If you thought backyard weddings were a bore, think again because this sweet ceremony planned by Duke + Van Deusen is here to prove you wrong. Because not only did these sweethearts marry infront of a rose garden, the bride incorporated traditional in an incredible feat and folded 1,000 paper cranes to hang from the alter. It’s entertainment meets easy elegance and we’ve got every bit of beauty that unfolded underneath the Sperry Tents reception captured by Meg Miller Photography waiting in The Vault!
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From the Bride…When I was 8 years old I was a flower girl in my Grandma’s wedding. She got married in front of the rose garden at my parent’s house in Quogue, NY. I always thought that wedding was perfect, and the rose garden was the perfect place to get married.
My husband, Byron, and I met at Gaffney’s, a bar in Saratoga Springs after the Travers Horse Race in 2011. I was there was some of my friends from Skidmore and he was there with a group of childhood friends. Hurricane Irene had just started and I was trying to get all of my friends to leave the bar before the storm escalated, but no one else seemed concerned so I went inside to get out of the rain and ended up sitting down next to Byron, who claims he’d been eyeing me from across the room.
Three years later, at the top of the tram in Jackson Hole. Wyoming, Byron popped the question. We celebrated our engagement at the top of the mountain with ice cold champagne that had been hidden in the snow earlier by a friend.
Back in Brooklyn, we started planning our wedding and I was thrilled to find out that Byron loved the idea of getting married in front of the rose garden at our house in Quogue as much as I did. We wanted our wedding to feel like an intimate, backyard wedding, despite the fact that we were inviting over 200 guests. With a year and half to plan our wedding, we enlisted the help of Duke and Van Deusen to help us make our vision a reality.
We didn’t want our ceremony to be too serious, but instead more fun and personal. Byron walked down the aisle with his mom and our cocker spaniel, Coco. We asked a family friend officiate (the same friend who had officiated my grandmother’s wedding, 21 years ago) and my uncle played guitar. My mom walked me down the aisle to “April Come She Will,” by Paul Simon, a song that had always been a family favorite. Byron and I wrote and recited our own vows and my mom read a passage from one of my favorite childhood books. Based on a Japanese tradition that is supposed to teach a bride patience, I folded 1000 white paper cranes which hung from our altar.
As the chef and owner of a farm to table catering company, Pickle and Link, I wanted to incorporate local produce into the floral décor, an idea that Ovando, our florist, executed perfectly. At dinner, all of the centerpieces were made up of flowers and potted herbs. The head table had a runner of eggplant, artichokes and cabbage. I hand wrote our guests names on all of the place cards which were then tied to a piece of rosemary.
Keeping with the backyard wedding vibe we had created, for dinner we had a family style BBQ by chef Peter Ambrose, complete with a whole roasted pig, cedar plank smoked bass and heaping amounts of creamy mac and cheese, so delicious that even I, the bride, made time to sit down and eat!
Our band, Eturnity Star, was so amazing that every wedding guest was on the dance floor from the moment they entered our amazing Sperry Tent. I was very lucky that my good friend and photographer, Meg Miller was there to capture the whole thing!
Photography: Meg Miller Photography | Cinematography: Well Spun Wedding Films | Event Planning: Duke + Van Deusen | Floral Design: Ovando | Wedding Dress: Peter Langner | Catering: Pete Ambrose Events | Hair: Steven Berg | Band: Eturnity Band | Chalkboard: Kara | Mother of the Bride Dress: Monique Lhuillier | Party Rentals: Party Rental LTD | Tent Rentals: Sperry Tents
