From the minute John and I met Joe, we knew he would be the perfect addition to the Thomas family. In fact, I don’t know about anyone else, but I took it as a foregone conclusion that he was going to be a permanent addition from that first meeting! (Which was actually at Marget’s wedding, and the way he charmed, chauffeured, and danced with random family members he had never met before told me all I needed to know!) He and Natalie, my sister-in-law, fit together beautifully. I am SO lucky to have these two in my life, and lucky to be sharing their wedding with you today. (Natalie graciously agreed to share a few thoughts, too!) Marget drew the most beautiful illustration of the Branford House for Natalie and Joe’s save the date, and I contributed the graphic design! Hana Floral did a beautiful job with the flowers, just like she did for Marget’s wedding! Natalie’s bouquet included garden roses, lavender, tweedia, freesia, a cafe au lair dahlia, and mini phaleonopsis orchids. Bridesmaid dresses were a little bit of a conundrum, because as you can see, Marget was the most beautiful 39-week pregnant matron of honor I can imagine! She chose to wear a Two Birds dress while Kate and I wore J.Crew dresses in rich peacock. I love that color SO much! Jennie Fresa made everyone look good! Joe chose the same tuxedo John wore for our wedding, and has worn many times since – I can’t recommend it enough! From Natalie: Joe and I were married in July before a group of close family and friends at the Branford House at Avery Point in Connecticut. Being the third and last of my siblings to wed, led to some benefits and challenges! Among the challenges was finding a

Friends, today is our two-year wedding anniversary! I thought I’d celebrate by sharing a favorite photo, but who am I kidding – I can’t stop at just one :) I actually write Tanja Lippert a thank you note every year, because I am that to-my-knees grateful for these treasures. As if it needs to be said after those beautiful photos, but what a magical day. I feel so lucky to have absolutely no regrets, looking back – so thankful, in hindsight, that we took the time to do things our way, to do them meaningfully, and to do them with great love. I have absolutely no desire to do it over again; instead, I love looking forward to what is to come. The kind folks at Southern Weddings shared our marriage advice yesterday on the blog and in print in Volume 6, and I thought it might be fun to share it here, too: You know that saying, find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life? Well, we like to switch it up a bit: marry your best friend, and you’ll never work a day in your marriage. That, of course, is not entirely true — even the best marriages have harder days and easier days — but if you truly LIKE your partner, and love spending time with him or her more than anyone else, everything else seems to fall into place. Or, at least, that’s been our experience! Other tips that have served us well throughout our eight years together: forgive again and again, and don’t hold a grudge (easier said than done). Put your partner before yourself in small things — it will help to have that muscle in shape when bigger things come around. Take great joy in surprising and

Hello, friends! Thank you for your wonderful comments on my last post! I find it so interesting to hear the changes others have gone through post-marriage, so thank you for sharing. One of the most frequently-asked questions I’ve gotten in the last few months is about the layout of the Sperry tent from our reception. Random, I know (which I why I never posted about it on the front end), but it seems as though there is a dearth of information on the interwebs about tent layouts, so I am happy to oblige! In addition to the great beauty of their tents, I think one of the best things about the Sperry experience is their online layout tool. I found it by going to the page for my local office, then clicking on “Products” and “design your own event.” No download needed — hooray! You can choose the size of your tent and fill it with any furnishings you have on your rental order. This tool is super comprehensive, and was unbelievably helpful in figuring out, for example, exactly how many 8′ tables we could fit in a corner instead of leaving it at, eh, that looks like it might fit. The tent poles are marked and everything. Here’s the final layout we came up with: Because I’m a little nutty, I made another version that showed which linens went there, to assist my set-up peeps. That looked like this: The Sperry tent designer lets you save your layouts in your account for future fiddling, and also lets you export them for sharing and printing. Genius. People also seem to be curious about what size tent we rented. It was a 32×70′. It ended up being perfect for our number of guests (about 115) — but only because we had

As we drove up the hill from the beach, we could see our guests transitioning from the cocktail hour area to the reception tent in the Sunken Garden of the O’Neill. As guests approached the tent from the side, they could take a favor, peruse the menu, and/or leave some of their belongings inside the cubbies we had set up, and just inside the tent was a table with our guest book, marriage certificate, and family wedding photos. Let’s take a closer look at all that, shall we? We opted to spend the majority of our “favor money” on a charitable donation to the shelter from which we adopted our beloved kitties. We did set out homemade popper favors filled with Snickers and Starbursts (two of our favorite candies!) as a small token along with a sign explaining our donation. Yes, those are actual watercolor paintings of our cats — we had them made through this Etsy shop a few years ago, and I scanned them for this special card! Since our reception set-up was a little unusual — what I termed a “strolling small plates” reception — I wanted to give guests an idea of what to expect right off the bat. Our oversize menu did the trick. To make it, I purchased an old frame at the flea market for $5, popped the “art” out and wrapped it in a textured silk fabric to match our linens, painted the frame, popped the backing back in and secured it with my staple gun, then added the hand-lettered menu cards and bow. Not sure why it was positioned behind the tent strapping, but oh well :) You’ve already heard a bit about our “Quaker” marriage certificate, but I’m happy to say it worked out great! A quick tip: Definitely plan