Kate and Jeff Bachey were married in Vermont on August 6, 2011. The couple lives outside Boston and met while in college. They decided to have a wedding in Kate’s home turf of Southern Vermont starting with their ceremony at Kate’s family home in Middletown Springs and their reception at the Battenkill Inn in Manchester, VT.

This wedding included everything there is to love about Vermont in the summer – clean country air, fields of wildflowers, an old rustic barn, and good genuine family love. They stayed true to a color palette of dark blue, creams, and pops of a celery green that so beautifully tied everything together from ceremony to cocktail hour to reception. I should also mention that the reception site had two separate spaces – an old barn and a tent that was set up along side of it. When guests arrived they were greeted with signature cocktails in the barn and then brought down to the tent in time for dinner. When dinner was over they were invited back to the barn to dance the night away. It was the perfect solution to maximize the spaces to fit their guest count while utilizing all of the beautiful space the Battenkill Inn property afforded.

I hope you are prepared for this overloaded blog post because Kate put some many amazing details into her wedding that I couldn’t control myself in what I prepare to explain to you all. Plus the extraordinary photography talent of the lovely Erica Ferrone and I couldn’t control myself on which pictures to choose! This blog has twice as many photos as a normally post and believe me there were twice as many that I held back on adding. If you can’t tell already this was one of my favorite weddings of this year and I am way beyond excited to share it with you!

Now about the decor and fine details for this event… Ladies get your note pads out because this is a killer list of personalized items… For the ceremony instead of having the traditional seating setup Kate and Jeff decided to have their wedding in the round. What I mean by this is that they stood with their officiant in the middle and the guest chairs were aligned in half circles around them. Space was left for the bridal party – all decked out in blue cocktail dresses for girls and gray suits for the guys – to be the backdrop on the far side of the aisle. The bridesmaids each carried a bouquet of a single variety of white flowers with a celery colored ribbon around them. Add the fact that this all took place in the gorgeous front lawn of her childhood home made for a scene that was pure magic.

Now for reception details this is where things really got crazy. I already mentioned that guests entered the barn to begin cocktails but drinks weren’t the only thing they found in there. Kate and Jeff’s theme for their reception was “Lucky in Love” and instead of traditional place cards they had real metal horse shoes for each guest with their names and table assignment attached to them. These horse shoes were hung on nails all along the inside wall of the barn making a super gorgeous piece of art as guests looked through to find their names. Below the horse shoe wall was a table that carried on the luck theme with scratch off lottery tickets and a bowl of lucky pennies for guests to try their luck at winning big. Also in the barn were arrow signs tacked all the way around with the hometown of every guest who was at the wedding. These signs also listed the driving distance from the site of the reception to where each guest came from. It was super fun to watch people try to outmatch each other for the title of farthest traveler. Now I’m not even done with the details in this barn space. On the far side was a bar that served a slew of signature cocktails – all having special meaning to the bride and groom. There were also country lemonade and ice tea stations and stir sticks all fancied up with the wedding colored blue and green ribbons on them. The catering team of Thyme Table Caterers did an absolutely amazing job with the service and in tying in with the theme and style of the event. There were also a million twinkling lights around the barn beams and covered hay bails for guests around for guests to take a seat. It looked awesome in there!

The barn was only half of the space at the reception because there was also a white wedding tent set up with all of the tables and chairs for guests to dine at. Kate and Jeff chose classic white tablecloths with dark blue damask fabric pieces that were set in the center of the table. On top of those were a collection of white flower arrangements, green apples, and lots of candles. There were three different table types – rounds, rectangles, and a large Tuscan head table for the bridal party. Each table was cohesive in their color schemes but had different flower arrangements by table type. There were also big live trees at each of the tent poles to carry the natural green feel throughout the space. The reception tent was airy, cozy, and just lovely.

And I am almost done talking about the details but there are a few other items I can’t forget to share! There were a few surprises that I helped orchestrate during the evening that added a ton of fun to the event. First was the reveal of a super fun groom’s cake. Jeff loved it! The next surprise was one that Kate’s mother and father had planned. After dinner was over I brought out an A Capella singing group from Nantucket that they had all seen while on vacation out on the Cape. This was a challenge to pull off without anyone knowing but it came together flawlessly and was a big hit. And the last surprise, which is actually my favorite of the whole event, was bringing out a Ben and Jerrys ice cream cart for sweet treats after dinner. I may have made a stop or two at the cart before the night was over. How could I resist??

So that covers most of all of the details Kate so flawlessly and fabulously planned out. As you can see from the photos the result was nothing short of perfect!

With so many items to set up and to oversee Kate brought me on to be their day-of wedding coordinator. Kate was super smart in bringing on a planner because with a 30+ minute drive between ceremony and reception and a LOAD of amazing details to set up at the reception site there would be way to much for her to handle that day. Plus who wants to task their family or friends to take care of all of that? Any bride who gets a coordinator will tell you it was the best decision they made, and after the wedding Kate told me the same thing!

Thanks go out to the rest of the vendor team who worked along side of me that day – Dave Cannon from Elite Sounds DJ, Winsome Moran who did the beautiful flowers, Jackie LaBatt who made the wedding cake, Jane Wood who provided the ceremony music, Shear Heaven Salon and VT Backroad Tours who provided transportation for the bridal party. Of course an extra special shout out goes to Erica Ferrone for these amazing photos, and Thyme Tables Catering for an amazing meal and one of the fastest dinner services I have ever seen. Kudos to all of you!

This wedding was a very special one for me and I thank you Kate and Jeff so much for allowing me to be a part of their big day!

Ok enough talk, enjoy the pics!!