Grace + Matt | Married! 05.27.12 | Narragansett Wedding

This is Grace & Matt! They were gracious enough to have us along for their entire weekend’s worth of festivities — the rehearsal dinner on Saturday, the wedding itself on Sunday, and a Day After shoot Monday morning! My regular assistant, Kim, couldn’t come along, so I brought my sister-in-law, Rebecca, and we had an amazing time! The whole 3 days of festivities took place at several cottages in Jerusalem, Rhode Island (a fishing village within the town of Narragansett), just seconds from the beach. The cottages are in Grace’s family and they were lucky enough to be able to use them, allowing their family and friends to stay over and spread out in the cozy homes. They had a relaxed “rehearsal”, which was basically just a chance for people to get settled in and spend time together, and we enjoyed Cincinnati-style chili (Grace and I are both from Cincinnati, so I was especially psyched about that!). My sister-in-law was confused — “why are we putting meat sauce on spaghetti?” — but I told her to just trust me and go with it! The wedding day was also amazing — everyone gathered right down on the beach to watch Grace & Matt be ushered in by their bagpiper (who was awesome!). They did a very casual ceremony which included a handfasting. They actually had each guest, or set of guests, come up and tie a ribbon or string of their choosing around their clasped hands. I’ve never seen the tradition done this way, and it was extremely moving to watch. All of the guests, as well as Grace and Matt, were able to show their emotions and have an intimate moment with them during the ceremony. It was awesome! They also did a sand ceremony, combining sand from her childhood beach in Rhode Island with sand from Matt’s home in New Mexico. Then everyone retreated back to the cabins for a delicious clambake dinner. The next morning we headed around the neighborhood and to the beach for their Day After session, and we basically just spent the whole time laughing. Awesome weekend! They had so many quirky, unique details that I loved — their various decorations (Yoda, a manatee, a Tardis, etc), their custom neon Chucks, their rats (Plague and Garbage) who made the trek to Rhode Island with them, as well as their three cats! Amazing.