Garden Wedding at Maroni Meadows

An untraditional take on your typical wedding day - A beautifully blended cocktail hour with an intimate gathering focused on candid moments with family and friends. Read more about how this couple threw trends out the window and stuck with their gut, encouraging every couple to stick to your gut, and “do what YOU want!” when it comes to planning your wedding day.

jillian + Craig

AUGUST 12TH, 2022

From the couple

“When planning our wedding, relying on our recent experiences was the driving force for our planning. Craig and I attended eight weddings in 2021, so when it came to planning our own, we had an extensive list of "yay or nays" from a guest’s perspective. We wanted to create a day where our friends and family felt how our relationship feels; cozy, fun, inclusive, relaxing/ “zen vibes”, ect. We really swayed away from the traditional / structured wedding day, and focused more on making a laid back cocktail party experience for our loved ones. We also made a goal at the beginning of our planning process that if it wasn’t fun for us to plan or wouldn’t be fun for us - we wouldn't do it at all. So when planning, we had two lenses in which we looked at it. The first being an "experience based" lense, and the second being "what will it be like to look back on our day?"

Experiencing the Day

We asked our guests, if they felt inspired, to wear our wedding colors. Not that we doubted our loved ones, but they blew us away. Everyone looked amazing in their neutrals/earth tones. Some things that really worked for us to get the less structured day were as follows. We did speeches at our rehearsal dinner, and we did not do a garter or bouquet toss, a father-daughter dance, or a mother-son dance, but did keep the tradition of our first dance. We really did not incorporate anything into the day unless it felt right to us.

For dining, we hired a pizza truck, we only had cocktail tables, and did not have a structured dinner time so guests could eat when they were hungry. For entertainment, we had a variety of options for yard games. At the end of the day, it was extremely successful and we still get compliments a month later. The goal was to show our friends, family and honestly -anyone that will listen: this is YOUR day, do what YOU want! You don’t HAVE to do anything.

Looking Back on the Day

When my fiance, now husband, asked what I envisioned for our wedding, I often struggled to come up with the words. I knew what I wanted, but it was always hard to nail down. Some things are easier shown than described, and that's what really helped me articulate what I wanted to our photographers. Growing up I always loved old, classic movies. They stand the test of time and have an elegance to them in their set design, costume, hair, make-up and all around style. With our wedding, I wanted to avoid popular trends, and really try to bring in the aspects of what I grew up loving with a focus on things that I would consider "timeless".

Another characteristic that I wanted to have at our wedding was to have everybody be very present. Instead of just being spectators of our day, we wanted our guests to feel included as much as possible. With our photos, we wanted them to feel less staged, and more inclusive to let the "audience" or viewer to feel as if they were there themselves.”

- Jillian + Craig