Monthly Archives: December 2011

vendor, wedding planning

a monique affair – a same-sex friendly wedding planner!

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so, earlier i shared stephanie & chanda’s wedding and i introduced chanda, a same-sex wedding planner located in the san francisco area.  i wanted to share with you all a little bit more about her company.

she first got started in the wedding business because she loves planning parties; she planned her first one at the age of 16! But she tells me she has been in love with weddings since she was a little girl! She can remember cutting out the wedding section from her grandmother’s JCPENNY catalog and organizing a wedding party. she says she did not know back then that it was her calling, but when she finally decided to follow up on her dreams, she got certified by taking an in-home course from ABC, put her first ad in the paper, and signed her first client for $500.00!

here, she tells us more about herself and her company.  read on and be sure to check out her website for a gallery of some of the weddings she’s planned!

1. Tell us a little about yourself.
Hmmm, my eyes are naturally hazel green, depending on what I’m wearing. That is the one question that I have been asked all my life, so I should get that out of the way. I am a mother of a 20 year old beautiful daughter and I am still amazed that I gave birth to her. I have the most beautiful and smart wife in this great nation! I am a huge Michael Jackson fan (and miss him every day). I love Marilyn Monroe; I collect vintage images of her. And one day I will have a wedding featured on the pages of Martha Stewarts Weddings the “creme de la crème” for every little wedding planner. Oh, and I am a Pisces, need a say more?

2. What would you say is your favorite part of the weddings you plan? I just simply love weddings! But my absolute favorite part of the wedding is when I make that final connection with the bride before she walks down the aisle; that exact moment is so tender, especially because you can see how nervous she really is. No matter how strong a bride is during the planning process, the moment before she heads down the aisle, my words are calming and I love the feeling of assisting her in that moment.

3. Do you feel as though you face any challenges/bonuses being a same-sex wedding planner?
When I first started my business in 1999, it was a challenge finding vendors who would work with my clients. A wedding is such a personal thing; you cannot work with someone who does not believe in what you are doing. You don’t want that sort of energy on such a personal day, or at all for that matter. So I started looking for vendors who would ENJOY working with my clients. And then recently from my own wedding I had an experience, my own wedding photographer told me that she could not post my photos on her website because her parents were “conservative” and would not understand. I was truly hurt that my wedding could be posted with all her others, and had I known that information, I would have factored that into my decision on who to hire. This is why it is important to have blogs that will focus on our weddings!  What’s most important to me is finding vendors who LOVE what they do and that shows in their work, I don’t work with people who just do it for “money” because this is a creative field, and if you are not excited by it – it shows!
My biggest bonus is that I am in the community; I know firsthand how to work our weddings! I am not doing this to jump on a band wagon; this is not a trend for my business, Gay Weddings is not the new “buzz” word for A Monique Affair. I want to represent our weddings and get them featured on blogs! Our weddings are as diverse as the community itself, and I love it! I want to represent our weddings in the wedding industry, in a positive note, not just because it’s legal. Because I want everyone to have a coordinated wedding, because that’s how it should be!

4. What would you say is your typical wedding style?  Is there one?  If not, is there a certain style you enjoy doing more?
My signature style involves elements of sparkle and glam and in my events; I also love to include a “big reveal”, be it a dessert lounge, cocktail lounge, the dining space, the experience of surprise is what I am after.  What I love the most is doing full service wedding production, I love starting from ground zero with my clients and helping them put together their dream wedding, and that means whatever they vision as “their dream”! From picking the theme, this leads to the venue, which leads to the invitations and so on. That is the CREATIVE part I love!  I have a ton of questions that I ask early in the process so I can get a feel of the things they like. And this helps me draw inspiration from my clients. I love presenting ideas that they will have a hard time picking from – not just random things – but a thought-out inspiration board! Same – Sex weddings are super fun because there are no laws, requirements, traditions, you can simply be you! I absolutely love that fact!!

5. Tell us a little about your favorite wedding you planned?
All of my weddings have uniqueness to them all! But one of my favorite weddings that I planned took place in Sausalito, Ca. And the bride lived in New York, so I did the vendor meetings and such with the bride’s mother! The bride’s mother was so sweet and funny, one day we were at the wedding venue doing a tasting and this hotel went all out! For the tasting they gave us full meals! Not just a piece of everything and we looked at each other and laughed. The wedding was simply amazing, it was a weekend wedding and we planned a wine tour in Napa the day before wedding, and the rehearsal dinner was in San Francisco!  It was my first “burnt orange” wedding and it featured fruit in the centerpieces (when this was a new thing). And this was my very first featured wedding; it appeared in Today’s Bride, a magazine in California. So that’s what makes it my favorite because it was full of a lot of “firsts”. And they family was amazing! I really felt like I was an extended member, and I still keep in touch with them today.

6. I know you recently were married; do you have anything to say on being on the “other side” of the planning?  Or did you have just as much of a role as you usually do? :)
Yes! I have a lot to say about being on the other side; I have a new respect for my clients, seriously! I use to always say “calm down…relax..” but OMG – I understand! From my point of view (from being a bride) , we are planning this one event that we all hope will be the ONLY time we have a wedding. So as a “Bride” you want everything to be perfect, your family is there, you’ve been planning this in your head for years, and you have seen all these pictures so now you want it to go how you planned it. Then this means you are up in the middle of the night checking and double checking and emailing your planner (but wait – who do I email if I am planning it myself) LOL. Seriously, I had to stop and say to myself “This is not a show piece this is “MY” wedding”, no styled shoots, no pressure (I purposely decided not to invite any “industry friends”). Once I got grounded to that fact and remembered this wedding was a mixture of my wife and I, I let it all go! I trusted all my vendors to do their jobs, and I hired a “Day of Wedding Planner” to manage the day and when I let go – I truly let go. It was hard for me to let go, but I had to trust my vendors 100% and that’s just what I did. It’s so important to hire someone who will truly understand your vision and have your back 100%.

Chanda Monique {Eddens} Daniels
A Monique Affair
Wedding Coordinator & Special Event Stylist

Email: cmonique@amoniqueaffair.com

Visit them on the web: www.amoniqueaffair.com
Follow them: www.twitter.com/amoniqueaffair
Fan them: www.facebook.com/amoniqueaffair
AMA’s blog: www.amoniqueaffair.blogspot.com
WeddzillaBlogger:Weddzilla featured-vendor-blogger_Chanda Eddens

“A Monique Affair goes far beyond designing special events, we help clients articulate a vision or mood for an event.”

personal

happy holidays!

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happy holidays everyone!  i hope you all get at least a little time off to spend some time with your loved ones and recuperate  before 2012 hits!  2011 has been an awesome and eventful year for my household, but we can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring…

k and i will be heading down to my family’s house in virginia for christmas, where we will get to spend a few days enjoying a *hopefully* milder temperature, lots of good wine & food, and my mom’s usual over-the-top christmas celebration.  i have been so fortunate to be able to have the opportunity to fly home for christmas every year since i moved to boston 6 years ago, and as a nurse, that’s a pretty tricky thing to do!  but it means so much to me to be able to be with my family those few days.  there is not a time of the year that i love more than christmas eve at my parents’ house. 

 4realequalityweddings will be taking a blogging break for the next few weeks, but i plan to be back in 2012 with more real weddings, engagements, and other inspiration posts!  thank you for reading and sticking with me this year!  i love my readers and i love this blog.  it makes me so happy to work on this and to share your real same-sex celebrations with others out there, so keep the submissions coming my way!

i hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season as well! see you in 2012!

lesbian wedding, vendor

stephanie & chanda – a wedding planner gets married!

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I love featuring my readers and Chanda, of A Monique Affair, a full-service wedding and special event planning company located in the San Francisco East Bay area, has been a reader of my blog for a while.  I was very excited that she reached out to me – not only to be listed as a recommended same-sex-friendly vendor, but also to have her recent wedding to her wife, Stephanie, be featured!  So, here is their lovely wedding:

(photo courtesy of nye lyn tho – check out their site for more of chanda & stephanie’s engagement photos!)

Why did you chose your location?

{Stephanie} Our original theme was The Camper weds The Wedding Planner – the Brazilian Room was the perfect location. I could have a wedding in the woods and Chanda would make it classy.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you met?

{Stephanie} We met a few years before we started dating as a result of our business. One day Chanda sent me an email that sparked a dinner and and an eight year romance.

(photo courtesy of nye lyn tho – check out their site for more of chanda & stephanie’s engagement photos!)

What’s your proposal story?{Stephanie} We were going to spend the weekend in Redwood City to attend a Genuine / Jon B concert. Since Genuine is one of the main artist on our romantic cd, I thought it was appropriate to pop the question after his concert.

{Chanda} She truly caught me off guard! I was so surprised and I loved my engagement ring!

 What were some of the important songs used during your ceremony/reception and why?

{Stephanie} I have been in love with “Love Me In A Special Way” by El DeBarge since I was a teenager. It was the first love song I remember.

{Chanda} I selected “What are you doing for the rest of your life?” Sung by Barbara Streisand, because I loved the words and it spoke to how I feel about Stephanie.

Were any traditions incorporated into your day and what did you include that had some sort of meaning behind it?

{Chanda} Well, I wanted to make the wedding day simply about Stephanie and I. We had two memorial chairs one for Stephanie’s Mother and one for my Grandmother. We also really want to take care of our guests, so, prior to our ceremony, we passed tomato soup shooters and mini grilled cheese sandwich triangles, since our wedding was on a weeknight right after work.We selected the colors of appletini green and chocolate to go along with the natural feel and background of our venue. We used mostly chocolate during our ceremony because the lush greens of our ceremony area were already there. Then, inside for our reception we used a variety of greens and whites to go along with the chocolate tones in our reception venue.

How was your experience with the wedding professionals that you worked with?

{Chanda} Because I am in the industry, I had worked with all the wedding vendors prior to my wedding day, so I already knew they would do an awesome job! I was very pleased and they were all so excited to work on our wedding.

Tell us a few favorite things about your day:

{Stephanie} Seeing Chanda walk down the aisle – The decorations – the toasts – and a stress-free day.

{Chanda} Making eye contact with Stephanie as I turned down the aisle, and ditto to what she said ;)

Any words of advice or lessons learned when planning your wedding to share with other couples?

{Stephanie} Someone is always more excited than the other party. Don’t take it personally. Although the wedding is 80% about the “bride”, remember the 20% person doesn’t want to feel like they are only there to write checks.{Chanda} Hire a wedding planner – and I am not just saying this because I am one – but they will save you time, stress and will already know the vendors that are cool with working with our community. If you hire a DAY OF coordinator, make sure they understand your plans 100% – This is a big deal – review items 200 times and include pictures so they can get the idea. Be creative and don’t “date” your wedding with so many trendy things. And never lose track of why you are walking down the aisle….be sweet to each other during the planning phase.

(all wedding images courtesy of fern lee photography)

congratulations Chanda & Stephanie!  and remember, if you are looking for a same-sex friendly wedding planner in the san francisco area, check out A Monique Affair!

gay wedding, vendor

marke & david’s anniversary photo shoot!

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Bowerbird photography submitted this unique photo shoot to me – wedding portraits on this couple’s 1 year anniversary!  Marke and David, who are from San Francisco, got married in Connecticut last year, where same-sex marriage is legal.   The photo shoot takes place in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.  They shared that they had so much fun running around in all the trees and loved capturing the love and playfulness of this couple.Because I always love to hear a couple’s wedding story,  I went ahead and asked them my usual questions and am sharing them with you all here.  It sounds like an awesome day!

Why did you chose your location?
We’d dreamed of a fall wedding for years — somewhere woodsy and historical, with just the right rustic touches. David is from Connecticut, and we found just the right country inn from 1807 just down the road from his parents house. It was perfect!

Tell me about how you fell in love – from meeting to getting married:
We’d known each other for years on the San Francisco bar scene, but the timing was never right for us to hang out — we were both going through extended wild and crazy phases. Finally, Marke attended one of David’s infamous Hanukkah parties and David asked him out on an official date. We had our first date at a hole-in-the-wall Cuban restaurant called Flamingos. Once we realized we both got each others’ completely nerdy jokes (not “Star Trek” nerdy, more like GDP of Burkina Faso nerdy) and shared the same pool of wonky intellectual and cultural references, we were pretty much inseparable. But we come from different worlds in terms of pop culture, so we’re not so same-y that we meld together.

The Proposal:
During a two-week wilderness camping trip through the stunning American southwest in the spring of 2009, Marke popped the question. There was no ring, but there was a blazing pink-gold sunset in Monument Valley National Park after a rare rainstorm, which was certainly romantic.

What were some of the important songs used during your ceremony/reception and why?
Marke is a professional music critic so the music was very important, ha. We walked down the aisle to Jose Gonzalez’s cover of the Knife’s “Heartbeats,” one of our shared favorites. Our hilariously stereotypical but San Francisco-tribute exit music was Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” The song we danced with our mothers to was Connie Francis’ “Where the Boys Are,” and our champagne reception music was a mix of Dean Martin and Cuban classics.

Marke is from Detroit, so there was plenty of Motown and some classic Detroit techno and house for dancing during the reception. It all ended with a big singalong to the extended version of Thompson Twins’ “Hold Me Now” for a little ’80s flair.

Were traditions incorporated into the day?
We included some Jewish traditions from David’s side — we had a gorgeous handmade ketubah wedding contract and we stepped on the traditional glass at the end. Marke’s background is Roman Catholic, which doesn’t have to many traditions outside of Holy Communion mass, which was obviously out in the absence of available renegade priests. And his French Canadian background dictated that all his single siblings dance in a pig trough, but he didn’t feel like making his poor sister endure such a thing. So we had a unity candle, in the tradition of the Church of Oprah, which actually wasn’t as tacky as we thought. As for gay traditions, one of the top porn directors in the country offered to film our wedding, so there’s that. And our cake was topped with a couple of cute Ugly Doll figurines, just for something different.

How was your experience with the wedding professionals that you worked with?
Absolutely fantastic. Connecticut had just recently passed same-sex wedding legislation, and I think everyone was ecstatic for the new business. Felicia of Felicia’s Sweetface  in New London did a spectacular job on our cake, combining a fall theme with the cartoonish toppings. The staff at Stonecroft Inn worked overtime to ensure that all the details were taken care of, and the autumn menu was superb. Natalie Smith of Stonecroft did our table arrangements, which combined small Zen gardens with fall foliage — very neat! She also did our boutonnieres — our colors were deep orange, forest green, and antique gold — and they were perfect: masculine yet flowery.

A few favorite things about your day:
Another Jewish tradition we incorporated: David’s sister baked a huge challah bread and David’s father cut it and said a wonderful blessing. Then Marke’s father gave a speech of acceptance and love that we will never forget — everyone was crying. We were fortunate to have a room full of our friends from San Francisco. Prop 8 had just passed, repealing same-sex marriage in California. When we thanked the state of Connecticut for making our marriage legally possible, the room erupted in the loudest cheers!

A few words of advice to share with other couples?
Make sure you have a very detailed list of photos you want taken, and plan a couple hours for taking them because you will be stressed! One of our regrets was that we forgot to tell our photographer to get pictures of various family members in certain configurations. And we didn’t get pictures of the two of us in our boutonnieres — or even ones of us together in which we didn’t look stressed out! Luckily, Ariel and Sam of Bowerbird Photography came to the rescue. They shot us a year later in a relaxed environment with no stress (and fresh boutonnieres). We actually highly recommend this approach!

so, here’s more of their anniversary shots! 

Bowerbird photography is also listed as one of our recommended vendors.  I absolutely love it when I go to a photographer’s website and see pictures of gay couples in their opening slide show or featured in some way on their public site.  If a photographer is comfortable enough having the faces of same-sex couples represent their work, then you know they must be gay-friendly!  So, if you are looking for a photographer in the San Franciso area, check out Bowerbird photography….

and congrats marke & david!

**images submitted via two bright lights

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gay wedding, legal, wedding

steve & joe – boston public gardens

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Glen Cooper, a Boston wedding photographer, shared this wedding with me.

Steve & Joe were married on October 8, 2011 in the Boston Public Gardens. They have such an awesome travel theme represented in the details of their wedding and I love that they chose to have a legal wedding ceremony on their 10th anniversary!

Why did you choose your location?
We’ve been together for ten years living in the Chicago area for the first nine. We had considered having a ceremony a few years ago despite the fact that Illinois did not recognize marriage or civil unions (that changed in 2011). When Steve accepted a new job in the Boston area we began to think where we’d like to exchange vows with our families and friends in attendance. We both love the Boston Public Garden and decided to mark our tenth anniversary as a couple by making it official and legal.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you met?

We met online via gay.com. After chatting for a few weeks, we finally met. Joe was just out of a marriage which provided him with two wonderful children and was living in the Chicago area. Steve had never been married and lived and worked in Madison, WI. With weekends together, our love for one another blossomed quickly.
A month after meeting, which coincided with the night before of 9-11, Joe left for a two week business trip to Germany, Belgium and the UK. Each night during the trip we talked about the day’s events and became closer and closer. We decided to write essays for each other detailing our lives, our past relationships, how we grew in our sexuality and what we wanted and desired in a potential life partner. Upon Joe’s return we sat on the floor of a hotel room near O’Hare and read one another’s essays. At the conclusion we were convinced that we were right for one another. Since it had only been six weeks since we had met, we decided that there would be no commitments for 30 days. While in Knoxville in late October, 2001 we decided that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together regardless if it was as legal husband and husband or not.

The Proposal:
After our 2001 commitment to one another, there really was no true marriage proposal, no real need for one. We just decided that since we had moved to a blue state which recognized same sex marriages, we’d take advantage of our good fortune.

Can you tell me a little about your ceremony?
While making our wedding day plans, we used a couple of books on same sex marriage to get started. Thinking ultimately about our ceremony and location, and the fact that 9-11 has special meaning to us, we decided on the 9-11 Remembrance Garden in the Boston Public Garden. Our ceremony had three main sections:

>> Why I Admire You

>> Why I Love You

>> Our Vows to Each Other

We chose a string quartet to play classical baroque music, however with our ceremony location being outside in early October in Boston there was a chance that the temperature would be below 60 or rainy, and they wouldn’t be able to play outside. So, we decided to forgo music at the ceremony. Much to our surprise, it was a fabulous 80 degrees with abundant sunshine! Joe did, however, attempt to sing “I Love Your Truly” off-key, very off-key!
Exchanging the rings was very easy for us. We actually have had our rings, gold and titanium bands with diamonds, for eight years and they are identical and the exact same size. We wore our rings to the ceremony and then truly “exchanged” them after the vows. We periodically exchange them with each other showing our love.

Were any specific traditions incorporated into your wedding and what did you include that had some sort of meaning behind it?
Throughout we decided to do things in a relaxed way. That started with taking the T (bus and subway) from our home in Arlington to the hotel in Boston to get dressed. After dressing (and Joe watching a bit of football), we passed on the traditional limousine to the ceremony and strolled on the Boston Common, by the State House and on Beacon Hill before walking over to the Boston Public Garden, across the Lagoon bridge to greet our guests. That’s all captured in our photos.

We asked a family friend to marry us. He got a one day commission from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, again an enlightened rule which allowed us to have someone important in our family marry us.
Our favorite color is purple; we choose formal tuxedoes from Main Event Tuxedo with a purple vest for Steve and a coordinating purple tie for Joe. We incorporated two other meaningful items in our ceremony. We brought with us and pinned flowers on our mothers and Steve’s father. Secondly, we each honored those closest to us who are no longer with us: Steve’s brother and Joe’s father.

How was your experience with the wedding professionals that you worked with?
We used the internet to find our photographer and our string quartet, Riverview Chamber Players. In both cases, we interviewed several before choosing.

Joe’s daughter designed the invitations and worked with a printer, Cards & Pockets, online to provide an invitation which incorporated our wedding theme: Travel. The baker, Montilio’s took our ideas and provided a wonderful wedding cake – two suitcases with many stickers of our favorite travel destinations. We selected favors on line and each table was a wonderful destination including Paris, Florence, Rome, London and Key West.
Our reception was at Maggiano’s just a few blocks from the ceremony. They were also wonderful to work with incorporating our ideas.

A few favorite things about your day:
The opportunity to share with family and friends was most important to us.
The pace we set and the casual approach worked wonderfully for us and a warm sunny fall day in New England was a wonderful backdrop. We enjoyed having our ceremony in the Boston Public Garden followed by a quintessential Italian dinner/reception with wonderful Baroque music. Finally, developing and incorporating our wedding theme of travel with a passport guest book, our tables set in various cities and a unique wedding cake, suitcases with stickers showing our favorite travel cities. A few words of advice/tips/lessons learned when planning your wedding to share with other couples
Think about what you want focusing on the pace of the day from beginning to end. Pick a theme for your wedding and work around that idea.
Interview your vendors and choose those who you feel comfortable with, particularly the photographer, the music and the locations for the ceremony and reception. Have a budget but be sure that you get what you want, the way you want it. Negotiate hard, but choose those who you feel will deliver what you want the way you want it.
Talk through the ceremony, the reception, the day/weekend and all logistics together with the person who will marry you. Make sure to walk through these items with the photographer, the caterer or restaurant, DJ/musicians, etc. Just remember while planning what you want together, that you do so through love and your commitment to one another, and you’ll have a day you will always remember.

(all images credit to dmpj by glen cooper)

congratulations steve & joe!

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engagement, personal

go buy the book.

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ok, for those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that occasionally i talk about the APW (A Practical Wedding) blog.  i link to it in my “blog love” page and i recommend it to friends – engaged and otherwise.  some of the posts on there have really affected me.  meg (the editor) and the many other writers and contributers help me process tough times, inspire me to be a better wife, accept who i am, and really appreciate all that my marriage and my life has given me.  does that sound hokey?  ok, well it is, but it’s true.

posts like, things that scare the sh*t out of me, for instance, sparked a very interesting and thought-provoking late night conversation with my wife about personal challenges and what it means to grow up…

her collaboration with lowe house events to put on the yay, new york celebration to host a big party after gay marriage was made legal in nyc was phenomenal and as i wrote about, i so wish i could have been there…

her constant use of the word “partner” and seamless inclusion of gay marriages in her blog would make any reader think that there was nothing different between gay marriages and straight ones (which, at the heart of it all, there really isn’t…).  you don’t read her blog and think, oh wow, she features straight AND gay marriages – she just features marriages (and civil unions, and commitment ceremonies…).  and that’s pretty awesome.

her reclaiming wife & wedding graduate posts which feature real couples talking openly and honestly about what it means to them to be married.  i learn the most from those.  in general conversation, most people don’t talk about the trials and tribulations of marriages, and we all know they exist… it’s from reading those that i’ve learned a lot about my marriage and how i (as cheeseball as this sounds) should accept the things i cannot change, have the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference…

so, that all being said, meg wrote a book.  it’s called: “A Practical Wedding: Creative Solutions for a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration“  and today is her “buy the book” day.  so, take my advice, go to amazon.com and pre-order her book.  read it yourself, give it to friends, share it with family.  i know it’s going to be good.

personal, style

“twi-hards”

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ok, one more thing for today…  i’m not a “twi-hard” or whatever they are called, but i did LOVE bella’s dress in twilight.

if you did too, you can get yourself a replica from alfred angelo here: bella’s dress  (i mean, that’s a pretty good marketing boost for them!)but anyway, i thought the sexy satin and open back were incredible and i would seriously consider this dress if i had a dress do-over…  but maybe not long-sleeved.  july in vermont is hot.

do you ever think about a wedding dress do-over?

gay wedding, style

pants & pants – dressing two grooms

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in honor of the two(!) two-groom features i have coming up on the blog, i wanted to share with you a great article i found in the new york times for two men looking for what to wear for their wedding!

dressing two grooms

(photo from the new york times)

i think one of my favorite quotes from the article was this one: “the two men recognized the need for wedding attire that, ‘takes you out of your everyday.’” regardless of what you choose to wear for your wedding, i would imagine you would want it to be something *just a little different from what you would wear to dress up for any other occasion… but that being said, obviously, go with what you feel best represents you as a person, and most importantly, what you feel comfortable in.

i just like it that designers are realizing that they need to start catering towards same-sex weddings and that they are thinking about what it would mean to have two women or two men up at the altar. that makes me happy.

so, get excited for steve & joe’s boston wedding and marke & david’s one-year anniversary – all coming soon!

lesbian wedding, wedding

sarah & meg’s bright & colorful wedding

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i am beyond excited to share this wedding submitted to me by Bernadette Coveney Smith – for those of you who don’t know who she is, well, she is THE first gay wedding planner in the country and is also a writer for the huffington post wedding section.  Her company is called 14 Stories and they’ve planned more gay weddings than anyone else in the country.  They’ve been in business since 2004 when they opened their doors as same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts. Now they plan weddings for LGBT and other progressive-minded couples everywhere they are legal with offices in Boston and New York.  i was completely honored that she thought of my blog for this incredibly beautiful wedding.

from Bernadette, “Sarah and Meg’s September wedding in the Berkshires had some amazing rustic details throughout the weekend-long event that definitely pulled out all the stops.  Guests were greeted with name-tags carved out of slices of wood before being shuttled to their lodges and cabins.  Their weekend’s events started with a camp bonfire at the Becket-Chimney Corners YMCA.  Sarah and Meg’s ceremony was held lakeside, and the New Orleans style band led a parade of all the partcipants back to the cocktail party and reception in the beautifully transformed camp dining hall.  Seasonal organic florals by Jessica’s Country Flowers were displayed in mixed vessels and the food was served family-style from large platters.  Plastic camp plates of hummus, crackers, and olives were available instead of the traditional rolls and butter.  Mason jar escort cards contained a bulb of garlic, a packet of seeds, and instructions on how guests could grow their own garlic when they got home.  Sarah’s dress was also custom made by a designer in Seattle.“

So, sit back and enjoy this rustic and colorful wedding.

(all images credit to ilene perlman photography)

congrats to meg & sarah and thanks to 14 stories for submitting this wedding!

*images submitted via two bright lights