Love and Lobster Coastal New England Weddings

9.24.11 Dahlia and Winthrop

Woodway Beach Club ~ Stamford Connecticut

Maybe like many couples today (or not) the second Winthrop proposed we were not calling venues and booking bands. We knew we wanted a feeling of inclusivity, but the where and how were big questions since we live in Los Angeles and families were back on the East Coast. Ultimately, we decided on the “right” coast and so we began looking at venues. With each visit and vendor meeting we became a bit more educated and so our vision started coming to life. We love and find calmness in being on the ocean, and so we picked a venue that was charming, but not presumptuous, right on Long Island Sound and had a great beach for everyone to sink into at some point in the night. We were going to bring a bit of the West Coast to the East!

The club has an amazing striped awning with white Christmas lights – probably the last thing I needed to know it was THE place – and so our nautical chic red, white, and blue wedding without being the Fourth if July started coming together.

The ceremony set-up was traditional, but we added lanterns and rose petals to soften the scene and placed ribbon in the tree to enhance the breezy feeling of the chiffon chuppah which mirrored my dress. My dad and I drove up in his light blue Mercedes just to give the ceremony a bit of an entrance since there was no to place to hide-out. Ceremony flowers would advance from blues and whites to beachy cocktail arrangements to deep red and purple reception flowers. As my (the bride) name is Dahlia, we had more than just accent dahlias, we placed one in each menu fold with the hope that they would end up all over for people in pictures. They did! Inside, the club’s blue and white striped awning would be accented by similar tables linens just for the cake, guestbook, and place card table.The last puzzle pieces included hanging sails from the club’s ceiling in order to make the space a bit more cozy and personalized.

And so the scene was set, but now we had to have some fun and make sure all these great people got to meet other great people. At cocktails we decided to have seafood themed hors d’oeuvres capped off by oysters to make sure the love was flowing. For the reception, we enlisted a great band that made the atmosphere amazing for our guests, but also created special moments for us. We had a photobooth (bigger than the ones in the movie theater), with a red background to fit into our colors, available for everyone to make some of their own memories while all taking a part in ours. And at the end of the night we had sparklers and a bonfire for people to get their toes in the sand and roast a marshmallow or two.

At the end of the day, we picked what we loved, in a setting that felt natural to us, and had our dream day. It was a lot of work, but our planner was there to help the vision stay true and everything about the day was more than we could have imagined, except for how fast it went!

Photographers- Weddings By Two
Planner- loli events
Venue- Woodway Beach Club
Florist- Peter’s Wholesale Florist
Band- Bud Maltin
Cake- SoNo Bakery
Dress- Pronovias
Shoes- Michael Kors