When the Bride works in the restaurant industry, you better bet her modern affair incorporated some mouth-watering cuisine. From their literal cheese cake to the crafted cocktails, every details is downright delicious. Adam & Sam Photography were behind the lens capturing every savored moment, and you can relish it all here!
From the beautiful Bride… I knew Shadow Lawn was the perfect venue for us before even going there. We knew wanted to stay away from anything that was too “wedding-y” and be able to really make the day ours. Shadow Lawn is a beautiful barn and gorgeous lawn but that’s it, just a space, everything else has to be brought in. For us that was perfect because we got the chance to decorate the room as we wanted, use the chairs we wanted to use, select the table size and shape, choose the glassware, etc. We love to host people and so it was really important to us that we be able to choose the food and wine and be able to create the right vibe for our guests. The wedding was a destination for everyone so we really wanted to make sure that everyone had a rockin’ good time. Most people made a weekend out of it and stayed in the various b&b’s in the area which was great.
I am in the restaurant industry so the food was a big deal to us, we wanted to do family style dinner because that way everyone gets a little of everything!! We served a selection of our favorite foods during cocktail hour which included general tso chicken, veggie samosas, lox and scallion cream cheese toasts, oyster po’boys and platanos with mole. It was the perfect mash up. We take our boozing seriously too so we had many options including lambrusco, old-fashioneds, kir royales, a gin drink we called the Heatherington (Jon’s grandmothers maiden name) and hot apple cider with optional bourbon. For dessert we did cider donuts, pies and a “cheese cake”. We aren’t into wedding cakes so we opted for cheese because that’s how we like to end our meals! We had a few different types of cheese stacked on top of each other to make a “cake”, it was exactly what we wanted.
As far as inspiration for the day we really put so much thought into what was going to make the guests happy, we wanted it to be a great time for everyone because its probably the only time that we would ever have everyone that we love and cherish most together in the same room, we knew we couldn’t blow it! So we just focused on that, we knew that with such a gorgeous venue and beautiful area that everything would look great, we just had to make sure that we got the hospitality elements down. For flowers we kept it simple, there was so much natural beauty on the trees all around us so rather than trying to compete with that we kept things green and white, our florist did a fantastic job with making the arrangements really romantic, I kind of changed my mind about the flowers right before we had to order them, he did exactly what I wanted, he nailed it. For DIY stuff there was a ton! I am a jewelry designer so I was able to make our rings which was really special. I kept them really simple and made matching white gold bands. My lovely ladies and I made the wedding favors which were sriracha salt and lemon salt, that was great fun. We also bought the napkins rather than renting them because we wanted to use tea towels, so trekking to ikea and then folding all of those was quite a task! We had photos of our family members who couldn’t be there with us up on display, most of them were photos from their wedding days, it was really incredible to feel like they were there with us. For a guest book we used a jenga set so that when we play we can read everyone’s thoughts and wishes.
For music we had a gypsy jazz band play for the ceremony, cocktail hour and throughout dinner and then after dinner my sleep-away camp counselor from childhood DJ’ed. She played all of the throwbacks, one of my favorite moments of the day was when the Fugee’s came on and all of us were singing at the top of our lungs arm in arm, it was perfect.
To end the night we had a bonfire with sparklers and guitars, we sang along to Jon and his best friend playing the Dead and then walked down to the bar in town. They had a funk band playing and we danced the night away. The next day we went to our friends house in the area and had chili and sat by another bonfire and played more guitar and my ladies still had their flower crowns in their hair, I don’t think any of us wanted the weekend to end.
There was a lot of effort that went into planning this wedding because we wanted it to be so special and I’ve spent a lot of time replaying it in my head and trying to think of anything that didn’t go right or was forgotten and I honestly can’t think of anything. It was by far the best day/weekend of my life.
Photography: Sam Nichols Photography | Floral Design: Green Cottage | Wedding Dress: Rebecca Schoneveld | Rings: Kate Claughton | Bridesmaid Dresses: J.Crew | Catering: Bridge Creek Catering | Wedding Venue: Shadow Lawn