A place with a story
Our Venue: Camp Lucy
Dripping Springs, Texas · August 28, 2027
We chose Camp Lucy for its beauty, history, and its Hill Country setting.
On Saturday, August 28, 2027, we will celebrate at Camp Lucy in Dripping Springs, Texas, about thirty minutes west of Austin, on rolling Hill Country land above Onion Creek. The property spans roughly 282 acres and carries a story as distinctive as the landscape itself.
From family retreat to gathering place
Camp Lucy began as a private family retreat. In 1985, Lucy and Roger Hanks purchased the land as a country getaway. It is named for Lucy Hanks, mother of Whit Hanks, the Austin native who later kept the property in the family and shaped what guests experience today.
Whit, a former real estate developer and antiques dealer, is the property’s owner. Kim Hanks, then a local event planner, encouraged him to open the grounds to weddings. Together, they built Camp Lucy into a Texas Hill Country resort.
A chapel’s journey across the ocean
The heart of our ceremony and reception grounds is Ian’s Chapel, Camp Lucy’s original venue complex. Its path from family ranch to gathering place began with Whit’s oldest son, Ian. After Ian moved to Asia, he urged Whit to visit Vietnam. There Whit discovered French Colonial antiques and an 1880s Catholic church of intricately carved ironwood that was slated for demolition to make way for a newer building.
Whit purchased the church. It was carefully photographed, labeled, packed into shipping containers, and sent across the ocean to Texas. On the Dripping Springs hill it was rebuilt timber by timber. Ironwood is among the hardest woods in nature and does not take nails easily; the frame locks together with grooves and joints, much like oversized Lincoln Logs.
A campanile was added to hold a nineteenth-century French bell that still marks happy occasions on the property. The chapel, pavilion, events hall, gardens, stone terrace, arch, and great lawn are known together as Ian’s Chapel, named to honor Ian Hanks, who died on December 23, 2011, shortly after marrying the love of his life, Sandra, at Camp Lucy.
Three buildings that will frame our day
Our ceremony
The Chapel
The restored nineteenth-century Vietnamese church is now an intimate sanctuary with pew seating, rebuilt on Texas limestone and brick and filled with the character of its original ironwood structure.
Our cocktail hour
The Pavilion
This open-air space was built from the rare ironwood timbers of a second French Colonial church from Vietnam, this one from the 1930s. Its deep green Ludowici tile roof was salvaged from the original Bexar County Courthouse in downtown San Antonio when that landmark received a new roof.
Our reception
The Events Hall
Our reception building has Ohio roots: a majestic banquet hall created from a repurposed Amish barn originally built in the 1800s from hand-hewn white oak timbers. Relocated and rebuilt at Camp Lucy, it opened in December 2011. Camp Lucy notes the barn’s historical ties to the Underground Railroad. Today the hall features a working fireplace and cast-iron, candle-style chandeliers.
Our next chapter
Camp Lucy opened as a wedding and event destination around 2010 and has grown from that first chapel into a full resort. What began as Lucy and Roger’s family escape is now a place where countless couples—and now we—get to write the next chapter.
View wedding details