ISSUE FEATURED
WEDDINGS PLANNING
RESOURCES ISLAND
DIRECTORY PLANNING
CHECKLIST
September-October 2010
Elisha Smith Beginnings Island commuters: The daily trek across the water
Spring-Summer Home & Garden 2010
Harmony on the plains A sense of belonging Emily Post, in her garden Your Vineyard Home A backyard symphony Getting rid of skunk smell Dr. Seussland on Martha’s Vineyard Inside a pro’s wine cellar
Martha’s Vineyard Island Weddings & Celebrations 2010
Photographer Randi Baird captured this joyful moment near the Edgartown Lighthouse during Monica Becerra and Bernard Baez’s nuptials on May 31, 2009.Comic relief at West Chop
After storm clouds forced Masha Tivyan and Ben Stout to move their wedding ceremony under cover, the couple took advantage of a break in the weather to take photographs on a West Chop dock. As the setting sun cast a golden glow along the shore, the two cuddled and smiled for the camera. They then returned to their reception. And discovered near tragedy.
“We had been totally shut out of the raw bar,” exclaims Ben, a writer for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in Los Angeles. In a moment of desperation, his bride, also a comedy writer and a stand-up comedienne, grabbed a mini-hamburger. “The mustard spilled right onto my dress,” she says. “But it was all good, no one noticed, and it came out in the dry cleaning.”
Although their wedding had all the markers of tradition, the couple capitalized on touches of humor whenever possible. Gift bags for guests included wind-up lobsters and DVDs of Jaws, and the couple entered their reception to the thundering rhythms of the Rocky theme song.
For the comedy writers, the laughter started at work. After moving from New York City to Los Angeles, Masha took a job as a temporary receptionist at The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, where Ben was a writer. “I was drawn to his steely blue eyes, his cute little butt, and his mustard-colored corduroys,” she jokes.
So she invited him to see The Lord of the Rings. He told her he had already seen it, but he says, “What I didn’t tell her was that I was sort of seeing someone else.” It was not until a poker party two months later that Ben, recently out of his relationship, finally made his move. When his ride took off early, he asked Masha to drive him home. “This is the most calculating move he’s ever made,” Masha says. “Ben’s not a sneaky guy.” Pulling into his driveway proved the perfect time for him to plant the first kiss.
Ben proposed five years later, on Christmas day. The couple set a September wedding date and started booking Island venues. Ben spent his childhood summers in Vineyard Haven, and when the two took their first vacation together, it was here. “It’s a place I’m just so proud of and was so excited to show Masha,” Ben says. It was the natural first choice for their wedding.
They reserved the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club for the rehearsal dinner and the West Chop Club for the ceremony and reception. Despite the exclusive nature of these venues (there are a number of private clubs on Martha’s Vineyard that host weddings, but most only allow members or their families to rent the space), the couple planned their events to be fun – and, whenever possible, funny.
Ben recalls when his parents started sending out invitations for a casual Thursday night cookout at their nearby house for out-of-town guests: “They put little handfuls of sand in the invitations. There was a lot of conversation about how much sand is too much sand. When does the red flag go up?” he says with a laugh.
On Friday, Dee Smith of Tea Lane Caterers transformed the yacht club into a lobster extravaganza. Friends and family sat down with plastic bibs at blue-and-white checkered tablecloths and dug into plates of shellfish. “The guests just flipped for it,” Ben says.
After weeks of clear fall weather, the couple awoke Saturday morning, their wedding day, to rain. While getting her hair done at Maggie’s Salon in Vineyard Haven, Masha got a call from Ben: The ceremony – slated to take place at the West Chop flag pole – would have to be moved to the club’s porch. No problem, she said. “We just changed one of the focal points of the wedding,” Ben remembers, “and she said, ‘No problem.’ I said to her, ‘You are the coolest bride ever.’”
From the porch – trimmed in the merriest shade of blue-green – the couple said “I do” in a ceremony conducted by a friend. “The bulk of it we wrote from scratch,” Masha says.
After the ceremony, the ninety guests moved inside to paler shades of blue and the brightest of reds, where they received their table assignments. In a nod to Masha’s Russian heritage – she moved to the United States from St. Petersburg in her early teens – some guests sat down to a dinner of duck or halibut at the Gorbachev table. Others noshed in front of a picture of Catherine the Great, and no doubt a rowdy bunch was seated at the Smirnoff table.
Following dinner, a Russian band from New Jersey, the Alexis Band, took to the microphone. Guests danced to traditional Russian songs and cheesy ’90s dance covers. The party had an eleven o’clock end time because of town sound regulations, but when the witching hour struck, it was still going strong.
Reluctantly, the couple handed sparklers to their guests and made their way to one of the club’s suites for the night. “We left and were like, ‘Why are we leaving?’” Masha says. “That was an awesome party!” Ben reminded her it is better to leave a party too early than too late. “It was fun and funny and that’s what counts,” she says.