that they wanted to go on a date, but Jordan was going back to New York soon.
So, in early 2019, Bryce flew to Manhattan to take Jordan out to dinner. The couple dated long distance throughout that year.
Though her eventual plan was to return to South Carolina to teach, Jordan had fallen in love with New York, particularly with her first graders at a public elementary school near the United Nations. But she had fallen in love with Bryce too. Jordan really wanted him to move to the Big Apple but knew not many agriculture opportunities existed for him there. Bryce ultimately moved back to Irmo to work for a customer of Dow Chemical, Nutrien Ag Solutions.
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Jordan had no choice but to return to South Carolina earlier than planned. Bryce says, “It was a blessing because I was kind of nervous about getting engaged without us living in the same community of people. I wanted us to be in the same area, not living together but just to be a little closer before we got married.” He empathizes with the fact that Jordan had difficulty leaving New York suddenly. She stayed with her mom in Clemson and her aunt and uncle in Columbia.
“I was Zooming with my students every day, teaching virtually, which was hard, but I needed it,” says Jordan. “I think they were as much a comfort to me as I was to them.” That summer, Jordan was grateful to be hired as a literacy coach for Round Top Elementary School in Blythewood.
Before quarantine began, Bryce had even dreamed up a marriage proposal for the last day of school in June, hoping to involve the students in her class. Instead, he proposed right before Christmas 2020 at Summerly Estate, the Lake Murray home of close family friends Dan Robbins and Charles Crosby, which also became the venue for their wedding.
Cricket Newman and Sara Eaves of Cricket Newman Designs helped Jordan and Bryce plan a wedding for 400 guests by the lake. The weather was ideal for the September wedding.
Bryce says, “We got so lucky. That was probably the best weather weekend in the past two years because it didn’t get hot and it didn’t get cold.”
Before the wedding, Jordan went dress shopping at Anne Barge Atelier in Atlanta with her mother, Donna, and Bryce’s mother, Anne. Having admired an Anne Barge dress while shopping for debutante dresses with a younger cousin, Jordan knew she liked the designer.
“The Foster gown that I had seen before was the first dress I put on, and immediately when I came out, my mom cried, Bryce’s mom cried, and it felt so perfect. It was just very me — classic and girlie, and I loved the bow on the back.” Jordan juxtaposed the dress with a more whimsical cathedral-length veil with floral appliqués. She asked her stylist from Be Pretty Charlotte for sleek, classic hair.
Jordan wore a pair of Jimmy Choo pumps that she found on her first visit to New York after having moved everything out of her Manhattan apartment. Shopping with teacher friends, she was delighted to bring home the treasure from New York. Jordan’s going-away outfit was a short, feathery, white Anne Barge dress, paired with fanciful heels from Lulus.
At Bridals by Lori in Atlanta, Donna and Anne chose elegant, complementary dresses by Alexander by Daymor. Like the bridesmaids’ dresses, their gowns were black, though Donna’s had white accents. Jordan ordered white floral earrings from Miami-based Kate+Mari jewelry for herself and all of her bridesmaids. Her attendants each chose their own style of dress from among fluid satin designs by Amsale from Bella Bridesmaids. The gentlemen’s attire from Craig Reagin Clothiers was by Michael Kors.
Capital City Catering provided an elegant repast for both the rehearsal dinner at City Art and the wedding reception. Ally & Eloise Bakeshop made a spectacular berry tart in lieu of a wedding cake because a person Jordan knew in New York had served a fruit tart at her wedding in Tuscany, and Jordan really loves pie. The bakers also made coconut, key lime, and strawberry-rhubarb pies for the reception.
Jordan did not want to skimp on florals, so Cricket Newman Designs worked their magic. For her bridal bouquet, her heart was set on a spray of white orchids, a favorite flower of both of her grandmothers. Jordan wanted to lend a flowy accent to her structured bridal gown. Also on her wish list was a plethora of white roses. Sara kindly did not share the fact that white roses were in short supply until after the issue had been resolved. Bridesmaids carried bouquets of white roses wrapped in black satin ribbon, and, for the piece de resistance, Sara crafted an arched display of clustered roses for the colossal glass doorway at the back of the house, plus one for the entrance to the reception tent.
Lush bouquets also hung from the chandeliers over the dance floor, and flowers and candles graced each table. Jordan insisted upon having seating for every guest, and Cricket’s team strung white lights over the outdoor seating to make it cohesive with the main tent.
Cricket, who also provided flowers for the rehearsal dinner hosted by Bryce’s parents at City Art, repurposed several white orchids for the wedding reception. And since Jordan wanted to have something pretty in the backyard pools near the site of the wedding ceremony, Cricket came up with the idea to attach weights to impressive floral arrangements so they would float in place in the pools.
“When I was getting ready, I saw her out there, in her shorts and barefoot, in the pool setting them perfectly,” Jordan says. Jordan was surprised by additional charming details, like wreaths around the necks of the lion statues at the home’s entrance and fresh hydrangeas at the end of each row of guest seating, as well as floral arrangements inside the grand home, where guests were greeted with glasses of Champagne and piano music, a surprise gift from Charles.
Bryce’s friends and family prayed over him before the ceremony. “Just the act of having somebody pray over you like that,” he says, “it’s very humbling because, basically, it’s just a physical representation of your needing God’s support in whatever you’re going through. So it was a good way to remind me of the real reason that we were there. Yes, it was about us loving each other, but even more than that, it was about us coming together in this covenant relationship with God being a tremendous part of that.”
Officiating during the vows was Bryce’s friend, James Jensen, who pastored a church he attended in Michigan. It had been important to Bryce that James and his wife meet Jordan before they got married, and he appreciated bringing friends together from different parts of the country to celebrate his marriage to Jordan.
The couple’s memories of their wedding festivities were captured by Chris Isham Photography from Piedmont. Jordan met Chris at church when she lived in Clemson, and he took her senior portraits when she graduated from high school. She loves his classic style and the fact that he still takes photographs with film. “I wanted to make sure that no one was going to interfere with his photos,” Jordan says. “I’m a very nostalgic person. I love pictures, and, along with the florals, that was something I really cared about.”
Charleston Virtuosi sent a harpist and a violinist to play during the ceremony from a balcony above the guests; they mixed in some pop tunes with classical pieces. Jordan walked down the aisle to a serene rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and recessed to The La’s song “There She Goes.”
Fly Fidelity, a Greenville-based group that formed during quarantine, played for the reception. Jordan says, “They blew it out of the water. They so exceeded our expectations, and truly, that was the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding. I know it was my wedding, but they had everyone on the dance floor.”
At the end of the evening, Fly Fidelity’s trombone player and saxophonist joyously escorted the bride and groom to their point of exit, Charles’ boat, where they could watch a farewell display by Pennsylvania-based PyroTechnico Fireworks from the waters of Lake Murray.
Jordan, who had been extraordinarily calm all day, found herself getting emotional during the fireworks finale. She says, “I started crying and hugging Bryce and saying that was exactly how I wanted it to go.”
