Our Boston Wedding Details (October 2008)

Troy and I married in Boston on October 25, 2008! We wanted to capture some of the details of the wedding and provide some help for others who might be planning a wedding in Boston. In particular, we planned the wedding in Boston while we were living in London - remote wedding planning is quite fun, believe me. Luckily, my parents live in Boston and were able to help with a bunch of the physical aspects of planning the wedding. We chose Boston because it's in one of the few states in the USA that allow full marriage for same sex couples. (See the related article on why I believe that only marriage is appropriate and not civil partnerships or civil unions.) I think it'll be most useful if we walk through how the weekend unfolded and provide details along the way.

When Massachuesetts started allowing out of state same sex marriage (effective in August 2008), Troy and I decided to quickly plan a wedding for October in Boston. We started by ordering the wedding invitations from Outvites.com - we chose an Elegance in Black invitation for the wedding. We chose to do the RSVPs online and built a simple webpage with the details, allowing guests to chose their dinner and similar info.

On the wedding weekend itself, we rented a Boston Duck Boat for a private tour of Boston on Friday afternoon. The 90 minute tour combined a narrative about the history of Boston as we drove through the streets of Boston, and a water view of the city as the Duck Boat sailed on the Charles River. The Duck Boat was a great way to welcome the out of town wedding guests to the city.

Friday evening we had a small dinner with family only in the North End of Boston - home of the best Italian food anywhere! Except for Italy, of course. We ate at La Galleria 33 on Salem Street.

Saturday morning - the day of the wedding! - Troy and I woke up and went for brunch at the place where we first met in November 1998. Back in 1998, we had our first date at the Pour House Boston. What we thought would be a brunch only turned into a day long date, complete with an awkward kiss at the end of the day as we parted. Ten years later, we again enjoyed a great waffle and coffee breakfast. Yummy.

We had people meet for the wedding party late Saturday afternoon at the hotel where we were having the marriage, the reception and dinner. The hotel we used for the wedding is the Royal Sonesta Hotel Boston. The hotel coordinator we worked with is amazing - Christine Lopez. We'd definitely give her a big endorsement for couples planning a wedding at the hotel in Boston! (It's technically on the Cambridge side of the Charles River - right near the Science Museum.)

We met in the late afternoon for pictures. For our wedding photographer, we chose Alison Williams Photography, and Alison was a pleasure to work with. We built a custom wedding photo package with her, and we had two photographers (Alison plus an assistant) from 5pm until 11pm, and rather than getting a bunch of physical wedding photo prints, we will get all the digital photos on DVDs that we can then use for the blog and select which ones we want to print ourselves or for higher quality, print through Alison. We should get the digital images in a few weeks. Earlier in the week, Troy and I met with Alison and were able to give her an overview of the ceremony and let her know which things we were particularly interested in capturing. They were super nice throughout the wedding itself and quite responsive to random requests - like to follow my William and Mary friends downstairs to a bar where we tried to get 2 shots of tequila each in memory of Two Tequila Tuesday from college. (We were disappointed to learn that the hotel isn't allowed to serve shots)

Our formal evening started at 6pm, with the marriage ceremony itself. Starting at 5:30pm, we had hired a Harpist and a Violinist from the Boston Copley Chamber Players to play light classical music. At 6pm, they began the formal wedding by playing Pachelbel's Canon in D as our parents, the readers, and Troy and I filed in.

The first reading was read by Troy's sister. She read "Success", which is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (but probably isn't actually written by him). My brother read the second reading, "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann. And the last reading, "Love" by Roy Croft, was read by Tee's sister. There weren't very many dry eyes left in the room by the end of these three readings. After the readings, we had a brief musical interlude and listened as the harpist and violinist played Sydney Carter's Lord of the Dance.

Next, we had the exchange of vows and rings. Troy and I wrote our own vows - simple and to the point. In retrospect, it's a good thing that they were short because we barely could manage to hold back emotions and say these to each other: "Troy/Tee, as your husband I promise to make the most of every moment with you. I will be your loyal friend and companion. I will take care of you, through laughter and tears, and every day look forward to happily growing old together. I love you today and always will." For the exchange of rings, it was simply "Troy/Tee, take this ring as a symbol of my unending love and faithfulness." When the vows and ring exchange were done, Tee's mom came forward and sang a verse of the Irish Blessing. Then, we filed out (married!) to the harpist and violinist playing Ode to Joy.

We had an hour reception from 6:30 - 7:30pm where the harp and violin still played music (various classical), an open bar (wheee!), and various served hors d'oeuvers. Those included Portobello Mushroom in Pastry, Warm Brie on Crostini with toasted almonds and honey, Seasonal fig with mascarpone cheese and balsamic drizzle, smoked mozzarella and tomato panini, bruschetta, and crab cakes with roasted garlic aioli (this was Tee's concession to those crazy fish-loving attendees!)

Then at 7:30, everyone was directed into the main dining room where we stayed until the evening ended at 11:30pm. Dinner was five courses, starting with New England Clam Chowder (except for Tee who got a Seasonal Squash Bisque!), then a salad of mixed and bitter greens with toasted hazelnut, raspberries, blue cheese crumble, dried figs and raspberry vinaigrette. After clensing our palates with strawberry-champagne sorbet in small martini glasses, we moved onto the main entree of either fresh grilled swordfish with a fire roasted tomato and chive butter sauce, or a black pepper crusted filet mignon with goat cheese and roasted red pepper ancho salsa. For dessert, we had White Wine Poached Pear over a Phyllo Nest with warm Caramel Sauce.

For the music during the dinner and dancing, we chose World Class Entertainers and had Mike Bullock as our specific DJ. We decided to go with a DJ instead of a full band, because we wanted a wide variety of music and decided we'd rather original songs than cheesy remixes performed by a band that could be hit or miss. DJ Mike was nice, kept the crowd engaged, and worked with us well throughout the night as we adapted the flow of a few things. He had people up between courses dancing, and did a nice job of progressing the music so that when dinner ended, people's spirits were up and the dance floor was busy most of the night.

Instead of a cake, we opted for cupcakes. (Note that the dessert course earlier is completely unrelated to cupcakes. Of course.) Nothing says "I love you" like 100 delicious cupcakes from Party Favors in Brookline. We worked with Ruth and selected 50 cupcakes with a golden vanilla cake base, and 50 cupcakes with a chocolate cake base. Across both of those, we had a selection of chocolate and vanilla buttercream frosting, and each cupcake had an injection of buttercream in its center and a simple frosting on the top with a rose design. Fantastic!

The flowers for the entire evening were done by Flowers on the Avenue in Somerville (617-629-7783). Janet Sousa did a wonderful job creating perfect arrangements and my mom really enjoyed working with her.

Photos (mostly by the professional photographer Alison Williams - see above) are available by category:

• Getting Ready
• Pre Ceremony
• Family Portraits
• Tee and Troy Portraits
• Ceremony
• Cocktail Reception
• First Dance
• Toasts
• Dinner and Reception
• Dancing
• Details of the Evening
• Candid Disposable Cameras for Guests

There are also additional photos from friends and family available on various sites (although some of them may be protected so you may not see them if you aren't a friend through Facebook or such..): Wedding pictures by Beth, Photos from Tee's parents, T and T Wedding Spectacular, and Tee and Troy's Wedding.