Wedding Date on Jul 5, 2019

This post was done by the bride herself: We started our wedding plans a month and a half before we were actually engaged. To many people, this may seem very untraditional, but we decided to make our own rules and do what was best for us! We knew we wanted to get married within the year and if we were to marry in Maine (which was really important to me), it just seemed logical to do it before I moved to Virginia. Neither of us envisioned a huge wedding on which we would spend a lot of money and with our short timeline that didn't seem to make sense logistically. We liked the intimacy of an elopement but also liked the idea of having some close friends and family with us to celebrate after, so we ending up doing a hybrid of both! I had searched 'city hall elopement' in Google and ended up coming across some absolutely beautiful photos of weddings at Portland City Hall (the building is quite stunning inside and out). Portland is were I was born and I thought it would be fitting to marry here before I moved away to Virginia...a nice 'farewell to Maine' if you will. We decided we would get married just the two of us and then have a small group of family and friends meet us for dinner afterward. The perfect blend of intimacy and celebration. But as is the case with all 'perfect' plans, there's usually something that goes awry and our wedding was no exception. A few months before our wedding day I called the city clerk to make sure they would be open the day after July 4th to which she assured me they would be. Then, four days BEFORE our wedding day, I got a notice that said the city manager had just decided to close on July 5th so we wouldn't be able to get married there after all. You can imagine my panic after receiving this news since our wedding was at the end of the week! Fortunately, after my mom contacted the city manager directly, he kindly offered to personally open up City Hall to us on our wedding day, which meant we ended up having the whole building to ourselves- a truly private ceremony! We stayed at The Regency Hotel in Portland's Old Port section, which is centrally located between Portland City Hall and the ferry to Great Diamond Island. We checked in on July 4th and spent that evening with Farmer Man's parents and close friends who were able to make it up from Virginia for the wedding festivities. Lobster rolls and fireworks were on the agenda! The next morning, our wedding day, we ordered breakfast and then I sent Farmer Man to a hang out with his buddies while I got ready. I hid in the bathroom while he popped back in to our room to put on his suit before heading outside to wait for me. We did a 'first look' in front of the hotel then walked together to city hall to say our vows.