Micro Wedding, Woods Hole MA: Allie and Brian

Micro Wedding Woods Hole, MA

What to do about your wedding and dealing with Covid? 

Have a Micro wedding. For many couples, to say trying to get married during Covid was stressful and difficult would be a light way to say it. However, for the micro weddings that did happen, they have been wonderful moments to photograph. The small intimate environments have allowed couples to expand their idea of what it means to have a wedding and have allowed for laid back wedding where they could be more present with the people that they love. Some couples incorporated new parts to their wedding day they wouldn’t have normally had time for, others had more time to thank their friends and family.

Allie and Brian originally planned a 250 person wedding on the cape this year. Because of the pandemic, they decided to change it all and move forward with a more intimate celebration. The couple decided to incorporate their family into their ceremony by reading words of wisdom or short phrases to the couple. I believe they originally allocated 30-40 minutes for the ceremony and while it ended up being over an hour, it felt like 15 minutes of pure laughter. It was one of the most enjoyable ceremonies I’ve ever documented. The tears, love and joy were overwhelming and wonderful.

For couples unsure of what their wedding may look like, Allie and Brian generously wrote a lovely write up of their thoughts and hopefully this help you with your decision.

Also, I’m sorry, there are a lot of images in this post. I just couldn’t narrow it down. For every image I did cut, it felt like I was tearing out a small piece. I hope you enjoy the post!

What led you to decide to celebrate the wedding the way that you did. 

We were supposed to have a 250 person wedding in my parents’ backyard on Cape Cod on Labor Day weekend. We had sent out the Save the Dates, but not yet ordered invitations when the pandemic hit in early March. We both had a feeling from the very beginning that our wedding would not be able to happen the way we had planned. Pretty early on, we decided to postpone our party until 2021 for the health of all of our guests. However, we decided to move ahead with a small ceremony on the planned date in 2020, because we’d been together for 10 years and were so ready to be married!

What was the biggest adjustment from what you originally planned? How were you able to handle it? 

The biggest adjustment was definitely the size of our guest list – we were pretty sad to know we’d be getting married without any of our friends (many of whom had known us since we first started dating) and so much of our extended family. But, in the end, our wedding was perfect! We still had the wedding in my parents’ backyard and used the same caterer, photographer (Angie is the best!!), and officiant (my dad!) as we’d originally planned, but had 20 guests instead of 250. Because the guestlist was so small, we were able to make our ceremony really intimate. We celebrated by having a delicious dinner and watching a blood moon rise over the bay, the perfect end to a perfect wedding.

What was the best part of your wedding?

The best part of our wedding was definitely the ceremony. We were able to throw out all of our (and our families’!) expectations of what a wedding should be and do something that really felt like our wedding. We walked into our wedding together (we didn’t really have an aisle) and that was so powerful – it really felt like we were stepping into the next phase of our lives as a team. Everyone sat in a circle, and there was time for everyone to share something with us to take into our marriage — a memory, story, quote, or piece of advice. With this, our wedding felt so unique, as only this group of people coming together could have made it as beautiful as it was. Also, we were able to share longer and more intimate vows than we may have felt comfortable doing with the whole guestlist present. 

Was there anything that surprised you about your wedding?

If we were to go back to the moment we got engaged and plan this whole thing again, knowing what we know now, we would have planned a small wedding from the start. While we’re so excited to celebrate our marriage next year with all of our friends and family, we really wouldn’t change a thing about the wedding day we happened into given the circumstances. We’re surprised we felt that way – we were both expecting to feel the joy of getting married, but also to feel that people were missing. Instead, we both felt filled to the brim! 

What were some of your favorite images?

Well, we really loved all of our images. Angie did such an amazing job capturing our day, that it’s hard to choose favorites! But in general, we loved the images from the ceremony, because we were able to see how our family members experienced our wedding. Surprisingly, we also loved the family portraits. We weren’t expecting to not like them, but these wedding staples felt like something we just had to check off the list to appease family. But somehow, Angie was able to capture everyone’s personality in these portraits and they were so fun to look through!

Any advice for couples going through this process or about to go through the process?

If you’re choosing between a big wedding and a small one, go small! Or, know that you can have the bigger party at a later date. Because our wedding was so small, it really felt like our families were able to come together in a way that I don’t think would have been possible at a larger event. 

Also, do your portraits before the wedding! We had planned not to do a first look, because Brian wanted to wait to see me in my wedding dress until I was walking down the aisle. When all of our plans turned upside down, I decided not to wear my original wedding dress because I couldn’t get it altered in time, so we decided that doing our portraits before the ceremony would make the most sense for the flow of our day. My mom walked me down to meet Brian, which was such a special moment for the three of us. Brian and I had each been unexpectedly nervous all day, and spending this hour together before the ceremony was so fun and really calmed us down.

Other thoughts?

We were pretty nervous about being photographed so much on our wedding day, but we knew from our engagement session that Angie really puts us at ease. We realized on our wedding day that the person you spend the most time with besides your new spouse is your photographer, so you better make sure it’s someone you love having around! Angie is just the best – not only did we love to hang out with her during our portraits (she kept having to remind us that the purpose of this time was for photographs, not just catching up with her), but our family members kept remarking that she was a wonderful presence and so good at keeping everyone organized. If you are reading this wondering if you should book with Angie, the answer is YES!! Thanks Angie!  

Planner: Jyl Deering of Deering Events

Catering:  William Ference Catering

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Want to talk about your wedding, micro, intimate or otherwise? Contact me here.

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