Kathleen is one of my favorite wedding planners! She owns Allow Me Weddings & Events. When I was asked to be their Chester River wedding photographer, I was sooo excited!! Since Kathleen has 10 years of wedding and event planning up her sleeve I wanted to share her experience and thoughts about planning her own intimate eastern shore wedding.
From Kathleen:
As for our story…
I have always had an obsession with weddings and being very detailed oriented and organized, it was no surprise that I would love wedding coordination. I am a total sap and hopeless romantic. However, I never believed in the “when you know, you know” theory of finding the one. I have seen it a dozen times in Disney films growing up, romantic comedies and as personal friends have gotten married over the years, I just didn’t really buy it. Then, I met Jeff and every nerve ending in my body was screaming, “THIS IS IT! This is what you have been waiting for!” and everything seemed to click. It was like the universe had finally aligned and put us at the same place at the same time for us to meet, and then it was full speed ahead! Even though my rationale would have said that it was too fast, every thing that we did together felt absolutely natural. Being an outsider, I would have thought we were crazy too trying to get married in 30 days! But even down to the wedding day, I was cool as a cucumber. What was there to stress about? I had planned everything and was marrying the man of my dreams! We decided to have an intimate eastern shore wedding with just our parents, sisters and best friends (Jeff’s best friend was our officiant) in attendance and wanted to do it while my mom was in town from Texas. That gave me about 30 days! As with our courtship, everything seemed to fall into please with ease. We were able to secure the last Saturday in June on a private community pier – Gibson’s Grant Pier -for the intimate ceremony and Bridges Restaurant for the dinner reception. Once that was done, I immediately reached out to Carly Fuller Photography, and luck would be on our side AGAIN – she was available! I ordered my blush lace bridal dress from Victoria’s Secret, called Lindsay Jackson at Pure Design Style who was available to come on site and do my hair, my mom got to work with her friend for the flowers and star fish pails with Candy Kitchen salt water taffy favors. We ordered a Red Velvet Cheesecake from Cheesecake factory and rug that would be our Wedding rug. All the other little details like the lanterns, aisle runner, cake topper, star fish hair pins, and bridal jewelry were fun finds from local shopping.
The week of our wedding, I kept telling myself to focus on what I could manage/plan and not on what I couldn’t. There was rain in the forecast all week for Kent Island. It rained like mad on our way over the bridge Friday evening, the day before the wedding. I just kept telling myself, “the goal is to get married, it doesn’t matter the weather.” Saturday turned out to be the most beautiful day! The sun was shining, the clouds were puffy, the sky was blue, birds were chirping, it was just perfect! Everything went off without a hitch. Our families were welcomed at the ceremony site with peach sangria or an ice cold beer. We had a champagne toast after the ceremony instead of a receiving line and took a private boat ride from Crab Alley Marina to Bridges Restaurant to enjoy a little one on one time before dinner. The food and service at Bridges Restaurant was excellent! I loved the goat cheese salad and everyone raved over the crab cakes. The sun set as we took pictures out on the pier with Carly on a bike that a local rental place let us borrow. I had always wanted fireworks at my wedding, so instead we all played with sparklers out on the dock. As the night was coming to an end, my mom pointed out to Jeff and I that out in the distance there were fireworks being shot off. It was amazing! Jeff’s grandfather passed away a week before our wedding and we know that was him letting us know that he was there.
So, being a coordinator, I had this idea in my head for years of what I thought my wedding would be like. Sometimes life has a different plan for us and its way better than we could ever imagine. Being with Jeff has taught me not everything needs a plan, to relax a little, enjoy life a little more, go with the flow and….
When you let love in miracles can happen!
