Chequessett Yacht Club Wedding // Cape Cod Wedding Photographer // Anastasia + Garth

The Back Story, Anastasia + Garth’s Chequessett Yacht Club Wedding Vendors:

Venue: Chequessett Yacht Club Wedding

Planning by Jamie Bohlin at Cape Cod Celebrations.

Invitations: Jolly Edition

Floral design: Wild Folk

Catering: Sumptuous Catering, Shannon Mahoney

Rentals: New England Country Rentals

Wedding Dress: Monique Lhuillier

Hair Stylist: Stacey Kuehn

Chalkboard Art: Dear Rose Studio, Cara Esch

Rentals: Rentals Unlimited

Cake: The Artisan Bake Shop, Meredith Ciaburri

Groom’s Attire: Ludlow Shop @ J crew

Rentals: Fancy That

Zoltar Machine: WOW Entertainment

Special thanks to Sasha Smolina for photographing this with me!

The Back Story from the Bride:

Chequessett Yacht Club Wedding: 

I always envisioned doing something really fun and unique for my wedding. Combining the nostalgic and playful elements of our personalities with two of our favorite places to visit – the carnival and the beach! We’ve been coming to Wellfleet, a very cool and artsy beach town in Cape Cod, for years and couldn’t think of a better location than The Chequessett Yacht & Country Club. With a working rustic boathouse located right on a private beach, it seemed like the perfect spot to have our dream vintage seaside carnival wedding! 

I did quite a bit of research on vintage carnivals and the color palette I was most drawn to was faded pastels, like a soft candy pink and mint with touches of red. We especially love the 1950s/early 1960s era and kept envisioning vintage ice cream soda shoppes, drive-ins with old marquee signage, pink cotton candy and red candy apples. One of my all-time favorite films is the 1988 movie “Big” with Tom Hanks, where he goes to a carnival and makes a wish on a Zoltar fortune-telling machine. We ended up renting a Zoltar Fortune-Telling Machine and had custom fortunes designed for our guests. 

Decor:

Other DIY elements included a kissing booth for guest photos custom built by Garth’s uncle, and our snow cone cocktail bar which consisted of a really cool cocktail menu I created just for our day. I found a company that sells organic gluten free snow cone syrup in wide variety of flavors which gave us a lot of freedom in creating custom snow cone cocktails. Having these vintage pink water goblets from a nearby vintage tea shoppe “Fancy That” in Walpole, Ma. was my obsession! I really think they were gorgeous statements pieces on the tables. 

Our escort cards were designed as carnival tickets and placed on an easel with a really cool vintage-inspired carnival sign. We bought a vintage pink 1950s Royal typewriter along with some antiqued paper for the Guestbook. Next to that was a mailbox where guests folded their notes and stuck them inside. Our favorite moment had to be walking down the aisle as a married couple to our recessional song “You’re So Cool” from the movie “True Romance”. It has such a whimsical, carnival feel… Like what you would hear riding a vintage Merry-Go-Round. 

Our favorite crafted detail was our custom cake topper that features Garth, myself and our dog Gypsy on a beach with carnival-themed banner. For our flowers, we wanted to have an airy, overgrown garden feel consisting of pink and watermelon colored peonies, clematis, garden roses, berries and white anemones. I am a huge fan of Monique Lhuillier wedding gowns. When I first saw my dress, it was in a magazine spread where the model was dancing around while playfully holding a piece of wedding cake. That definitely captured the style and mood of what I envisioned for the wedding – just like the song “Cake by the Ocean!” 

Preparations:

My dress was youthful, elegant, romantic and meticulously crafted and designed. I have curves and wanted the dress to accentuate my shape. The embroidered detail on the top portion of the dress was incredible, but my favorite part was the bottom flowing layers of chantilly lace with overlays of draped tulle. For my jewelry, I just borrowed a small pair of diamond earrings from my best friend Jenny. 

The glam squad was amazing as well – My old friend, who is also a phenomenal makeup artist, flew in from LA to attend and do my makeup. I was so thankful to have him there not only to make me look beautiful, but as a great calming support. I reached out to Stacey Keuhn, a local Cape Cod hairstylist who recently got Best of Boston for wedding hair, to tame and style my unruly tresses. For the cake, we had a 3-tiered naked funfetti cake with vanilla buttercream filling, adorned with our custom cake topper featuring Garth, myself and our dog Gypsy. We also had an amazing dessert cart loaded with ice cream cone cupcakes, strawberry shortcake dessert shots, apple crisp mason jars, creme brûlée soufflé cups, cotton candy, vintage boxes of popcorn and red candy apples. 

For our Welcome Bags, we had buckets with jute rope handles holding 2 personalized bottles of water along with striped pink straws, Cape Cod chips, sea vegetable bath bar from LUSH and a custom designed map of Wellfleet done by Jolly Edition who did our invitations as well. For other favors, we had a photographer dedicated to taking instant polaroid photos at the vintage Kissing Booth as well the custom fortunes from the Zoltar Fortune-Telling Machine. We also had fresh bags of cotton candy, vintage striped boxes of popcorn and crates full of Raspberry Lime Ricky and Root Beer soda bottles which came from a local Cape Cod staple, Kandy Korner in Hyannis, Ma. 

Advice:

If your venue doesn’t come with a coordinator to help with day-of details, set-up and certain aspects of the planning process, I would definitely recommend hiring a coordinator for the day of. Our wedding consisted of so many details that we actually had to rent a U-Haul to transport everything to the venue and back. We couldn’t afford a full wedding planner so this put a lot of pressure and stress on us. Although I was intent on carrying out my vision, it slightly kept me from being in the moment on my wedding day because I was so fixated on the execution of those details. As everyone says, it all goes by in a blink of an eye so you have to be present and enjoy it!