Elegant English Garden Inspired Canton Maine Wedding | Caroline & Ian

September 29, 2022 Trina Dinnar

I met Caroline and Ian in October of 2021 when I captured their engagement session in Cape Elizabeth. Our session was so much fun and I knew that they’d be a joy to work with —and they were!

On the couple’s special day, September 10th, Caroline got ready at her parents’ Maine lake house in Canton, where the ceremony would also take place. Ian got ready just a couple houses down the street. The couple shared a first look outside the lake house and then they were joined by family and friends for lots of portraits. I really liked that we took all of their formal portraits before the ceremony. It allowed them to spend more time with their family and friends and enjoy cocktail hour.

The ceremony was outside facing the lake. It was a beautiful view! Right after the ceremony ended, I took a group photo of everyone from the balcony of the lake house. After that, everyone took a shuttle to the reception, which was located in a large field also in Canton, Maine. I was amazed at how beautiful the reception tent and décor looked at sunset with the view of the mountains. It couldn’t have been more perfect. As the sunset got even more stunning, I took lots of portraits of Caroline and Ian. It was truly a photographer’s dream being in that location with that lighting!

The reception included toasts and speeches, dinner, the first dance, parent dances, and cake cutting. After that, everyone danced the night away! During the last song, Caroline and Ian’s family and friends surrounded them on the dance floor with fairy light ribbon wands. Then, they lined the path outside as the couple made their exit. It was truly an unforgettable evening and I’m so honored to have been part of their wonderful day!

Here’s my Q&A with the couple:

How did you two meet?

We met at a work event. We both worked remotely so work events were very rare, but we happened to sit at the same table and we hit it off. Coincidentally, we were both going to the same game night that evening and didn’t realize. The rest is history!

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

We got engaged in July 2021 in Iceland. We hiked up a hill overlooking a horseshoe shaped canyon. Ian asked the only other people nearby to take our picture and whispered (much louder than he realized) “I’m about to propose, just go with it.” Little did he know that Caroline heard the whole thing and had about a 30 second heads up!

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

We decided we wanted to utilize a lot of the beautiful surrounding scenery, especially the lake, so we wanted to highlight that rather than take away. The closest style or theme we had was “English Garden”, but we didn’t want to lean too heavily into that. Our colors were blush and white with lots of greenery. But the most important part of our vision was to make sure everyone had a blast!

What is your favorite moment of your wedding day?

It’s impossible to pick just one! But one of our favorite unique moments was when the DJ’s generator lost power. Instead of waiting awkwardly for the music to come back on, everyone on the dance floor sang the entire song “All Star” by Smash Mouth. It was pretty impressive that everyone knew all the words! The generator came back on just around the time we finished the song so it worked out perfectly!

Tell us about your flowers, your gown, your favors, your cake, etc.

For our flowers we wanted two things specifically, English roses as a nod to our love of England and the fact that Ian spent a decade there, and olive leaves as a nod to Caroline’s Lebanese side of the family who hail from a big olive producing town.

The gown took some finding. I tried on around 40 dresses before I found the right one. I knew going in I wanted fabric that was either similar to or actual satin with some sort of lace. That was surprisingly difficult to find!

Our favors were blueberry jam and blackberry jemmy (something between jam and jelly) made by Bruce Thompson, who is affectionately referred to as “The Barefoot Peddler”. He drives through Canton selling his incredible homemade jams/jellies, baked goods, and fresh produce, often times without shoes. We have been obsessed with his jams and jellies in particular and wanted to share it with our friends and families.

For our cake we had four layers, the flavors we chose were strawberry cheesecake, chocolate with raspberry jam, carrot cake, and blueberry vanilla. We did quite a few taste tests to figure out our favorite flavors and enjoyed the whole process! We also put a little Rico (our dog) on the back side of the cake digging into it!