Thursday, May 31, 2007

Hello from Miss Corn

Hey there fellow Weddingbee friends. I can hardly express how excited I am to be a part of the hive. I have been an avid reader of Weddingbee for about three months; ever since stumbling upon the blog while Googling wedding planning software and then reading the entire backlog in a two day sitting, so I truly am honored to bee a bee.

My Fiancé, Mr Corn, and I are from Boston and we are having both our ceremony and our reception in Newport, RI on the North Lawn of Fort Adams State Park. My sister is an ordained Presbyterian minister and she will be conducting the ceremony. For our reception, we are hosting a traditional New England Clambake.

When we started planning the wedding, Mr Corn and I both knew we wanted to do something really fun for our guests, most of which live outside of New England. We decided pretty early on that it would be great fun to have a traditional New England Clambake. However, that entails digging a hole in the ground which is not something most wedding sites in greater downtown Boston are pleased as punch to offer.

While we knew we wouldn't be in the city, we were a bit lost when it came to deciding whether to try looking on the North Shore or the South Shore of Massachusetts. Eventually, I decided to research and find a caterer that specialized in traditional clambakes and then ask them for direction on where we could actually host one.

After a few weeks of research, I discovered McGrath Clambakes based out of Newport, RI. Fortunately they had a list of venues on their website that they had worked with prior. I started reading down the list looking for anything that was on the water (another key item both Mr Corn and I wanted). Unfortunately, after calling each and every venue, it was determined that they were all either already booked or well beyond our budget. I half-heartedly started looking at the other venues on their site that didn't look like they were on the water and when I came across Fort Adams, I realized it could very well be the hidden gem we were looking for.

I quickly called the events coordinator and she told me that unfortunately the weekend we wanted for our wedding was Civil War Reenactment weekend, so our only options would be to have the ceremony and reception out on the North Lawn which juts out into the Narragansett Bay. I paused for a nano-second while my heart skipped a beat and stammered, "We'll be there Saturday!" After a quick tour around the fort, Mr Corn and I both knew it was the place for us.

Planning a Clambake wedding in a resort town that is an hour and a half away from our home has been both challenging and fun. I am really looking forward to sharing everything I have learned about being a bride in New England with all of you and I hope you will find what I have to say informative and helpful.

Thanks,

Miss Corn