Jess is near and dear to our hearts for so many reasons. She’s one of the warmest, sweetest ladies on the planet and her talent and creativity know no boundaries. Now infuse that spirit and all around awesomeness into her very own wedding day to her beloved and the result is total, unabashed magic with a big, whopping side of do-it-yourself details. Captured by Ebersole Photography, this is just the kind of affair we crave around here; spirited and full of love. Have a look at the gallery for even more and if you missed it, get to know Jess and get cozy with some of the DIYs from the day (here, here and here)!
From Jess…Michael grew up in Adams, MA and I grew up in Lenox, MA (a couple towns over), so when we started planning our wedding we knew wanted to get married in the Berkshires. As soon as we saw the Lenox Club, we knew we had found the right place. It’s a classic New England estate, built in 1860, with a beautiful sense of history and the feel of a sprawling Berkshire summer. We were ready to move in, but settled for renting it out for the weekend!
My favorite part of planning was creating all the small details they tell you not to worry over! I might have stressed out over them a little too much, but they have become some of my favorite mementos of the wedding. I designed our invitations and used vintage postcards of Lenox and Adams for the RSVP cards. I loved picking out the vintage stamps- I even found a stamp commemorating Poland’s millenium to represent Michael’s heritage! For our ceremony programs, I drew portraits of everyone involved in the ceremony and tied them all together in a little story of how the ceremony was going to go. I really took my time on those because I wanted everyone who was involved in our wedding to know how important their support was to us. One of my bridesmaids and my mother helped me make my veil, which was such a nice way spend time getting ready for the wedding- and a much easier project than you would think. My mother has been wanting to make my wedding cake since I was 12 or so, and we had SO much fun designing it and taste-testing until we hit just the right flavor of almond buttercream!
I think for both of us, the best part of the day was the ceremony. We didn’t do a first look, so seeing each other’s faces as I walked down the aisle was so special. Standing there, holding hands and feeling all the love and support around us in that room was an amazing feeling. Our pastor had us write letters to each other before the ceremony that we gave to her without showing each other, and then she read them as part of the ceremony. That turned out to be the hit of the wedding- not only was it so great to hear each other’s words for both of us, but our guests could not stop talking about how meaningful that made the ceremony for them. Sharing that much of ourselves with everyone there made it such an intimate experience. Immediately after the ceremony, we ran up to the balcony of the church to steal five minutes alone, connect with each other, and savor the awesomeness of being newlyweds!
We got so lucky and had beautiful, sunny, 75 weather, so cocktails were on the wide porch and lawns of the Lenox Club. When guests arrived at their seats they found little cards with instructions to write us a note as our guestbook. Waking up to a whole basket full of sweet, hilarious, heartfelt, crazy notes from all our loved ones the next morning was so amazing! We had an easy-going, delicious barbecue buffet (Mike’s favorite!) and spent the whole night talking, laughing, and dancing with our nearest & dearest- we couldn’t have asked for a better day!
One last detail- we spent our honeymoon in Italy (and Poland, and Austria), and as a nod to an Italian tradition, we got a vintage padlock engraved with our wedding date. When we arrived in Rome, we hung on it on the Ponte S’Angelo, and now we’ll always have something of ours to look for when we go back!
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Photography: Ebersole Photography | Day of Coordination: Tara Consolati | Floral Design: Groom’s Aunt | Ceremony Venue: Church on the Hill | Reception Venue: The Lenox Club | Invitations + Programs: Designed + Illustrated by the Bride | Catering: Savory Harvest Catering | Rentals: Classical Tents | DJ: Girard Brothers DJ Service | Wedding Cake: Bride’s Mother | Wedding Dress: Dabra by Enzoani | Veil: Made by the Bride + Mother of the Bride | Earrings: BHLDN | Shoes: Badgley Mischka | Bridesmaid’s Dresses: Lord & Taylor