September 30, 2007
at Chef's Table (NECI)
Montpelier, Vermont
How we met
John and I are both chefs and everyone thinks that we must have either worked together or met through friends in the industry. They’re all wrong. I was working in Sydney Australia and my crazy schedule didn’t really give me a chance to meet people let alone date. John was having the same problems with dating given an equally strange schedule and life in a small Vermont town. He broke a little before I did and joined E-harmony in hopes of a change, and after a Valentine’s Day trip to visit my sister I joined up as well. One of my first matches was John and I thought who could be more wonderful than another chef. Ok, fine… A little lie there, I never really wanted to date a chef. Truth be told, we had both read the same books recently and his profile said in a previous life he had been an engineer which appealed to someone who wanted to be a doctor before they became a chef.
Well, obviously we hit it off (thanks internet) and after a few months John decided to take his life in his hands and risk the Australian sun. Side note, Vermont chefs are known to burst into flames with a short exposure to the sun after a good winter. After a bit more than 10,000 miles and 21 hours John was in Sydney where we spent the week together and quickly knew that we were “right” for each other.
How we got engaged After John left, we talked even more than before and soon he was planning a second, longer, trip. This time, the trip was still those fabulous 10,000 miles, but took a little more like 28 hours. He beat his luggage to Australia by about 24 hours and was exhausted by the trip. We went straight to my house so he could take a nap, but ended up talking instead. I was showing him some shoes that I had bought for my sister’s upcoming wedding when he surprised me by quite literally throwing a ring at me while asking “Will they go with this?” Needless to say, I was a bit surprised, though not by the lack of romance in the proposal. He claims that he had great plans involving ferries or the opera house or some other nonsense, but that exhaustion and stress got to him. I think he’s just trying to make himself look good, but I did say yes so it got the result he wanted.
Most Memorable Details John and I wanted the wedding to be cozy, fun and funny and we tried to work those things into the day. My sister and I did the flowers for the reception together in the morning and John finished the setup in the afternoon with his best man. That was a really nice, relaxing way to spend the time before the wedding.
There were other little details that stick out in my mind. I made a traditional pre-wedding stop at my favorite coffee shop in my veil just to show them that I could be fancy. Our chef friend who was doing the wedding cake kept what it looked like a secret and so did our other friend who made a bread sculpture so we got to have little surprises when we came into the room. Also, John had stashed a pair of latex gloves for the cake cutting. It was a nice inside joke for the chefs since we’re always reminding students to wear gloves when they do things like cut cakes. One last memory came from our violinist. He played for the ceremony, he played through our photos, and we could still hear him playing as we walked down the street to the reception even after John gave him the ok to head home. Amazing
Advice Our first piece of advice is to keep it small. We’ve had a lot of friends tell us that their weddings couldn’t be small because they had to invite this person or that. Well, when you’re writing your guest list set a firm place to make the cut for both sides of the wedding. If no one other than extremely close family gets invited then no one else can complain. It lets you focus on doing the best for that small group of people rather than having to cut corners with the larger groups. We were able to actually spend time with everyone at the wedding and still sit down and enjoy our food rather than being totally exhausted trying to meet up with everyone who we invited. It’s all about the bride and groom and everyone else is along for the ride.
Second is the “don’t try this at home we’re trained professionals” piece of advice. If you look at our wedding John and I did a lot or had friends do major pieces of our wedding. Well, as chefs we’ve worked at more weddings than we can count and know what works and how to pull it off. If you’re not that comfortable then hire a professional. I knew enough from doing flowers on wedding cakes to do the arrangements on the tables, but I wasn’t about to do my bouquet myself so I hired someone to do it for me. Oh, and for you professionals, there are some things that you shouldn’t do yourself too… That’s where the friends come in. Don’t stress about doing your own cake or catering. Get one of your friends to do it for you.
