With the bride wearing her grandmother’s gown and a foraged greenery arch, it is hard not to love this charming backyard wedding captured by Addy Rae Photo. All of the details are oh so sweet, even with the changes that happened because of the weather.
I work at a boutique headhunting firm and Austin is a stock analyst. The original plan was to get married at Terrain in Devon Yards, a wonderful happy medium for Austin and I – the perfect merging of nature and elegance. Due to COVID19 and the feeling that we were planning something that may not happen we decided to forgo the venue and start planning a wedding that would happen come hell or high water. For us, that meant not resigning with a venue, instead asking dear friends of ours to use their home in Kimberton, PA only a few miles away from both our childhood homes. This also meant making the incredibly difficult decision to have a private ceremony, including only immediate family members, there were 20 people in attendance. We stuck with our original date, now not having a venue and only immediate family coming, it was easy to make sure that May 30th was our day.
I drew a lot of inspiration from my dress, made for and worn by my maternal grandmother, Martha Edmonds in 1953. To me, the dress was timeless and reminded me so much of Grace Kelly on her wedding day, who to me, is the absolutely epitome of timeless elegance. Style icons for my wedding dress along with Grace Kelly were Miranda Kerr and Meghan Markle, and my grandmother’s dress fit in perfectly.
The day before my sister put together the arbor, using only materials that we harvested from the forest, including fresh wild white roses. My sister is an incredible soul, filled to the absolute brimm with talent, currently studying oil painting at Sarah Lawrence College. She blew every single expectation I had out of the water, the arch was flawless, perfectly capturing a vision of elegance, grace and timeless beauty. The morning of the wedding, we went to the grove to check on the arch, and added some more white wild roses… it had been raining for days now so not only was the arch glistening in the small amount of sun through the overcast sky but the grove smelt of spring.
As it were, May 30th was record breaking …the coldest memorial day weekend in over 50 years and raining, hard. We had to pivot again. Suddenly the conversation was: where are we going to have the ceremony if it is raining and this cold? Inside the sun porch, maybe in the barn on the property, maybe we should just get married in the living room of Austin’s parents home. The week leading up to May 30th was filled with tears, anxiety and disappointment, as I am sure you can imagine. About two days before the ceremony was to take place, I suddenly just dug in, come hell or high water. We were to get married on Sunday, outside, like I had always imagined. The rain cleared for about 30 minutes, which was just enough time for our quick ceremony, officiated by my brilliant brother in law, Ben.
The original plan for the dinner after the ceremony was to have it outside on my in-laws lawn, but due to the vast amount of rain, and frankly, the cold… we decided instead to move it inside. We used 500 stems to try and create a space that felt fresh and ethereal, while the weather made it increasingly dark and gloomy.
The dinner was inside, our incredible chef served our absolute favorite dishes, followed by an out of this world Earl Grey and Lavender Cake (two of my absolute favorite flavors) baked by my mother’s dear friend who she met in a book club. After dinner we played Wedding Jeopardy, a tradition in my household for any birthday or celebrations, written uniquely every time for whoever we are celebrating. In this case, Austin and I wrote the game and our guests got to play while enjoying cake and coffee.
Photography: Addy Rae Photo | Floral Farm: Hickory Grove Gardens | Stationery: Dill Paper Company | Dress: Heirloom | Second Dress: Fame and Partners | Jewelry: Kellmer | Submitted by Published + Pretty via Matchology
