Category: Cape Cod Tented Wedding

special spotlight | Elizabeth & Alex

5/26/2023

Let's take a look back at Elizabeth & Alex's gorgeous 2017 wedding at a private home in Yarmouth!

Elizabeth & Alex (or El & Al) hosted 160 of their family and friends at a property along Bass River in the summer of 2017. The couple had a lot to juggle in 2017, including moving across the country, but they made the time to plan their bright, fun, laid back yet wonderfully romantic wedding day with Stephanie’s help along the way!

The wedding venue had a rustic Cape feel with grey shingles, antique furnishings, vine wrapped structures and hundred year old moss covered trees. Elizabeth & Alex chose handmade tables, bars and crossback chairs from True North to sit below their airy Sperry Tent. For a fun twist for their July wedding, they chose the blue star tent for their bar area!

To brighten up the spaces, Elizabeth & Alex picked bold summer florals expertly arranged by Flowers by Semia. They filled their day with sentimental touches like using the antique fountain in the garden for their ceremony arbor, using mix and match furniture from the house for their ceremony seating and having both of their fathers officiate their wedding!

Vendors
Tent - Sperry Tent
Rentals - True North
Florals - Flowers by Semia
Photographer - Janet Moscarello Photography

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Special spotlight | Lucy & Eli

4/15/2023

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Looking back at Lucy and Eli's 2017 wedding at Nauticus Marina in Osterville!

Lucy’s family love escaping to the Cape for family vacations. Eli’s family lives by the water in Miami. The coastal feeling of the Cape drew their families together for their wedding celebrations. The non-traditional wedding venue for their traditional Jewish wedding blended their faith and love perfectly.

Nauticus Marina offered the connection to the water and the perfect layout for their ceremony in the round under a canopy of draping, bistro lights by Ryan Designs & American Tent & Table and gorgeous blue summer skies. Floral design by Shawna of Wild Dahlia accented the couple’s traveling chuppah that has been used by many couples on their wedding days. The day was joyous and filled with music by the International String Trio & DJ Danny Walsh, delicious food by A Perfect Taste.

Vendors
Planner - Cape Cod Celebrations
Venue - Nauticus Marina
Florist - Wild Dahlia
Photographer - First Mate Photo
Videographer - Shutter & Sound Films
Caterer - A Perfect Taste
Tent - American Tent & Table
Rentals - Ryan Designs
Band - International String Trio & DJ Danny Walsh

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CAPE COD COUPLES TELL ALL | Annie & Brian | May 28, 2017

5/28/2018

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Next up on "Cape Cod Couples Tell All" - meet Annie & Brian! Jamie had the pleasure of working with them in 2017 at Chatham Bars Inn and it was a weekend to remember! Even though it has only been a year (Happy Anniversary!) we thought it would be fun to catch up with them and get their thoughts on their Memorial Day Weekend wedding! Enjoy!

Cape Cod
1. What made you choose Cape Cod for your wedding?
Cape Cod was actually a special place for both of us. Annie’s parents honeymooned on Cape Cod in 1974 and she spent the summer at their house in Harwich for her entire life, and always envisioned getting married on the Cape. Separately, the year before Annie and Brian met, Brian’s parents discovered Chatham Bars Inn and decided it was a great place for the family to come together for Labor Day. Once Annie and Brian started dating, Labor Day on the Cape became a joint family tradition, and, three years later, Brian proposed at Chatham Bars Inn, with both families present, over Labor Day weekend. So, getting married on the Cape was a fairly obvious decision!

2. Why would you tell future brides and grooms to get married on Cape Cod?
The Cape is an “almost” destination wedding. It lets guests be fully focused on the wedding, but it is not too far away from Boston, New York, and other major cities. So it is easy to get to but still feels remote and special. Further, there are so many fun things to do on Cape Cod! We had a blast putting together our website full of recommendations, and sending guests on various trips on the Saturday of our long weekend wedding!

All Photos by Bello Photo

Your Wedding!
1. In a three words, how would you describe your wedding?
Us. Love Yellow

2. Was your wedding exactly what you had envisioned?
It was even better! We really wanted it to feel down to earth and rustic, yet classy and true to the Cape. We also really wanted to take care of our guests and make sure that everyone had an amazing time (particularly because every single person had to travel to be there!).

3. What was your biggest concern in planning your wedding?
Honestly, we were just really worried about making everyone happy. We didn’t want anyone to feel excluded or bad, and we wanted to create an environment that made every single person feel like they were part of the fun. We also had a lot of moving pieces, so we were always worried about everything coming together coherently!

4. What was your favorite part of the planning process? What was the most difficult part?
The most difficult part was definitely the guest list! It is never fun to prioritize some people over others, and we were doing that across our own friends and our families. Our biggest piece of advice is that if there are 1 or 2 people on the line invite them! You will never regret having them, but you might regret not inviting them.
Our favorite part was thinking of all of the personal details – what song we would walk in to, getting customized “Brannie” corn hole, etc. We really liked taking the formula and making it scream “us”.

5. What was your favorite part of the wedding?
It is a tie. The first look was definitely a highlight. It was the only time that day (until we got back to our hotel room at 2 am!) that we got to spend alone together, and it was just really fun to take a pause and laugh about the whole ordeal, eat some ice cream (we did our first look at Schoolhouse Ice Cream in Harwich!), and then to pile my wedding dress into our car and drive to CBI, and show up for the actual thing together as a team. We also just had SO much fun after dinner at our wedding when we totally let loose and danced with our friends and each other and just celebrated!

6. Looking back, would you change anything about your wedding? If so, what and why?
This is super minor, and probably speaks to the fact that there is not really anything we would change. But, if we could change one thing, it is that it was REALLY cold at the (outdoor) ceremony, and we wish we had asked the groomsmen to give the bridesmaids their jackets…both because then the girls would not have been actively shivering the whole time AND because that would have made for some pretty cute pictures!

7. Who was your favorite vendor?
Ummmm, Jamie Bohlin and Cape Cod Celebrations, obviously. I mean, in all seriousness, Jamie and her team made wedding planning a joy. I had so much fun working with Jamie and she made all of the decisions feel very manageable. Working with her and her team was hands down the best decision that I made in the whole process (other than marrying my husband, of course!).

But, if I have to pick a vendor other than Jamie, I think I would say Kate Mann and team at Chatham Bars Inn. Honestly, I was really nervous when we selected the venue that the wedding would feel “cookie cutter” because they do so many, but in the end it felt more personal and true to my husband and me than most other weddings we have been to. We could not have done this without the dedication of Kate, the Chef, and everyone else who listened to our vision and absolutely made it happen.

8. What do you think your guests would say their favorite part of your wedding was?
All of it?? I mean, everything except for the cold ceremony! People really liked our pre-dinner dance set, because it broke up the eating between our long cocktail “hour” and the dinner. They also just loved the band and the dancing in general.

9. How would you title your wedding?
“How many fun things can we squeeze into one weekend?!”

Wedding Planner
1. Why did you decide to hire a wedding planner?
Honestly, Chatham Bars Inn actually required that we have a coordinator because we were doing a tent wedding. I think we would have wanted a planner anyway, just because there were so many moving parts, but I didn’t start seriously looking until I had to.

2. For upcoming brides, why do you think it is important for them to consider hiring a planner?
This was literally the best decision we made. She did many things for me (and I was in grad school so had a lot of time, so I wasn't really offloading to her, she added value beyond that). Most importantly, she:

Thought of random things I may not have (e.g., we had a vintage pair of skis as our "guest book" which was super awesome) and just made sure I didn't miss anything
Recommended vendors, although I ultimately chose them (she weeded from the world to 5ish options, then I would pick from there)
Managed the various vendors for me, particularly in making sure that we had everything we needed, getting the prices as reasonable as possible, and, mission critically, just making sure everything was ready to go in that two week before period and managing EVERYTHING day/weekend of
Was an overall thought partner...told me when I was being silly and when I wasn't, helped me prioritize things in terms of budget, etc. Also, frankly, helped me think through some of the weird family things that came up and was a general person who knew the industry and what I was experiencing and I could talk to whenever.
Orchestrated all of the day of stuff-- literally, one of our buses got in an accident and we NEVER HEARD ABOUT IT. She just took care of everything. YOu DO NOT WANT TO BE THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING ON THE DAY BEFORE OR OF YOUR WEDDING. TRUST ME. Even if you think you are that chill cool got it together couple, just trust me, weddings bring out the crazy in you and everyone you know. It is just better if you aren't worried about whether the hors d'oeuvres are going out on time when you are trying to manage pictures with grandma and a nutty photographer. Also, you don't want to have to move flowers from one place to another or make sure the ceremony programs are in place or ANY of that stuff. You just want to do you that day.

3. What was it like working with a planner? What was your overall experience like?
Jamie is so down to earth and straight forward that working with her was incredibly easy! My experience felt like Jamie gave me a high level “work plan” (as in, we should be thinking about flowers, photographer, and a band this month), I gave her some thoughts about my vision for those things, she came back with some options, and I overanalyzed each option and made a decision. She let me be controlling and picky while making sure I checked all of the boxes and helping me find vendors and ideas that really fit with my vision. It just made me feel like no balls would be dropped, but I could still plug in as much (or as little) as I wanted to.

4. Why would you recommend Cape Cod Celebrations over other companies?
I can’t imagine a better thought partner than Jamie – she is smart, funny, thoughtful, and totally “gets it” when you explain your vision. Also, she knows EVERYONE!!! She used to work at Chatham Bars Inn, so she easily navigated working with them, and she clearly has fantastic relationships with all of the other vendors. I can’t tell you how many vendors absolutely raved about Jamie in side conversations – I just think that by working with her you get a leg up internally because she is amazing AND you get a leg up externally because all of the other vendors love her and will work with her to create your vision.

Wedding Advice
1. What advice would you give other brides about planning a wedding?

Give your husband tasks! With timelines! Don’t do it all yourself, because planning together is actually really fun and romantic.
Stop worrying about other people! It is your day! Try not to offend anyone, and then make the day / weekend about you guys.
Pick the 3 things you care about the most and then over-invest in those things, and don’t get worked up about the others. For me, I really cared about the band, so I was neurotic about selecting the band and sending them every song I liked and didn’t like, etc. I did NOT care about flowers, so I forced myself to be more relaxed about those and not engage as much except for the high level vision.

2. What was most helpful to you in the planning process?
Jamie and her timeline. I had my own timeline, but she knew when things had to get done in order to be right for the wedding, so made sure that we didn’t miss anything along the way.

How’s married life!?
Amazing! In many ways, very similar, but in many ways much more chill and familial. We have a puppy now – who is AMAZING – and learning about each other as “parents” has been a whole new adventure! We love being a pseudo little family and finally just stepping back and saying, hey, if all we want to do on Friday night is cuddle our puppy and watch Star Wars, let’s just do that!

View All of the fabulous photos of
Annie & Brian's Wedding Here!

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Wedding Weather

6/18/2014

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Photo Credit: Alanna Scully Photography

If you did not know already, the only thing that you cannot control at your wedding is the weather. Everything else can be timed out and planned to a T, but the rain or sun or snow or hurricane is something you will not know until about 3 days before, if not even the day of. That is why we recommend taking the following actions to be as best prepared for any type of weather that may come your way on your wedding day.

Weather Forecasts
Take it from a pro who has three weather apps on her phone and checks them frantically leading up to every weekend, that no matter how many apps you have, they are all going to be different. I highly recommend not looking at your weather forecast until at least 5 days out, as in my experience the 10 day forecast is always wrong. At three days you are going to be rather close as to what is going to happen and even up until the day of it could change. Why you ask? Mostly because you are getting married on Cape Cod where it may be raining in Brewster but sunny in Dennis!

Backup Plans
No matter what you need to have a backup plan in place for at least rain, if not worse if it is a time of year that is prone to snow or nor’easters. For any of my clients planning on a tented event, outdoor ceremony and/or cocktail hour, we always have a rain plan at the bottom of our time line. That way we can hop over to that plan if we need to the day of the wedding and be ready to go with indoor options. If your ceremony is supposed to be on the beach and the backup plan is a conference room with no windows, you have to make sure that you can envision that happening. Granted, it is the worst case scenario, but if you do not think it all through you could be super sad when you’re inside instead of out.

Tented Events
If you are planning to have a tented event, this post is really for you. One thing that you have to be 100% okay with is that it could potentially downpour on your wedding day. If you are not okay with that, then you need to find a ceremony and reception location that is indoors or at least have a backup plan that you are okay with. For tents, you can also talk to your tent company about rain tent options. This is where you reserve a tent for your ceremony or cocktail hour backup and then at the three day out mark you can decide if you want to put it up or not. If you decide not to, the tent company will only charge you half the cost of the tent. To me that is pretty great rain insurance!

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Top 5 things to consider for an at home wedding on Cape Cod

4/1/2013

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So you have decided to take the leap and have the perfect reception location in mind - only thing is...it is a blank canvas. An open space in your parent’s/grandparent’s/friend’s backyard on Cape Cod that needs tents, tables, chairs, bathrooms, you name it. You are not alone. Many Cape Cod weddings take place in beautiful, private locations that need many items brought in to make it happen, so that is why we have compiled a list of the top 5 things to consider when planning an at home event.

1. Space
When you get the idea to have your wedding in a backyard, your first step will be to make sure you have the space to hold all of your guests. We recommend starting by calling a tent company and having them come out to see the space and measure for you. This way they can give you all of the options. It helps to have your guest list close to final so that you can let them know how many seats you will need for dinner and how big your dance floor needs to be. You also need to have an idea of what kind of food you want to have - buffet, stations, family style or plated - and if you want round or rectangular tables. This all helps to map out if you would have enough space for your dream wedding.

Private Home in Chatham | Photo Credit: Katie Noble Photography

2. Budget
When you have a backyard event on Cape Cod, or anywhere for that matter, you have to bring in EVERYTHING. Tables, chairs, flatware, china, glassware, tent, bathrooms, dance floor, caterer, ovens, generators, and the list goes on and can add up quickly. A backyard wedding can be done on somewhat of a budget, but it all depends on the type of rentals you want to have, the food you want to serve and the atmosphere you want to set. There is a big difference in budget when having a family style wedding under a sailcloth tent with farm tables as compared to a clambake under a frame tent with rounds with linens. Also, when there is no parking on site and you need to provide transportation for your guests it will increase your spending. This is where we feel it makes sense to hire a professional to assist you in managing vendors, take the stress off of everything and even help you save some money!

3. Plan B
If any of your backyard wedding is scheduled to take place outside of a tent, like the ceremony or cocktail hour for example, be sure you have a plan B. Your plan B is obviously not your first choice, but if you don’t have plan B, you will be stuck in the rain! Ask your tent company about last minute options for a backup tent, as many companies will allow your to pay a deposit to have the tent on your order and then cancel that week if the forecast says you are in the clear. Paying for peace of mind may just be worth it!

Ally & Mark had to jump to their "Plan B" ceremony tent when Mother Nature decided it would rain on their wedding day | Photo Credit: Channing Johnson Photography

4. Insurance, Permits & Noise Ordinances
Ok, so we made #4 really 4, 5, & 6, but they all relate. These are all important, but not so fun, items that you need to look into when having a backyard event. Usually you can get insurance easily by adding on a one day rider onto your homeowner’s insurance. Also, make sure you know what kind of permitting you need to have a tent in your town. Most tent companies will actually cover this for you. And last but not least, call your town to ask about noise ordinances. Most towns on Cape are 10pm, but some differ. We also always recommend visiting your neighbors in the weeks leading up to the event with a bottle of wine and letting them know about the wedding, especially if they are not invited. This way you can possibly avoid unexpected guests in blue showing up due to noise complaints!

5. Parking & Transportation
Parking is something that seems to be overlooked a lot for backyard events and always needs to be taken into consideration. Do you have ample parking on site or do you need to shuttle in all of your guests from their hotels? Do you have street parking, but want to hire a valet service to make sure that your guests can easily park? There are many different options to ensure a smooth parking situation, but be sure you have it under control. And do not forget your vendors! They will be arriving before your guests and will have many cars that will need to be parked - catering team, wedding planner, band or DJ, etc.

Photo Credit: Katie Noble Photography

Backyard events are totally worth every second of the planning process! Yes it can be stressful at times, but the outcome is always so beautiful, original and fun! There are definitely other aspects you will need to consider when planning a backyard event, but these top five are the best ones to start with before you move ahead with plans. And if you feel you need more assistance, hire a planner!

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special spotlight | Elizabeth & Alex

Special spotlight | Lucy & Eli

CAPE COD COUPLES TELL ALL | Annie & Brian | May 28, 2017

View All of the fabulous photos of
Annie & Brian's Wedding Here!

Wedding Weather

Top 5 things to consider for an at home wedding on Cape Cod

Plan. Relax. Enjoy.

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View All of the fabulous photos of Annie & Brian's Wedding Here!

Plan. Relax. Enjoy.

Archives

Categories

View All of the fabulous photos of
Annie & Brian's Wedding Here!