REAL BOSTON WEDDING: SHELLEY & ANDREAS

Andreas proposed on Christmas Eve. He said, ‘I’m not sure of the best way to do this, but I just want you to have this and to be my wife.’

Our wedding was held in September of 2009 at the historic Wang Theatre in Boston, Mass. Throughout the planning process, it was important to us that the wedding was a true reflection of who we were as individuals, and as a couple. We had lots of family and friends coming in from all over the world, many of whom had never been to Boston, the city we had lived in for a long time and love, so we wanted a true ‘Boston’ wedding. Instead of table numbers, we used old black and white pictures of places in Boston and had table names like ‘Beacon Hill’ and ‘Copley Square.’ Instead of a typical guest book, we had our guests write directly on the photographs in a photo book called ‘Boston: Then and Now.’

The wedding combined classic and vintage elements with clean and modern ones. The venue, for example, is a very old, ornate theatre. We got married in the lobby, surrounded by marble columns, under a painted ceiling. The food, however, was much more modern. Being a foodie, I refused to have a typical ‘chicken or fish’ dinner at my wedding! We served our guests Moroccan-spiced lamb and chicken tangine with hummus, cous cous, tabouleh, etc. Andreas and I both come from diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, and we attempted to represent them all throughout the wedding.

Our ceremony, which we directly planned with our officiant, included elements of both my Catholic and Jewish backgrounds. We drank Ethiopian honey wine during the wine pouring part of the ceremony because Andreas was born and raised in Ethiopia. After the cocktail hour, our guests paraded into the reception in a typical New Orleans ‘second line’ dance, which is popular at weddings and funerals in New Orleans, where my mom is from.’