Not to get ahead of the summer weather we are FINALLY enjoying here in New England, but I seriously love fall fêtes. There is inspiration to pull from everywhere, and this Adirondack wedding by Andy Duback pulled prettiness from all of my fall favorites – apples, barns, and the beautiful, crisp fall colors. On top of all of that – the couple requested all the ladies attending this festive fall occasion wear hats to recognize the groom’s English heritage. Love that! Since I not so secretly want hats to become the norm at weddings, I couldn’t be more thrilled at this step in the right direction. One small step for the hat-wearing kind! Don’t forget there is even more of this fabulous, fall, hat-wearing wedding in the full gallery of images!
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From the Bride… We got married September 4, 2010 at our farm in the Adirondacks. The farm has been in my family for over a hundred years and is a special place for me and my husband. It brings together all of our cousins on summer weekends and has made us all so much closer.
Once we decided to get married at the farm, the look and feel of the wedding developed from that. We used the colors of the barns (red and a pale blue) for our invitations. Our wedding weekend included lots of our favorite activities – from hiking to biking, swimming to visiting a goat farm. Matt and I spent all spring and summer working to transform our hay barn into a romantic and beautiful space for our cocktail hour. We brought in fresh cut trees and put up lights from Restoration Hardware.
Fall at the farm is so wonderful because we grow our own apples and make cider using a traditional cider press. We decided to get married in the apple orchard so we used apples as a theme throughout the wedding. They looked beautiful and saved us a lot of money on flowers. We used them at the entrance to the farm in my grandmother’s old fashioned bicycle basket, in cider presses that we had on the property directing people to the cocktail hour and tent and lining the aisle. We also put them in everyone’s gift bags. One of my bridesmaids made a stamp of the farm and we used that as a tag for the gift bags.
When we were cleaning out the barn, we found a lot of wonderful things that we used as decoration. My step dad cleaned and wheeled out an old Model T car that was my uncle Johnny’s. Johnny is no longer with us so it was very meaningful to have his car there. Inside the tent, we used the same colors from the barns for the table cloths, flowers and menu cards. We also had shinny apples and tea lights on all the tables. My friend made the menu cards and table numbers as a gift to us and we ordered simple red frames online to make them look elegant. We brought in branches from our land to tie to the tent poles to give the tent a more natural feeling and collected moss to surround our birch tree looking wedding cake.
Outside of the tent we set up two white, wrought iron benches for people who wanted to go outside and enjoy the evening. We hung mason jars from the trees over the benches and put candles in them to give it a warm feeling. As a guest book, we had an unfinished Adirondack chair and left pens in our theme colors for our guests to sign. My husband is from England so we asked all the ladies to wear hats and the men to wear morning suits. The hats were a big hit and lots of fun. We repainted the posts for horse jumps and placed them around the tent for ladies to put their hats on. My friend Mary used paint leftover from painting our barns to paint signs for the cocktail hour, wedding and after party. Our florist put flowers on the chupa and lined the aisle with rose petals. We lit candles at the beginning of the aisle. My uncle is a rabbi and officiated. We wrote our own vows which were heartfelt but also funny. We served lemonade and sparkling water to guests when they arrived and passed out little bottles of bubbles for guests to blow instead of rice after the ceremony. Two of our best friends sang Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling” as we walked back down the aisle after our ceremony. It was the most wonderful day of my life.