What better way to continue getting to know me, than to go into detail about the greatest day of my life. I feel very lucky to have found my soul mate, Matt, when I was 19 years old while we were in college. Our love persevered many things, but most importantly our love grew into something greater than either of us would have ever guessed. I consider myself lucky, a year later I still receive, “I hope your having a good day beautiful” text messages at work and he embodies being a partner through it all. I was engaged in September of 2016 in Rye, NH. We had dinner at our favorite place, Latitudes at Wentworth by the Sea and then went on a walk by the beach and it was a surprise I will never forget.
Fast forward past the engagement celebrations, note to the newly engaged: this time is precious, hold on so tight to how it makes you feel, the planning began! At first, I pictured our wedding by the beach, where we live and love to be; but, after some research it was nearly impossible to plan a wedding one year out on the seacoast for the month of September. It was defeating, but it was not long before my sweet Meme told me about a barn wedding she just attended. I saw pictures and immediately asked her to see how much and if it was available, since it was a family friends’ property where only family has ever had a wedding. After hearing that they would allow us to have a September 2017 wedding, we quickly put together a knot.com website and feverishly calling vendors.
There are quite a few lessons from vendor finding, but the biggest one would be to get a day of coordinator and have clear consistent timelines with all your vendors. It sounds obvious right? When you are trying to coordinate rented chairs, tables, napkin, food, and also add all your Cricut and DIY projects, you will thank yourself. Lucky for me I had a full “Bridal Tribe” that helped make all my dreams a reality. From hanging fabric and lights from the ceiling, to making sure when the food vendors came they knew where to set up. We got lucky, very lucky.
The Big Day
We got married in a Catholic Church at Lake Winnipesaukee, and hired First Student buses to bring everyone to our Barn Reception a few miles down the road. Many of our family members rented AirBNB and even a village of cottages at the Cottages of Wolfeboro, so it was nice that it was a destination for many of our family and friends. The cottages had a main house, where my parents were staying and where we got ready in. The ceremony was at 1:00, and boy did that time go quickly. Make sure your bridal party and anyone else you surround yourself with is pumping the positive vibes; I remember the butterflies, but I remember the love even more.
My favorite compliment from everyone who attended the wedding was that they had never seen a couple more in love or had a day filled with so much love than that September day. There was so much fun in the details making it about us.
So, I took control of the DIY signs, center pieces, and little touches. While Matt built the bar we used for the wedding and made most of my dreams come true.
Aside from the details, because I could go on and on about that here are my top highlights:
- Nailing our first dance spins that were only ever successfully executed in our apartment’s living room
- Seeing Matt at the end of the aisle, especially after someone told me as I was getting ready to go down the aisle that he had been out on a boat all day
- Taking a moment down the hill from the wedding with Matt and watching everyone dancing
- The hotdog/italian ice vendor who came at the end of the wedding
- How amazing our food was from Hart’s Turkey Farm catering – WOAH
- The reassurance my photographer Jessie Wyman, who was filling in for my about-to-give-birth-photographer Carolina Marles Photography, gave me at every step of the wedding (this is way more important than I realized).
- The end of the night as we were leaving, realizing that I got to be married to my very best friend… oh, and realizing I got to go spend a week in Saint Lucia with him!
Devin Oot 