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Cait­lin & Tom were the per­fect start to my 2011 wed­ding sea­son. I have to admit a cer­tain amount of tre­pi­da­tion going into it — although I’d been shoo­ting nearly non-​stop events, por­traits, and head shots and even atten­ded my first, AMAZING workshop, in the pre­ce­ding months, it had actually been 8 months since Ron & Linda’s 10.10.10 Cali­for­nia Wed­ding. In the week lea­ding up to it I star­ted to have the pre-​season night­ma­res.. for­get­ting, for­get­ting and more forgetting.

My fret­ting was all for naught as everything about the day was as smooth as silk.

I first arri­ved at the hotel to find the girls just finishing up with their fabu­lous makeup artist.

And then, Cait­lin sho­wed me her shoes. And I swoo­ned, and wished des­pe­ra­tely I could wear heels.

Stunning.

The flo­wers were all done by Tom’s mom — she owns a flo­wer shop in Rea­ding, MA — my ori­gi­nal hometown!

Once I arri­ved at the church, they stashed Tom up in the bal­cony so he wouldn’t acci­den­tally sneak a peek of the bride arriving.

But I won­der if he heard the chaos of the limo not being able to get close to the church and two of the grooms­men, who also hap­pe­ned to be Rea­ding Police, stop­ping traf­fic so that the limo dri­ver could very adeptly back in!

Perfection!

I love the old fashio­ned feel of the room where she sig­ned the marriage license. And the minis­ter hol­ding her flo­wers for her.

And then, it was time to get married. And Tom was smi­ling from ear to ear.

The minis­ter recoun­ted the tale of the ear­lier traf­fic she­na­ni­gans, and how touched he was that the police depart­ment wasn’t going to send them a bill as part of their wed­ding gift. While perhaps you had to be there to get the full effect, let me assure you it was hilarious.

Those two in the middle — they’re the heroes.

A first for me — rin­ging the bell!

Then it was off to Stage Fort Park for pho­tos. And I tell you, I was pho­to­graphing this fun, laid back cou­ple and I kept thin­king — they look like they just fell off the pages of a cata­log. Come to find out — Cait­lin works for a cata­log and some­ti­mes has to stand in as a model. Duh­town! I know a natu­ral when I see one!

Ah! Look at that awesomeness!!

hi.lar.i.ous.

And breath­ta­king. All in the same minute.

I don’t usually post these shots, but this one makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. :-D

Have I oohed and aaahed enough about the colors yet? Because it was like a tech­no­co­lor dream world.

After a fabu­lous time with the ‘for­mals’ (for the record, I hate that term — I’m nothing remo­tely close to for­mal when I shoot the group pho­tos.. we have fun, we laugh, poses are often regar­ded with hila­rity, and some­ti­mes we’re even inap­pro­priate. nope, nothing for­mal about it.) But any­way, wha­te­ver you call them, we finished them up, laughing the whole time and hea­ded off to the reception!

Details!

The Crui­se­port was gor­geous, full of inte­rest and LIGHT!

A toast, com­plete with a few tears.

And then one of the more crazy cen­ter­piece givea­ways. I love when the group embra­ces the ridi­cu­lous­ness of the situa­tion and RUNS AWAY WITH IT.

Cait­lin, you look gor­geous, but perhaps a little too knife happy.…

And the dan­cing began -

I wish I could remem­ber now, even though it’s only been a month, how long this ama­zing cou­ple had been married. I want to say it was 54 years, but they don’t seem that they could be old enough for that! I love the style of anni­ver­sary dance when the other cou­ples who are “dis­qua­li­fied” don’t go back to their seats but simply con­ti­nue to dance on the side­li­nes and the newly­weds stay on the floor the whole time. This pic­ture speaks volu­mes to me. Love, sup­port, past, pre­sent and future. It was the per­fect way to end my time with this crew, who I KNOW con­ti­nued to dance the night away!

Thank you Cait­lin & Tom for having me at your spec­ta­cu­lar day. I couldn’t have asked for a bet­ter kick off to the 2011 wed­ding season!

Hi Melissa, I am SSOOO exci­ted about the pho­tos. They look fan­tas­tic! I get a little giddy when I flip through them. You really cap­tu­red the day and the joy. I abso­lu­tely adore the slideshow! Thank you so much for being a part of our day. You were so fun to work with and help to make our day per­fect. Tom and I couldn’t be hap­pier with the pho­tos and can’t wait to share them with everyone. Just so you know, I am SUCH a fan of your work and will con­ti­nue to “stalk” your Web site. I feel like the peo­ple in your pho­tos are my best friends and I love rea­ding their sto­ries. If anyone is loo­king for a pho­to­grapher I will not hesi­tate to recom­mend you. You are so fantastic! Thanks again! Caitlin

I know this post has been a long one — but there’s something new on the MKP blog and I’m exci­ted to share with you some info from the cou­ples point of view on the big day!

[sce­nes]

• Get­ting Ready | Rock­port Inn & Suites
• Cere­mony| First Parish Church, Manches­ter, MA
• For­mals | Stage Fort Park
• Recep­tion | Crui­se­port Gloucester

[sounds]

• Pro­ces­sio­nal | Trum­pet Voluntary/​Prince of Den­mark (pla­yed on the organ) It took a while to pick a song. I wan­ted to do something com­ple­tely non-​traditional and con­tem­po­rary, but then I deci­ded that was too much to ask of the orga­nist to learn a ran­dom song I selec­ted (espe­cially since the aisle was so short and he wouldn’t have to play it too long). So then I just pic­ked a happy song that wasn’t Can­non in D or something the every bride uses. Actually, the song the moms wal­ked down to was more impor­tant to me. I pic­ked Sheep May Safely Graze because my mom and I both love the song. I would have used it …
• Reces­sio­nal | Mendelssohn’s Wed­ding March. This was an easy one. They use it in every movie as the reces­sio­nal. I guess i wan­ted it to feel like a movie! we wan­ted to be movie stars!
• Recep­tion Intro­duc­tion | Acci­den­tally in Love by the Coun­ting Crows It was happy and fun. Again, Tom and I wan­ted something a little dif­fe­rent from every wed­ding we had been to, but a song peo­ple would know. This song actually took lon­ger to pick than any other song we had to pick. Tom kept trying to pick songs that were too slow and I kept telling him that peo­ple nee­ded to be happy to walk in happy to it. It’s not a fune­ral. Unfor­tu­na­tely, most of the songs we love are slo­wer songs. But finally I sug­ges­ted this song and we both agreed it worked.
• First Dance | “You and Me” by Dave Matthews Tom is a huge Dave Matthews fan and I’m a fan, too. This song came out while we were dating and we’d lis­ten to it often in the car and we love it. We love the lyrics. Again, a run­ning theme in our music selections.…we wan­ted something we hadn’t heard at any of the 12 wed­dings we’d been to in the last 3 years. I guess when you go to so many wed­dings (I’m sure you notice this too) you start hea­ring the same songs all the time.
• Parent Dan­ces | Tom pic­ked the Long and Win­ding Road for his dance with his mom. He was not aware that this was actually the same song she dan­ced with his dad with at their wed­ding. His dad pas­sed away when Tom was a baby, and it was really an emo­tio­nal moment bet­ween Tom and his mom. I dan­ced to My Little Girl by Steve Kir­wan with my dad. After months of trying to get my dad to pick a song I finally sent him 5 songs to pick from. This was his favo­rite. I had hoped he’d pick it because it was a “my little girl” song without making it sound like I was still 10 years old.
• Last Dance | It’s a Love Thing by Keith Urban. My brother, Zach and Andrea used an upbeat song to end their wed­ding and it was really nice, so I thought I’d do the same thing. I like the mes­sage of the song…that we’re together because we love each other, and all the other things aren’t all that impor­tant. The wed­ding, our new sha­red name, and everything else is things we’ve cho­sen to do, but we love each other and that’s most important.

[sup­port]

• Dress | David’s Bri­dal
• Wed­ding Party Attire | David’s Bri­dal in Hori­zon Blue
• Hair | Kate Amiro from Shear Action in Beverly
• Make-​up | Brea from Make-​up by Brea She was so nice and did a great job!
• Cake | Ando­ver Cakes Delicious!
• Cate­rer | Vin­wood Cate­ring (We were requi­red to use them at Crui­se­port. But we were very impres­sed and they actually made the shrimp dish per my request. The chic­ken dish was off their menu but was also delicious.)
• DJ/​Band | Greg Gates
• Flo­rist | My Per­so­nal Flo­rist — Tom’s Mom’s busi­ness. (and were they ever gorgeous!)

[sen­ti­ment]

• What was the most memo­ra­ble moment from your day? | Ente­ring the recep­tion. It was so great lis­te­ning as the wed­ding party was announ­ced and then to round the cor­ner and see ever­yone and everything.
• Any advice for future cou­ples get­ting married? | Do as much as you can as early as pos­si­ble. We were enga­ged for 14 months and mana­ged to really spread the “wor­kload” out across the entire enga­ge­ment so when we got down to the last month or so before the wed­ding we weren’t stres­sed at all.
• Fun­niest moments from your day? | The kic­kline! Ever­yone was funny to watch.
• Where did you go on your honey­moon? | We star­ted with 4 nights in Dis­ney World then went on a Car­ni­val cruise to Key West, Grand Cay­man, and Jamaica. (It was fantastic!)

[story]

• Together since | February 2007. Our friend Sean (one of the grooms­men) intro­du­ced us. I went to high school with Sean, and Tom went to college with him. So Sean intro­du­ced us a few years after college when Tom and Sean moved in with each other.
• Enga­ged on | April 4, 2010
• Occu­pa­tions | Cait­lin is a buyer for NorthStyle cata­log. Tom runs the mar­ke­ting depart­ment for a cons­truc­tion company.
• Pro­po­sal Story | It was Eas­ter mor­ning. We had slept over at my parent’s house. I had gone downs­tairs to get ready for church. When I went back ups­tairs to wake up Tom he had set up an Eas­ter egg hunt in my childhood bedroom. The ring was in the very last Eas­ter egg I found! We aren’t cer­tain i even said “yes”.…I just ran out of the room and said “I have to show my mom!!!

Con­gra­tu­la­tions again!