This is the first year that I’ve photographed winter weddings! I am so excited to share the first winter wedding to be featured on my blog. I met Mary and Brian in July of 2020 when I photographed their engagement session at Camp Ellis in Saco Maine. They brought along their two dogs, Lucy and Bates, who posed for portraits for me with the help of Danielle from For the Love of Paws. Danielle did an excellent job handling the dogs and helping them look their best for the camera. I was so excited to learn that she would also be helping at Mary and Brian’s wedding.

Mary and Brian were married on January 2nd, 2022, which was long-awaited considering they had to postpone their wedding for an entire year. Nevertheless, their wedding was worth the wait and they had such a perfect day. Everyone got ready at The Hotel Portsmouth in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They reserved the entire 32-room hotel for their wedding guests and even got to use all of the beautiful rooms in the lobby and main areas of the hotel for photos!

The ceremony and reception were held at The Red Barn at Outlook Farm, which is one of my favorite Maine wedding venues. The ceremony was held in the Grand Ballroom in front of the fireplace. During cocktail hour, the staff converted the room back into a stunning dining room for the reception. It is definitely the perfect place for an indoor Maine winter wedding!

It was a little rainy outside, but that didn’t stop us from taking some fun outdoor photos. We brought some clear umbrellas and took some of my favorite photos of the day. I am so honored to have been part of Mary and Brian’s special day. Congratulations to the happy couple!

Here’s my Q&A with Mary:

How did you two meet?

Brian and I attended different high schools, but had a mutual friend (turned bridesmaid) that introduced us. Fast forward 4 years to 2015 when we both moved back into the city to pursue post-college life and that same mutual friend hosted a dinner party where we were formally re-introduced. That next weekend we were both at the Liberty Hotel for drinks when the sparks started to fly, we started dating not long after and, the rest is history!

When and where did you get engaged? Tell us about the proposal.

We got engaged on 11/9/2019 at the Liberty Hotel! It's been one of our favorite spots in the city for birthday weekends, dinners and night outs. It wasn't out of the ordinary that we were going to the Liberty for dinner at Scampo, but I was pleasantly surprised when he popped the question at the end of dinner! Even more to my surprise, all of our friends and family were waiting upstairs at the bar to celebrate with us and we had a room booked for the night!

How did you envision your wedding day? Tell us about your color palate, style and/or vision.

Even before meeting Brian, I always dreamed of a long New Years Eve weekend wedding. To avoid becoming too "Christmas-y" I added in lots of nudes and neutrals (specifically letting the bridesmaids pick their own dresses in that palette). I love the deep burgundy reds that were in some of our bouquets and felt that the long greenery of our centerpieces and bouquets added a whimsical element that I was looking for. I envisioned natural, rustic and whimsical and the Red Barn was the perfect location to bring those things together.

What is your favorite moment of your wedding day?

My favorite moment of the day was definitely our first look. The wedding day jitters are real y'all and I felt them right up until the moment of our first look. Once we had that high energy moment, it felt like everything fell back into place and instead of it being "my wedding day" it became "our day" and it was much less nerve-wracking to do it together.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Although it wasn't part of the "wedding" I would be remiss not to mention how instrumental Peter and the staff at The Hotel Portsmouth were in making our weekend magical. We rented out the entire hotel (32 rooms) for our close friends and family, and from the moment they started arriving on Friday Night for our New Years Eve Rehearsal Dinner it felt like the coziest home away from home. They allowed us to treat the hotel like our home and the day between our rehearsal and wedding we had friends playing board games in the lobby, ordering pizza to hold in the kitchen and enjoying cocktails downstairs at the bar. Ultimately, our wedding was about bringing our closest friends and family together and The Hotel Portsmouth truly made that happen.