Erin and Dan's Harvard Memorial Hall Wedding!

On Saturday, August 14th, I was the coordinator for Erin and Dan's wedding. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, which started out at the Charles Hotel, where the bridal party got ready with hair and makeup. The bridemaids wore Calvin Klein dresses, and the bride's gown was by Paloma Blanca. Not only was Erin's dress stunning, but her cathedral length veil with lace trim from Etsy really completed the look. Nellie's Wildflowers provided all of the bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, and nosegays for the wedding. The bride and groom are both Harvard alums, and decided to do a first look before their ceremony so they would have plenty of time to go to some of their favorite photo locations, like Harvard Stadium.

The ceremony for 250 guests was held at St. Catherine of Genoa Church in Somerville, then everyone traveled a short distance to Harvard's Memorial Hall for the cocktail hour and reception. The cocktail hour was held in the Transept, which is a long corridor with large stained glass windows on both ends and incredibly high ceilings. Guests enjoyed cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, and had a lot of fun with Erin and Dan's unique guestbook. The guestbook was a thumbprint tree, where guests picked their favorite shade of green stamp, and used their thumb to add leaves to a large tree. Then, they would clean off their thumb with provided wipes, and then sign their name underneath their thumbprint.

After cocktail hour, doors opened to Annenberg Hall for the reception. This room is spectacular, and reminds me of the Hogwartz dining hall from Harry Potter. Erin and Dan had a lot of fond memories here because it's Harvard's freshman dining hall, and they chose their wedding date in August because it is the one of, if not the only weekend of the year when there are no students on campus. The bride herself created all of the centerpieces for the guest tables. The low centerpieces were made of ivy leaves and roses. The tall centerpieces were a mix of branches with tied roses and hanging votives. Tons of votives candles were scattered on each table, and along the sides of the room. After a first course of salad, Crimson Catering served filet mignon with shrimp scampi as the main entrée.

The wedding cake from Lyndell's Bakery was decorated with ivy, and two little lovebirds on the top. However, the best part of the cake was the cake cutter: the groom's sword from the Marines. I had never held a sword before in my life, and so it was quite fun even just putting it on the cake table. Erin and Dan cut the cake with the sword, with the Marines' Hymm, "The Halls of Montezuma" playing in the background. Afterwards, I took the icing covered sword into the kitchen, and got a lot of "woah!!"s from the staff who didn't know about sword until then. My awesome assistant, Rachel, ended up washing the sword in the kitchen sink and told me later on that it was definitely a unique wedding experience!

Flip flop baskets were made available to guests as dancing got underway, and soon afterwards, Rachel and I went to go pick up around 16 pizza pies from Pinocchio's Pizza to prepare for the late night snack buffet, which also included Blue Bell Ice Cream. The pizza was for all of the Harvard alums, who survived on Pinocchio's during school. The ice cream was a tribute to Texas, where the groom is from and a lot of guests were from as well. Blue Bell Ice Cream was scooped into cones, and also was part of a sundae bar, complete with servers wearing Blue Bell hats! The professional photos from Eric Laurits will be coming later on, but for now, here are some photos that I took of the night!

Erin and Dan, you both were so fun to work with, and I hope you had an amazing honeymoon in Italy. I wish you nothing but the best in your marriage together, and thank you for allowing me to be part of your wedding day!

~Emilie