After an unexpected meeting at a bar five years ago, Blake Long and Lauren Elmore tied the knot in an intimate NYC wedding
By Emily Davis| Photo by Tay Brauer Photography
Wedding Date Sept. 8, 2022
Occupations Lauren owns Durham’s own Mode Consignment Boutique. Blake is the chief medical officer at medical consulting firm Alva10 and teaches about health care innovation as an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Crossed Paths Lauren, a Wilmington native, and Blake, a Duke graduate from eastern Tennessee, met by chance in 2017. Lauren describes it as “a random Thursday” when she found herself sitting next to Blake at Mateo Bar de Tapas. Five years later, they celebrated their marriage on the anniversary of this lucky encounter.
The Proposal Blake surprised Lauren with a Valentine’s Day getaway trip to Miami Beach, Florida, in 2022. After a romantic dinner, Blake took Lauren to the rooftop at 1 Hotel South Beach and proposed under the stars.
The Big Day Blake and Lauren’s New York City wedding weekend began with an intimate Thursday afternoon ceremony at a city courthouse. “Just the two of us,” Lauren says. Her hair was done by Rachel Radford, a close friend of the couple and owner of Carrboro’s Ceremony Salon. In lieu of a standard reception, Blake and Lauren invited 44 of their closest friends and family members to an elegant dinner party inside The Beekman hotel’s private cellar on Friday night. Celebrations continued the next morning with a rooftop family brunch and a night out on the town in the heart of Manhattan. The idea for this intimate city-centric wedding came from Lauren’s close friend of more than two decades, wedding planner Amanda Scott of A Swanky Affair. “[Amanda] actually started planning our wedding before we even got engaged,” Lauren says.
Favorite Moments “My favorite thing about our wedding day is that it was on [the fifth] anniversary of the day we met,” Lauren says. “It will always be a special day for both of us, reminding us of how lucky we are that we sat down next to each other that one evening.” Blake says he will forever remember holding hands and strolling through the city with Lauren after their ceremony, “the beginning of walking together through life.”
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