While thousands of students were at Carolina Cup, the 88 students in the HRTM 362 worked from 7:30 a.m. to midnight to make a love story come to life.
Erin Stone and Scott Smith began dating when they were 16 and went to their high school prom together. They moved away to college and lost touch, and Stone married a man named Patrick and had her daughter, Cameron, with him.
Patrick was diagnosed with cancer less than a year and a half later and died.
But Stone and Smith were reunited a few years later, and Stone said they have only fallen more in love ever since.
Smith proposed to her on Christmas Eve by asking Cameron if he could marry her mom.
Their story came full circle when they won a contest for a free wedding thrown by the HRTM 362 class. The wedding took place in Rutledge Chapel on March 29, complete with several personal touches planned specifically for the couple.
Cameron even wore her mother’s first wedding dress, which had been altered to fit her, and walked down the aisle as the flower girl.
After Smith and Stone read their own vows to each other, Smith read vows to Cameron as well.
“We were all surprised when Scott married Cameron as his new little girl, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the chapel,” said Annette Hoover, the wedding planning class’ professor.
The rustic-themed wedding went smoothly for the couple, but there was a lot of planning that went on behind the scenes. The class had a budget of $0 and just 13 weeks to plan the wedding, so they made the most of both their time and budget.
“As soon as we came in, we hit the ground running,” third-year hospitality management student Damarah Reid said. “Sometimes the tasks were easy, sometimes the tasks were very difficult.”
The class met Monday and Wednesday evenings, and Stone came to every class to help work out the details of her wedding. The students split into about 15 committees, each working on a different aspect of the event.
“The favorite part for me was getting to bond with my group and getting to work together as a team,” said Reid, who was a part of the invitations committee. “That’s very unusual in such a large class.”
With no budget, the class had to arrange to have everything donated. Many of the students agreed that the hardest part of planning the wedding was finding vendors.
“You have all these great ideas, and then you’re like, ‘Oh wait, we might not be able be able to get that for free,’” fourth-year hospitality management student Jaci Michaelson said.
But overcoming the obstacles helped the class explore the challenges of event planning.
“We’ve learned everything about planning a wedding,” Reid said. “Anything you can think of related to a wedding, we’ve pretty much learned it.”
At first, Reid thought it was crazy that she was required to arrive at 7:30 a.m. on the big day, but she quickly learned how difficult setting up a wedding could be.
“It’s really not a one-person job,” Reid said. “If you’re not a hands-on person, there’s no point in you being in the class.”
Despite the obstacles, the students said they learned a lot and generally found the experience to be positive.
“They’re a genuine couple and they were so appreciative,” said Lauren Burke, a third-year hospitality management student. “It doesn’t feel like work when it’s like that because you’re having so much fun.”
And for some, the work they had done didn’t seem real until Stone entered Rutledge Chapel.
“It just really wasn’t real to me in the process,” fourth-year public relations student Jessica Rowe said. “It just wasn’t real to me when the bride walked down that aisle. That’s when it hit me.”
Many of the students in the class hope to become event planners in the future and took the class hoping they would learn about the process of planning an event.
“I know I want to be a wedding planner,” second-year tourism student Chelsea Reynolds said. “I’ve actually been looking forward to taking this class since I visited and went on a tour.”
Hoover said part of the reason she teaches the class is to make an impact on the future of the wedding planning industry.
“This is our future,” Hoover said. “Without them, we wouldn’t have any wedding planners.”
After the fact, students in the class seemed to be happy with their work.
“I think everything went as smoothly as we could make it,” Reid said. “I’m very satisfied with the end product.”
And for many members of the class, seeing the final product come together was both rewarding and exhilarating.
“It was really exciting,” Michaelson said. “The final product is always so much better than you imagine it to be.”
Hoover attributed part of the wedding’s success to the couple’s attitude.
“Every wedding is different. Every wedding happens,” Hoover said. “This was probably one of the earliest weddings because the bride was so appreciative. From the moment she realized she was chosen to this day, she was so calm and just let the students plan it.”
The Wedding Planning and Management Class started in 2004, and a “Love Story” has come to life each semester ever since.
For the first time this summer, they will have a summer semester wedding with the couple that was a close runner-up to Stone and Smith.