Low Key Brooklyn Wedding at Their Favourite BBQ Restaurant

Photography Anthology

November 9, 2017

There is something so very magical about New York in the winter time. Mollie and Ryan clearly agree with me because chose January 7th as the date for their Brooklyn wedding. The day was held at Hometown BBQ, their favourite BBQ restaurant in Red Hook.

“Our wedding was relaxed and non-traditional”, said Mollie. “I did a lot of research on Pinterest and alternative wedding blogs to give us the confidence that all our crazy ideas would come together in the end. Other weddings we’d been to previously we’re a big source of inspiration for us. We shamelessly incorporated what we liked from those weddings and learned from others to make sure everything could go as smoothly as possible for us. For the style of our wedding we took a lot of inspiration from our venue. Hometown BBQ has a fantastic low key vibe. We added in our own touches but we mostly let that vibe flow through our wedding.”

They planned the day in just two months. “We decided to bring our wedding forward from September 2017 to January (which may have been an abrupt decision after the election) so we planned it in about two months. A lot of the details were already planned or discussed from years of chatting about our wedding so the actual planning turned out to be more about putting the pieces together. We went to one of our favourite bars over a few evenings and worked out the details together with some cocktails. It was a very calm and fun process!”

In terms of decor they had succulents and cacti in custom painted flower pots, and dinosaur air plants from Pine District on Etsy. “We got large photo strips printed with photos of us and our pets throughout our relationship that acted as table runners. Despite all the BBQ sauce flowing during the reception the prints came out unscathed so we have them to hang in our apartment!”

“For music we curated a Spotify playlist of music we love. Other entertainment included the colouring books that we bought for each table to colour and sign in lieu of a guestbook. They were a big hit with people who didn’t know many of the other guests.”

The bride pieced her outfit together herself. The skirt came from Amazon, the top from J Crew and her shoes were Sam Edelman. “We did everything the way we wanted to rather than stick to how a wedding is supposed to be”, she explained. “Our wedding outfits were quite uniquely us. I  didn’t want to wear white or carry a bouquet and Ryan wanted to wear jeans and sneakers, so that’s what we did! We wanted our wedding to feel more like a party that you wanted to go to rather than a wedding you had to go to. We asked our guests to come dressed comfortably for them, whether that meant jeans or a suit. We had people in both and everyone looked and felt great!”

“I wish I’d known before we started planning that its OK if you’re not both totally involved with every bit of planning. I did most of the planning and made lots of Google Docs so we could discuss the details together. If you can’t both be equally involved , or one person is more opinionated on elements of the wedding, it can feel a little one sided. It was very important to us to make the times we were planning together to be fun and not stressful. We tag-teamed the details together to make sure we were both properly represented in our wedding.”

“My highlight of the day was actually greeting all our guests before the ceremony started. Seeing everyone’s reaction to what we picked for our venue and hearing ‘Wow this is so cool!’ from our friends as we told them to grab a pre-ceremony drink from the open bar. We knew it was going to be a great and fun day from that moment on!”

Their budget was $10,000 and the biggest costs were the two things that mattered the most to them both – photography and food! “We each picked the one thing that was most important to us and that’s where we spent the most money. I picked photography and Ryan picked food. The day was going to be amazing and memorable for us but our photography is what we’re going to have for the rest of our lives. I did the most research on photographers and once we saw Ashley‘s portfolio there was no one else who we could even consider. We didn’t even finalise our date until we knew she was available!”

“Hometown was our only venue of choice too. We were going for very a non-traditional wedding and BBQ seemed perfect for that. It’s our favourite restaurant in the city and we having our wedding there was something we agreed on since we started talking about getting married. Everything about Hometown was what we wanted for our wedding. We’ve both been to weddings were the food is an afterthought and we wanted the opposite. We had friends text us that they couldn’t wait to try it which was basically their RSVP. The atmosphere is just as incredible as the food. We needed to do very little decorating to get achieve the look we wanted which saved us a ton of money and made the vibe feel more genuine.”

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