The brilliant colors of Sam and Sasha’s Maine wedding is just one of the things that will catch your eye in today’s Little Black Blog feature from the always fabulous Michelle Turner and Amber Small at Sweetest Thing Weddings! As you’ll read below, they were married at the Asticou Inn near Acadia National Park. They incorporated a very special blessing of the rings ceremony that is definitely steal-worthy!
See Sasha & Sam’s entire gorgeous gallery here!
from the beautiful bride …
Sam and I met in 2006 while I was apprenticing on an organic farm and he was working as a timber frame carpenter. We became friends, fell in love, and started dating. In 2009, we bought a farm in Milbridge, Maine that we called Salty Dog Farm. Nowadays, Sam is the full-time farmer while I help in the summers (during the rest of the year, I am a teacher a local high school). We grow a diverse crop of organic vegetables that we sell at local farmers’ markets, restaurants, and within the local community.
We were engaged for a long while before we started planning the wedding. We both wanted a wedding that reflected our values – a strong commitment to the environment, family, and community. The thought of planning a wedding that would fulfill those values while also being fun, relaxed, and elegant was overwhelming. And yet time was passing quickly. Luckily, we hired Amber Small of Sweetest Thing Weddings in November of 2009. I described what we looking for and she organized the entire thing. She had a design sense that fit what we looking for – casual elegance with lots of color and individuality. She also connected with us all the amazing vendors that we worked with including the Asticou Inn and Michelle Turner Photography.
Our wedding began at the heart of that important day – the marriage ceremony. Our ceremony reflected our strong beliefs in family and community. Our dear friend who married us, Stephanie Morgan, suggested a ribbon tradition as part of the ceremony. We had a gold ribbon woven through the audience as way of uniting the separate families and communities. It symbolically ties everyone together. We then placed our rings on the ribbon and the rings followed the ribbon so that everyone had a chance to bless the rings, and our marriage, before we placed them on each other’s hands. At the end of the ceremony, our friends and family raised the ribbon and we walked underneath of it. It felt like such a uniting of our different worlds as we became a married couple.
After the ceremony, we wanted the reception to reflect our support of local, organic food. The Asticou Inn connected with four different, local and organic farms that supplied the ingredients for our dinner. In terms of decorations, Amber found a supplier of local dahlias and she collected an amazing amount of driftwood and antique glass bottles to decorate the tables. The beautiful Sperry tents were made from recycled sails and even the chandeliers were vintage. We loved that Amber was able to use so many local and recycled decorations at our reception.
The only thing that we “imported” was the band. Slavic Soul Party is a brass band from New York City and they were amazing! They kept everyone on the dance floor for the entire night.
I loved our wedding. Amber helped create an event that was beautiful, unique to us as a couple, reflected our “farming” values, and helped tie together our families and friends. We couldn’t have asked for a more special day.
To see and hear lots more about the day, take a look at Michelle’s blog ~ here
and Amber’s blog ~ here !
Photography: Michelle Turner Photography / Tent: Sperry Seacoast / Flowers: Sweetest Thing Weddings / Event Planning & Design: Sweetest Thing Weddings / Ceremony & Reception: The Asticou (Maine) / Invitations: Peak Creative