Burying the Bourbon: How this southern tradition brings luck to Seaside weddings
Burying the bourbon might just be the biggest wedding trend you’ve never heard about because it brings luck to Seaside weddings. The Southern wedding tradition requires a couple getting married to bury a full, upside-down bottle of bourbon at their wedding venue exactly one month before their wedding to ward off rain on the big day. Directly following their nuptials, they dig up the lucky bottle and share it with their guests.
The Seaside Times found out about the lucky tradition from Willie Harrell, when she told us about her daughter Breezi and son-in-law Leonardo’s stunning Italy-inspired nuptials.
To find out their family’s sweet experience burying the bourbon, The Seaside Times reached out to Willie, who first heard the lore when she was in Seaside before her daughter Evan’s wedding. She was grocery shopping at Modica Market when a fellow Seaside resident urgently asked if she’d buried the bourbon yet. 
“I had no idea what she was talking about but once she planted the seed, there was no turning back,” Willie said. After researching the superstition to get all the rules right, they set their plan in motion – they didn’t want to leave the weather to chance for Evan’s big day.
“Legend has it, there are many bottles of bourbon behind the Seaside Chapel that were not to be found on the wedding day,” Willie revealed. To guarantee the bride, groom, and their bridal party would find the bourbon they put a keepsake rock etched with Evan and her husband David’s names to mark the spot.
The family ended up surprising the bride and groom with a commemorative shovel at their rehearsal dinner at Bud & Alley’s Waterfront Restaurant – and that’s when they found out the lucky bourbon bottle had been buried on their behalf. Directly after the ceremony, the bridal party gathered around the chapel to dig up the bourbon. They then passed around the bottle to share a celebratory sip and toast the newlyweds.
“The weather for the wedding weekend was perfect!” Willie confirmed. On Thursday, there was a tented welcome party for 300 people, a gorgeous beach day cup toss tournament on Friday, and a beautiful wedding day and reception, all with ideal temperatures for April – clear skies with a high of 77 degrees and best of all, low humidity. But on Sunday, Willie said the heavens opened and it was a downpour.
When Willie’s daughter Breezie and her now-husband Leonardo decided to tie the knot at The Seaside Chapel, it happened to fall during hurricane season, and they continued the tradition of burying the bourbon. They engraved their rock with their dog Snacks’ name to help out the wedding party.
“As legend promised, the weather was nothing short of stunning – postcard-worthy,” Willie raved. The October wedding had low 90s and a light breeze for perfect beach days for the Italian guests, making for the perfect Seaside vacation – all because of the buried bourbon.
