Story by Hailey Wist
Photographs by Ashley Spangler

Bridget File and Grant Balogh met while working summer jobs on Kiawah Island. It was a chance meeting that led to a forever romance.

Theirs was a quintessential summer romance. Bridget File’s family had been coming to Kiawah Island from Atlanta since she was a baby. She had grown up here—riding bikes, swimming in the Atlantic, and playing in the maritime forest with her brothers and sister. Bridget was in school at the University of Alabama when the pandemic hit. Her family was building a house at River Course and had just sold their longtime villa at Fairway Oaks. “It was the first year we weren’t going to spend the summer at Kiawah. I couldn’t believe it.” Bridget begged her dad to rent a house. He told her that if she got a summer job on the Island, he’d do it. 

“I applied at SeaCoast Sports and Outfitters in Freshfields Village that day and got the job the next,” she remembers. “And he did it!” They got a house on Greensward Road for the summer, and Bridget clocked in for her first day of work. That’s when she met Grant Balogh. 

Grant’s parents had honeymooned on the Island back in the nineties. But it wasn’t until Grant and his twin brother and younger sister were teens that they started to vacation on Kiawah as a family. After a few visits, they bought a house on Surfsong Road and Kiawah became the new Balogh getaway. When the pandemic hit, the family hightailed it to the Island from Charlotte. Grant’s summer internship had fallen through, and he got a job at SeaCoast. 

It was the silver lining of a global pandemic. Grant and Bridget stood side by side, filling out paperwork on their first day of work. Grant leaned over and asked, “Are you writing your home address or your Kiawah address?” And as they say, the rest is history.

The two played it cool at first. They were friends. As restrictions tightened on the Island, Bridget was stationed at the front of the store, counting how many shoppers came in at a given time. Grant would linger at the front, keeping her company. One day, he invited her night fishing and that became their go-to evening activity. But Grant always brought a friend. 

“Finally I was like, Do you want to do something else? I don’t really like fishing,” Bridget remembers, laughing. “Am I not giving enough of a hint?” Grant shrugs, smiling. “I wasn’t picking up on anything. I really liked her and it was just a way to be around her. I thought she enjoyed it!”

One night they went out to the beach with some friends, and Grant left the fishing poles behind. It was a glorious summer night and they stayed out late, counting shooting stars. And that’s when things kicked into high gear. They didn’t say it that night, but Grant Balogh and Bridget File were in love. 

Like all summer romances, things got a bit sticky come August. They made plans to see each other again in Atlanta, again on Kiawah, and on a trip to Florida with Bridget’s college friends. “Everyone always told me to leave with a plan about when to see each other next,” Bridget remembers. “It was really hard sometimes.” But the two made it work, piecing things together month by month, year by year. 

“I just remember there was a moment when she started sending me rings,” Grant says. It was 2022 and Bridget was living in Atlanta after college. Grant was in Charleston. Marriage had definitely come up, and Grant met with Bridget’s dad, Jay, to ask for her hand. With Jay’s blessing, Grant got a ring and came up with a plan for the proposal. It was to take place on Kiawah, of course. 

“I held tight to the ring for a month and kept it in my closet. I was so nervous. I kept checking on it every day,” he smiles, remembering. “I would open it just to make sure it was there.”

The plan was to propose at The Beach Club in mid-November. Grant and Bridget’s friends Kate and Andrew would be there, hiding in the bushes, ready to jump out and take photos when the moment arrived. Then Bridget’s parents would join, and they’d all have champagne and dinner at B-Liner. 

“I had an inkling,” Bridget smiles. “Grant’s not a planner, and he had made these plans on this specific date, three weeks in advance.”They had a drink at The Beach Club gazebo first. Bridget forgot her ID and Grant was flustered. He suggested they take a walk on the beach. By now, Bridget was sure a proposal was imminent. Bridget took off her shoes; Grant kept his cowboy boots on. Bridget made a comment about cowboy boots and how she wanted a pair, and Grant blurted it out, “Maybe I will get you a pair for our wedding…because will you marry me?” 

They laugh, remembering. “I was so nervous! I just wanted to get it out,” says Grant. Bridget shakes her head. “We were literally mid-cowboy boot-conversation.” Kate and Andrew jumped out of the bushes and started taking pictures as Grant dropped to one knee. And Bridget, of course, said yes. 

It feels fitting that Grant and Bridget’s summer love culminated in a winter wedding, the seasons of their romance like two halves of a whole. “I had watched weddings on Kiawah my whole life,” says Bridget. “I knew I wanted to get married here.” The couple didn’t even entertain other options. They booked the next available date—December 16, 2023, at the River Course clubhouse. 

The bride got ready in the ladies locker room at Cassique with her bridesmaids, and the couple did their first look in the garden next to the clubhouse—Grant in a Brodie tartan kilt and Bridget in an Anne Barge gown. When they got to River Course, almost two hundred guests were waiting on the lawn. 

After a Catholic ceremony officiated by family friend Father Kevin Peak, a bagpiper led the newlyweds and their guests back toward the Clubhouse. 

It was a late-night affair. After cocktail hour (the bride’s signature drink was an espresso martini and the groom’s was the “Dirty Bird”—Woodford Reserve and lemonade), speeches, and dinner, the guests flooded to the dance floor, dancing into the wee hours. Around midnight, Bridget’s dad arranged for Chick-fil-A sandwiches to be delivered. 

The next day, the couple drove up to Highlands, North Carolina, to stay at Old Edwards Inn for a mini honeymoon. They took a proper honeymoon the following June, traveling to Sardinia and the Amalfi Coast. 

Grant and Bridget now live on Johns Island, just a quick drive from the roundabout at Freshfields, where their story began. “What if we hadn’t rented the house that summer?” Bridget muses. “I would’ve never met my future husband.”