Maine wedding planner, Meagan Gilpatrick of Maine Seasons Events is featured this week in Real Wedding from Real Vendors.  Maine Seasons Events is a member of the my Kate Parker Wedding family and we are excited to feature them in the spotlight!  Meagan shares insight, advice, and photographs of her wedding below, so take a took!

1.  What were your top 3 priorities when planning your wedding?

This is fun to look back on now after almost ten years and having planned over 120 weddings for other couples and their families-  I think I needed a wedding planner!  My priorities were that the date be in the autumn in Maine, (I do not enjoy being hot!) that the ceremony be outside and that all of our surviving grandparents be able to attend. (It was on October 1, 2000 and the ceremony was outside on a beautiful 60 degree day in the garden in our backyard, and all 5 grandparents attended, and danced even!)

2.  Looking back was there anything you would have changed about your wedding?

I would have hired a professional photographer, instead of a wedding photographer’s apprentice. (who was also a friend’s sister’s boyfriend…you know the story…now I cringe just admitting that, because I continue to hear it from engaged couples-don’t do it!) My biggest regret is that the pictures we have are not very good.  There isn’t one close up and properly lit picture of my husband and I, and only a few dark ones of my face during the ceremony, none of his.  Obviously we can’t go back and do it over, so the pictures were a big opportunity to capture that one day in our lives.  Oh and I have blocked this part out, but the pictures do prove that it happened: the reception venue we had to book (last minute, don’t ask, I wish I had had a planner!) had only white plastic garden chairs (think white lawn style chairs!) for the reception tables, and though it is a petty detail, it has always irked me that we didn’t rent nicer chairs.  I also wish we had a bigger budget, ours was tiny and we funded almost the entire event ourselves.

3. Was there anything you wouldn’t change about your wedding?

I wouldn’t change that I married my best friend- my 8th grade boyfriend, the one I have loved more than anyone else, for my entire life, our wedding date, or that my hands touched almost every element of the day, from the cake, the centerpieces, the gardens I planted the summer before the wedding, the decor, my head piece and veil, and even though tiaras may not be en vogue now, I loved mine, I made it out of a silver headband and I wired a vintage brooch to the center, and hand beaded the whole thing, it stayed in place all night!  I wouldn’t change that we managed to create a simple and nice little wedding (74 guests) on a shoe string budget.  I wouldn’t change that our families were all in attendance and that my little sister flew home from college for 2 days just to be my maid of honor.

4. What was the name of your first dance song?

The Ship Song- by Nick Cave (we also danced to Etta James’ At Last)

Thanks to Meagan and her husband for sharing their wedding with us!