Yes, I’m biased, but I love New Years Eve weddings! There is something so special to me about ringing in the new year with your friends and family – marking the beginning of a new passing of time. And in this case, the beginning of a life together!
Megan and Niall were married in Saratoga Springs, NY and two of our favorite people, Luke Walker and Alisha Clark, were there to capture the event! Megan stopped by to chat with us about her beautiful and romantic wedding.
Megan is resplendent in her Monique Lhullier gown. The beautiful silver beading echoed the wintry theme of her event, both in the decor and in the weather!
Megan says:
New Years Eve proved to provide some very special challenges – I woke up at 7AM to blizzard conditions outside my window!! We were hit with a whiteout snowstorm the morning of the wedding. The snow lasted well into our cocktail hour that night. It was beautiful, but to say it was stressful is an understatement. My bridesmaids practically went off the road trying to get to my house, my band almost didn’t make it, the flowers were all starting to freeze in the bitter cold temperatures, one of our readers for the ceremony got stuck on the highway in the snow…. it was all pretty hilarious. I just put on Hunter wellies underneath my dress, tried to focus on the positives, and just kept going forward. I had so much going on and I was so happy that I couldn’t really focus on the fact that we were getting hit with almost a foot of snow (which, interestingly enough, had NOT been predicted by the weather forecasters – they all said four inches at the most!).
Megan and Niall’s wedding was all about white, green, and silver, as you can see in her gorgeous Manolo Blahnik shoes and beautiful white bouquet designed by Ambiance Floral Designs.
The ceremony was held at the Historic Saint Mary’s Church in Albany. These next two shots, of Megan and Niall during their ceremony, are just wonderful. You can tell by the light in their eyes how happy they are to be marrying! Alisha also captured a wonderful shot of the couple in their limo on the way to the reception — so thrilled to have tied the knot!
The reception, held at the Hall of Springs in Saratoga Springs, was full of green, white, and wintry details. The columns of the room are so dramatic that decor is largely unnecessary – it’s simply a stunning room.
The centerpieces featured beautiful bare branches, silver accents, and hanging votives. And I adore the silver pintuck linens – a perfect complement to the decor!
Megan says:
I used silver/sparkle as a central theme throughout the decor. The flowers had silver elements, all the stationery had crystal elements, I wrapped my bouquet with my grandmother’s silver bracelet, even my dress had silver metallic french knot embroidery! To give our centerpieces a wintery feel, we used flowers at the base and silver branches coming out of the base with hanging votives to give the room an ultra-romantic glow throughout the room. There were candles, white lights, evergreens, and silver ornaments everywhere!
We set a series of silver clocks to five of midnight for our cardtable and placed the place cards in champagne corks as well.
The menus, created by Paper Dolls of Saragota, also featured a snowflake pattern and were beautifully tucked into the napkins at each place setting.
Large lit branch accents were placed at each end of the room, on stations.
These two have such personality – love the looks on their faces during the first dance, to the sounds of The Rhythm Dogs.
Oh and the dessert buffet… Sigh. It makes me hungry now! Every kind of candy and chocolate was on the buffet that you can imagine, from rock candy to chocolate shooter cups.
Now for some amazing portraits. From Megan:
The snow made our outdoor photos incredible. My favorite picture is of Niall and myself walking out in the road blanketed in snow. It’s just the two of us – it felt so quiet and beautiful! Immediately after taking that photo, a huge gust of wind came up and blew all the snow all over us! We were totally soaked and FREEZING! I have to say, it was crazy but one of the parts of the day I will never ever forget.
I tried to put as much thought into our details as possible and tie everything into the idea of a New Years celebration. It was all culminated at the stroke of midnight – it was incredible! We had fireworks going off behind us and confetti falling from the air as all our loved ones hugged and kissed. Exactly the reason we had a New Years wedding!
It’s just an amazing way to spend your New Years – surrounded by the ones you love the most and starting a whole new life! It’s funny, looking back on it all now, I couldn’t imagine it any other way, even with all the challenges we had that day, it was perfect for us.
Guests also had a fun favor – DIY do not disturb signs. Perfect for a New Years Eve event. To create these, Megan chose the colorful paper and cut into the desired size. She then used a large circle punch for the door knot hole and printed the text onto silver inkjet sticker labels – voila! Simple and easy and a big hit!
Megan and Niall (and Luke!), thank you for sharing your beautiful and fun celebration with us! More photos can be found on Luke’s blog.
E.