We have spent a lot of time apart in our relationship. Because of this, when we do get to be together, we really enjoy doing typical day to day things…grocery shopping, making dinner, goofing around, watching our favorite tv shows (the office, great British baking show, criminal minds, and planet earth), going to our families houses for dinner, and harassing our cat, Charlie. We know that our relationship has been so successful is because we completely trust each other and have never doubted the commitment of the other to our relationship. This is something we felt initially when Pat would travel for work, and I was stuck in Troy working on my degree and even now as I’m still stuck in Troy and Pat is working on his degree in New Hampshire. We have encouraged each other to make choices that allow us to be the best version of ourselves and reach for our goals even though it kept us apart. We both fully believe in delayed gratification and are excited that our marriage marks the beginning of our life together (in the same location too).
Although we both attended the University of Buffalo, graduated in 2014 with engineering degrees, and had overlapping groups of friends, we didn’t “officially” meet until July 2015. Pat was in Saratoga for the weekend to attend the annual Dave Matthews Band concert with friends from college. Luckily, one of those friends was my close friend from college (and now bridesmaid) Laura who called and convinced me to buy a ticket at the last minute. I headed up to Saratoga to join the preconcert party and while waiting in line for the bus to the concert, I formally introduced myself to Pat by shaking his hand. We spent the rest of the concert together and Pat completely won me over with his outstanding dance moves. We exchanged numbers at the concert and started talking/going out on dates right away. We didn’t officially label our relationship until October, but we were committed to each other from the beginning. We actually celebrate and refer to our first meeting as our Dave-iversary. Pat traveled a lot for work, but I never felt like it affected our feelings or our relationship. When we reflect back on the start of our relationship, having that initial sense of trust and respect for one another is something we really both cherish and feel that it gave us a really strong foundation.

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What was your favorite memory of your wedding day?

It’s surprising but also not surprising to us that our favorite part of the day was our ceremony. We put a lot of time and effort into perfecting our ceremony script and vows and were very happy with the outcome. We both had nerves going into the ceremony but once it started and we saw each other, nothing else mattered. We felt completely surrounded by the love of our family and friends and made the best decision of our lives. Pat’s hug during the ceremony was so classically him too! We also absolutely enjoyed being able to spend the day with our favorite people. We can remember special, personal moments with our guests both together and independently that will stick with us forever. 

What were the main influences behind the style of your wedding, its location and your venue choice for your big day?

We wanted our wedding to be classic and we wanted to keep our wedding events all in one place so we could spend the most amount of time with our guests. We felt that a classic style best reflected our personalities because neither of us are good about keeping up with trends. We fell in love with The Otesaga because it allowed us to transition from the reception to an after party seamlessly and kept it on site. We also had a farewell brunch the next morning where we got to thank our guests again.

What would your top tips be for somebody planning their wedding?

Determine which aspects of your wedding are most important (in terms of vendors) early on, make sure you mesh well with them, and book them early. We had an outstanding team of vendors and are so thankful because a good number of things didn’t go as planned. We had to move our ceremony inside because it ended up being cold and rainy the day of and were a little behind schedule getting ready. This impacted our photography/videography schedule and the location of where we took pictures. Even though it rained the day before and we checked the weather, we didn’t make an official plan b but you would never know that with how well our vendors handled the situation. 

What made you decide to hire a wedding videographer? Any tips for couples on the fence for a film?

My sister and a close friend both said how they wished they had hired a videographer for their wedding. I also have loved watching other couple’s wedding videos that are really able to capture the feeling of their day and their love for each other. Now being a few weeks out from our wedding, we are so excited to see our video! We know there are plenty of things that happened that day that we didn’t get to see and are very reassured that we have recordings of things we can’t quite remember.