 Photo Credit: Channing Johnson Photography In case you missed it - one of our super fun, DIY weddings was featured on Every Last Detail last week! I love Lauren Grove and her team and was so thankful that she saw the beauty and originality in this event to include it on her beautiful website. Carin and Billy were such wonderful people, I was honored to be a part of their special Monday wedding at a private home in Harwich.
Check out the post for the details and a ton of fabulous pics from Channing Johnson!
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 Photo Credit: Ralph Alswang Photography We are super excited to share that one of our fabulous couples from this year was featured on EquallyWed.com! We absolutely loved working with Holly and Nancy and their story was just amazing! What a great group of vendors that worked together so well to pull off a fabulous evening of love, joy and fun!
Check out the video below from Harborview Studios as well - how can you not be so happy for this wonderful couple?! Just beautiful! The week is finally here, you have arrived to the Cape and you have 7 days left to be sure everything you planned will be perfect come the weekend. Here are some items that you should do the week of your wedding to be sure the day will be smooth sailing.
1. Call all of your vendors to confirm. Get them a copy of your time line and review arrival and departure times. Be sure that you have taken care of all final payments as well. 2. Have a final detail meeting at your venue. Meet with your catering manager to finalize the food counts, time line, drop off all set-up items (escort cards, menu cards, favors, guest book, etc.), floor plan, back up plans, etc. If you have a wedding planner, be sure he/she attends this meeting as well. 3. Arrive to the Cape at least 3 days before your wedding. Allow time to get settled, deliver any welcome bags, check in with your venue, etc. 4. Touch base with all of your bridal party to confirm their arrival time to the Cape as well as send them a time line of events for them (where they need to be and when) 5. Have the guys pick up their suits/tuxes if renting 6. Deliver your welcome bags/baskets to your guests 7. Pack for honeymoon if you are travelling immediately after the wedding. 8. Bride & Bridesmaids to get mani/pedis. 9. Have rehearsal ceremony and rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding (or 2 nights before depending on options provided by the ceremony venue and when your bridal party can arrive) When the morning of your wedding arrives, take the day one moment at a time. Be sure to stop a couple of times during the day and take a deep breath and a mental picture. You want to be able to remember as much as you can and every moment of your day is special. Have fun with your family and friends and relax!!  Photo Credit: Hike Photography When planning your wedding, the destination is the first thing to consider. Do you want to stay local or travel to your favorite childhood vacation spot - like Cape Cod? If you are looking to travel, the real question is, is a destination wedding right for you?
How far away are you from your destination location? If you can easily drive 3 hours or less to your destination location, then it is definitely doable. When you have to travel by plane, or drive longer than three hours, it can be difficult to manage all of the details. Hiring a local wedding planner will assist in managing the vendors and details while you plan from afar. Is your destination location easily accessible for guests? When selecting your destination location be sure that there are many viable options to get your guests to your wedding. Whether it be public transportation, rental cars, private shuttles or boats, be sure that your guests have all of their options ahead of time and that they all know the best and easiest way to get to your wedding. Using your wedding website to show all options is an easy way to get the word out. There are many options on Cape Cod, just be sure your guests are aware of them! Are there a selection of different accommodation options for all budgets, family sizes, length of stay, etc? When choosing your venue, be sure that there are many different options for your guests accommodations. Your college friends may want the cheap hotel or a rental house and your parent’s friends may prefer a bed and breakfast or a fancier option. Be sure to call around to the hotels in the area to check their availability and to see if they can do a wedding room block for your guests. Also be sure to check on the minimum night stay requirements on weekends, as sometimes there could be a 2-3 night minimum depending on the weekend. Are you comfortable on the phone? It sounds like a silly question, but since the invention of email lots of people have been putting down the phone in favor of email. If you are going to be planning a destination wedding, you need to feel comfortable picking up the phone and talking to your vendors. It will give the vendors a sense of who you are and instead of waiting around for an email to be answered you can make decisions more rapidly. Are you taking into consideration busy travel weekends? When planning a wedding at a destination over a holiday weekend, especially on the Cape, you may want to take into consideration the travel details of getting your guests to your wedding. Some locations start their peak seasons over certain holiday weekends or school vacation periods. You do not want to make your guests deal with a ton of traffic getting to or from your destination or have them pay high prices for airfare or hotels rooms if you can help it. How organized are you? Planning any wedding requires a bit of organization, but having a destination wedding means that you really need to be on top of everything. When living far from your wedding location, you only get so many chances to visit your venue and vendors. This means that you will have to be sure you get all of your questions answered and all of your vendor meetings in while you are there. It could include cake and food tastings, rental decisions, officiant/ceremony meetings, accommodation research, etc. Just be sure that you have a really good wedding binder to organize everything! Or once again, this is another great reason to hire a local wedding planner to manage everything for you!  I had the absolute pleasure of working with Karen and Sean over the past 9 months planning their wedding atOcean Edge and on May 5th their vision came together quite perfectly, with the exception of a little mist!
Their day began with hair and make-up for the ladies with Lisa George and her team (have I mentioned I love them?!) and Samantha, of Samantha Melanson Photography, arrived to take some photos of the girls getting ready. With a last minute ceremony location change, to keep the guests out of the mist that would not go away, everything went off without a hitch! Thanks to Faith Lavender for officiating such a beautiful ceremony! Behind the scenes my assistant Mandee and I were setting up all of Karen & Sean's fun details, from beautiful birch wood escort card holders and family photos, to golf ball lollipop favors and Cinco de Mayo props for late night dancing! Meredith Fancy provided all of the gorgeous flowers - bright pink peonies - I can't wait to show you photos of all of the details! The night came to a close with a sparkler exit to Bayzo's Pub where guests were greeted with late night cookies and coffee! Too much fun and what a great group of people! "You are unbelievable! I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH!! We are so appreciative of your tireless efforts to manage all the details, logistics and your graceful versatility to ensure our day was PERFECT and SPECIAL. You are truly a master at your craft and exceeded all of our expectations. My friends, family, SEAN and I are sooo appreciative of you and your team. Thank you for all of your referrals and time. I will miss working with you and had the time of life!- THANK YOU" - Karen & Sean, Ocean Edge, May 2012 I sure do love having a summer filled with weddings at Chatham Bars Inn - it is so nice to work with familiar faces like Clarissa Davis and Chef Cole again! This time though I was with a new couple, Adare and Patrick. I worked very closely with Adare and her mom Teal throughout the planning process and they had a lot of details that needed attention - from mason jars and paper straws for the signature drinks to a beautiful tray of sea glass for the escort cards. The day was perfect - just missing out on a nasty hurricane that weekend - with a church ceremony at Holy Redeemer in Chatham and reception following at the Beach House Grill. The photography was done by Amy Dykens - which you will see featured in the next issue of Southern New England Weddings!! - the flowers were done by Patrice Milley and the linen overlays provided by Rentals Unlimited. A band drove up from and back from New York City that evening to play for them and an exit with sparklers and an ice cream truck ended the evening of fun and dancing! I cannot wait to see the photos in the magazine - this was a truly elegant and beautiful event!  Working with Judy & Ben was so much fun! I knew that when I first met them in my office at the beginning of the year that we were going to have fun when Judy pulled out her adorable mini idea book with fabulous travel inspired ideas in navy and pink! The event was beautiful, with absolutely every aspect planned by the bride, all I had to do was execute her vision. From the cafe lights over the deck and pink candy bar to the luggage tag escort cards in suit cases and post card guest book, she did not miss a beat. If Judy was not a nurse I would be afraid she would steal my day job! For vendors they worked with some new people that I was fortunate enough to get to work with for the first time. He photographer was Grace Kim, from Washington state if I remember correctly, and her hair and make-up was done by Charlotte Phinney from Boston. Her flowers were beautiful and done by The Tangled Web, a new florist from Pembroke who was great to work with as well! And the over all event was held at the Beach House Grill atChatham Bars Inn - my old stomping grounds!   I have been so fortunate over the past 5 years to have awesome referrals from some fabulous couples. By just working with one couple - Kim & Chris - in 2009, I have now worked with two of their friends and most recently, Chris' brother Geoff. It is so fun to attend the weddings and see so many familiar faces!!
Anna & Geoff and their families were so much fun to work with. They had a picture perfect day - maybe a bit on the warm side - for their ceremony and reception at theWychmere Harbor Club in Harwich. I was joined with Matt & Enna from Grazier Photography - what a wonderful couple they were to work with! Check out their blog post here (much better photos than mine)- and Bella's Blooms for the elegant flowers. Murray Hill Talent provided their band Unity for the entertainment for the evening and Cape Destinations provided safe transportation to and from the club for guests. They also changed up the traditional wedding cake and had pies brought in from Marion's Pie Shop - Yum! I have my fingers crossed that they all know more couples that need a wedding planner - because I love seeing this crew almost every year! Jana & Brooks were a fabulous couple looking to get married on Cape Cod in July with their closest friends and family - and one of my most favorite locations on the Cape for an intimate ceremony and reception is the Boat House at Chatham Bars Inn. They had their ceremony on the edge of the sand on a beautiful clear day. Tom Davis was there to shoot photos (check out his photos here), Designers Touch provided the stunning flowers and Rentals Unlimited delivered all of the chairs and linens. They even rented a serpentine kids table with buckets we put together for each child attending. We also arranged the Chatham Bars Inn activities staff to come and take the kids on a scavenger hunt around the beach so the adults could enjoy their clam bake dinner.  Vanessa and Brok are a fabulous couple from Minneapolis looking to get married on the Cape in an intimate setting with just immediate family. The big blow out reception would take place weeks later in Minneapolis. They decided that the beach in front of the Ocean House in Dennis would be a perfect setting with dinner to follow with 30 of their closest family and those who could not make the trip out west. It was a perfect day - minus a bit of wind - and Judy from All About Flowers put together a beautiful location for their beach ceremony as well as bright yellow flowers for the bride and her cake! Chris Cook joined me to take photos of the couple and then followed them to Chapin Beach after dinner for sunset photos on the beach.
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Plan. Relax. Enjoy.At Cape Cod Celebrations, your vision is our brand. Learn more about how we can help you pull together your beautiful Cape Cod Wedding. Archives
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