Advice from the Brides
The Ideal Venue
You’ve always dreamed of getting married at that one perfect spot but, alas, it’s not available for weddings. Chrisa Mott and Tony Bebee found themselves in that situation when they wanted to get married at the restaurant at the Outermost Inn, where they got engaged.“We made our first call to Hugh, who told us they didn’t do weddings,” Chrisa says. After several more calls, handwritten notes, and a visit to the Island to talk to owner Hugh Taylor in person, Chrisa says, “he finally agreed that we could have our wedding there.”
Dressing to dance
You might not think to choose the design of your wedding gown to match your band, but that’s what Stephanie Wondolowski did for her marriage to Ken Roache. “I have always wanted a slender-fitting gown but knew that I needed some lower flare to dance to Johnny Hoy,” Stephanie says. Her Justina McCaffrey couture gown fit perfectly.“Ken and I are not big dancers, but whenever we would visit the Island,” says Stephanie, “Johnny always seemed to be the spotlight, and Ken and I would dance all night until they moved us out — which is what we did at the wedding as well – ask Johnny, he said he had an awesome time!”
Reconnecting with the old days
Autumn de Leon fell in love with the Captain Flanders House in Chilmark while working there during college. When she and her now-husband Kevin Andrade planned for their wedding to be there, she didn’t know she’d end up seeing a decade-old friend – a black cat named Zeppelin.
“I remembered him fondly, because my last summer at Flanders we’d grown increasingly close. From his waiting for me in the mornings across the lane near the barn, to waiting at the bottom of the stairs, and finally to sleeping on my pillow, Zeppelin and I were always connected,” Autumn says. “When I arrived on the Island and got to Flanders to check in, a few days before the wedding, there he was, perched right in front of the inn. His meow was always hollow and loud and still was all of these years later. The morning of the wedding, he came to my suite door, and meowing like he always did, I let him in while I got ready for breakfast.”
Weathering the trip to the Island
When hurricane-force winds threatened to wreak havoc on Erin Murphy and Adam Barzilay’s wedding day, the couple maintained a positive attitude.“Getting to the Vineyard can be tough, but we forewarned all of our guests about this well in advance,” Erin says. “Therefore, even in the midst of a hurricane when the airport closed momentarily and the ferry stopped running briefly, all but one of our guests were able to make it over for the wedding. I think that this was possible because we sent the save the date cards out early with a personal letter from us listing all the many modes of transportation to the Island.”
More advice for your island wedding...
Tips for Planning the Big Day
More advice from our 2007 issue.
What I'd Wish I'd Known
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