Homegrown Wedding

Our Welcome Dinner Lobsterbake

The few days leading up to our wedding were crazy.  Just crazy.  Not even for me necessarily, but for my family.  I will get to those reasons in a few posts, but it resulted in my dad & brother-in-law, Jason, not making it to the rehearsal.

They did make it time for the most delicious lobsterbake catered by Fosters Downeast Clambake.  Our venue, Pineland Farms, owns a number of houses that guests may rent, & we had our welcome dinner at the house Rich's parents rented for the weekend.  Fosters did all of the baking on-site as well as all of the serving.  We opened the dinner up to anyone who was coming in on Friday night & it was a great chance to see everyone, meet some of Rich's friend I had never met & hang out late into the evening.

The house is located next to a cow pasture in the middle of the woods, but it opens up to sweeping views of the land.  A few of our friends from LA could not get over how "in the middle of nowhere" they felt...& how much they loved it! 

The dress I am wearing belonged to my Grammy, who passed away last November.  My aunt gave it to me last year & it fit me perfectly!

It was a little too chilly to swim, but the open pool did add for some pretty reflections & a pop of blue against all of the golden-green leaves of the trees.

{All images by Fat Orange Cat Studio}

Lobster & Clam Bake Welcome Dinner

{Images via Country Living, MS Living, Style Me Pretty, Brides & Country Living}

I am very excited because I finally booked our Lobster & Clam bake for our welcome dinner!  We are not having a formal rehearsal & so many of our guests are coming from out of town the night before the wedding, so a welcome dinner is the perfect plan.  It will be a great way to welcome people to Maine, allow them to mingle, & relax before the big day.  It will take place in the backyard of the house Rich's parents' are renting for the weekend, which also has a pool {we are in hopes it will still be open & warm enough to swim in September...}. 

It is going to be very casual & the caterers are taking care of all of the set-up, as well as all of the plates, napkins, trash removal, etc., which gives me the opportunity to focus on some fun, decorative accents.  We are taking care of the beverages, so a fun little set-up of glass beverage dispensers may be in order.  For dessert, we are going have our favorite ice cream novelties.  I would love to have s'mores, but we cannot have an open flame, so we may have some s'mores-inspired desserts like cupcakes instead.  I love the lobster lollipops & think that would be a fun little thing for guests to take back with them as well.

p.s. Snippet & Ink has a fun lobster-inspired board up today as well!