Smooth Unions

Editor Justine Amodeo's inspiration for our annual wedding guide.

On a late winter evening in New York City in the late ’80s, my closest friend from childhood, someone I’d known since the  age of 10, announced to me that he and his girlfriend were going to get married. A  Tuscan-themed wedding with a pig roast. On a hillside in Iowa in June. For the record, June is Iowa’s most tornado prone month, so being the eternal pessimist, I asked if perhaps they had storm plans. Like a tent. His lovely wife-to-be shook her wrist at me, told me she grew up there, and stuck a bowl of steaming risotto in front of me, a recipe she picked up in Italy.

The honeymoon plans were made just as casually, a camping trip to Wyoming, during the most popular camping season of the year. Have you made reservations yet? I continued to ask. Again, the flick of the wrist. They would find something when they got there, she said. I had my doubts. I’d travelled with this couple a year earlier and we’d spent at least one evening sleeping in a train station on the island of Elba due to vacancy issues.

Fast forward to the day before the wedding in June, dark clouds layering the sky in every direction, clacks of thunder shaking the foundation of the house. By 6 p.m., the wedding hillside was flooded, and large balls of hail had begun to fall. We called off the pig, began dialing every church and meeting space in Iowa City, and started planning the deli buffet. When we finally dragged the bride out of the bathroom at the town meeting hall, her face was so puffy with tears, we had to ice her before she’d walk down our makeshift aisle.

Later, while the barefoot bride, having imbibed a bit too much Champagne, was belting out “I Am Woman” on a nearby hotel’s karaoke night stage, a group of us got to work on moving the honeymoon to an island in the Caribbean, paid for by donations from wedding guests who could not bear to see this couple face another disappointment. That the island we sent them to was closed (yes, closed, they had to sleep on a rooftop for one night) the day they arrived did not deter them from celebrating their union. Their son was born exactly nine months later.

If they’d had a wedding planner, or even a plan,  the story may have been far less interesting, but so much less stressful. So in an effort to aid those who do not want to leave the nuptial planning to chance, Coast offers our annual wedding guide, a sampling of gorgeous dresses, beautiful floral, favor suggestions, innovative photography, event planners, honeymoon locations, and more.

Go to the Wedding Guide

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