♥ local love
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EMILY and ERIK
May 1, 2017 // Kelly Louise Photography
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It was so unlike me,” emily says of her impromptu solo outing to see Parsonsfield— a band she had only heard once or twice on a local radio station, mind you— play a gig at O’ Shea’ s Old Inne, a beloved Irish pub in West Dennis, Massachusetts.“ None of my friends could make it but I thought,‘ Screw it, I’ m going!’” Emily had a great time watching the performance, but the night got even better when, while waiting in line for coat check, she bumped into the band’ s cute drummer( a. k. a. Erik).“ I said something like,‘ Hey great set, let me buy you a beer!’” she laughs.“ Looking back, I probably never would have done that if I had a group of people with me.” Luckily it did happen though, and you can probably guess what happened next: the two music lovers fell in love.
With him living in eastern Connecticut and her living in Massachusetts, the two regularly met in the middle( a. k. a. Providence) for dates before eventually moving in together and calling the capital city home— the same home where Erik proposed on a quiet night in. Wedding planning was then likewise low key.“ If I could tell engaged couples anything, I’ d say,‘ It’ s just a day,’” Erik reveals when pressed for advice.“ That was our slogan: It’ s just one day out of a lifetime.” Between their busy schedules chock-full of classes and tour stops, they had opted to keep things simple for their Providence nuptials, inviting no more than forty guests to the outdoor ceremony at Prospect Park and the hipster-friendly reception at Milk Money that followed. But simple didn’ t mean fool-proof; the laidback couple are the first to laugh at various mishaps that occurred during planning and even on the day of, including invitation misprints, a notso-fashionably late officiant and a debit card snafu at the end of the night.
Yet, plenty of things went right, like purchasing a cost-effective, perfectly fitted boho-chic wedding dress from an Etsy vendor in Bulgaria; incorporating details from iconic local institutions like PVDonuts; showcasing their love for music with DIY vinyl guest books; and even finding time to take family photos with their beloved cat, Kaz.“ The little things that went wrong didn’ t matter at all. We still got married and we still had an awesome day with our family and friends,” Erik says.“ So don’ t stress. It’ s all going to be fine.” So fine that, like them, you might just end up in a wedding magazine.
134 | RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY ' S ENGAGED 2018