Personal / USA

A Maine Wedding

Sunflowers in Maine (Maine Wedding)

When you’re an expat, it’s easy to romanticize the place you left. I didn’t always love New England when I lived there, but once I moved to Istanbul, I started getting moony over Massachusetts and the surrounding region.

I returned in July for my first substantial stay in New England in a year and a half, and the first thing I did was the perfect transitional re-entry: I went to Maine to see two of my Istanbul expat friends get married.

Portland, Maine (Maine Wedding)

I’d known Emma and Glyn for less than a year but, as tends to happen among expats, we became close quickly. Emma and I actually went to rival high schools, and though we didn’t know each other then, the shared prep school experience became a strong bond.

Their wedding was in Freeport, at Emma’s parents’ house, so I carpooled up to Maine for a weekend of nuptial celebration and Portland exploration.

Maine Lobster (Maine Wedding)

Maine is a major summer vacation spot for Massachusetts residents; I remember going up to the beaches of Ogunquit with my family and eating fried clams by the ocean. Portland is Maine’s charming cultural capital and has everything you could want in a small New England city: sturdy brick buildings, wide leafy streets, a port lined with lobster shops.

Portland Streets (Maine Wedding)

It was perfectly familiar and just new enough. I hadn’t been to Portland since the winter of 2006 and didn’t know the specifics of the city at all, and my New England heartswells were kicking in hard. All that red brick! The salty breeze! The lobster kitsch! We even had a private tour of the Portland Observatory, the last remaining maritime signaling tower in the USA and an excellent place for a sweeping view of Portland. I crammed as much of this East Coast Portlandia into the day as I could—local beers, local ice cream, and of course, lobster.

Portland Observatory (Maine Wedding)

View of Portland, Maine (Maine Wedding)

But the real purpose of the trip was the wedding, so we headed to the neighboring city of Freeport for a taste of more rural Maine.

Emma and Glynn Get Married (Maine Wedding)

The ceremony was held under the apple tree on Emma’s childhood farm, and the wedding was a slice of New England heaven, all Allagash White beer in mason jars and wild berry pie and fireworks in flower fields.  Emma and Glyn brought many loving and lovely touches to their Maine wedding — from the blossoms cascading from easels in the yard to the antique desk with crayons to leave colorful notes for the newlyweds to the cello music played delicately by family friends. The party was intimate and full of laughter and twinkly lights filled the sky as night began to fall. The wind caught silver pinwheels and we danced all evening in a red barn and gazed at the endless stars.

Flowers at Emma's Wedding (Maine Wedding)

Emre and Allagash White (Maine Wedding)

Cello Wedding (Maine Wedding)

A handful of the wedding guests were expat friends of mine, but none were from New England; I gushed giddily about the summers of my childhood and the way this wedding was the perfect encapsulation of everything I missed about home. If it is possible to wrap my New England nostalgia in a living dream, this wedding would have been it.

Flowers and Markers (Maine Wedding)

UK and US in a Barn (Maine Wedding)

Pinwheels (Maine Wedding)

It’s always beautiful to watch your friends get married; when their wedding seems like a love letter to the region you grew up in, it’s doubly sweet. This wedding radiated love, and I was so grateful that the bonds I’ve made in Istanbul brought me to this special celebration in Maine. Sure, maybe I would have explored Portland anyway, maybe. But wrapping myself in the glory of New England, from the little cities to the farms, from the lobsters and blueberry pies to the people, was made so much more special and significant at my friends’ wedding. I put my phone away for the night. This evening, with stars and champagne and fairy lights twinkling, was one I wanted to be very present for.

Flowers in Mason Jars(Maine Wedding)

10 Comments

  • photopaulm
    December 12, 2014 at 2:10 PM

    Beautiful !

    Reply
  • Vanessa
    December 15, 2014 at 12:52 AM

    Wedding pictures are always fun to watch. Love this post!

    Reply
    • Katrinka
      December 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM

      Thank you! My friends made it easy for me, it was a beautiful wedding 🙂

      Reply
  • Martina Korkmaz
    December 15, 2014 at 3:28 PM

    Wow. The post is lovely and the photographs so beautiful. For all that’s is worth, you make film shine. Love the colours. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Katrinka
      December 15, 2014 at 6:30 PM

      Thank YOU Martina! I’m glad you enjoyed it.

      Reply
  • Alana - Paper Planes
    December 16, 2014 at 10:45 PM

    I love the sunflowers image!

    Reply
    • Katrinka
      December 16, 2014 at 11:40 PM

      Thanks Alana! A whole section of the garden was just giant sunflowers– they were so beautiful.

      Reply
  • Kathie Harper
    December 20, 2014 at 12:43 AM

    Oh Katie, what a lovely blog. It almost brought tears to my eyes. Jim and I still feel as though it were a dream, a nice one at that! We’re so glad that you were able to share in it. Do you think I could share the blog entry on Facebook? Let me know if this works.

    Merry Christmas, Kathie

    Reply
    • Katrinka
      December 20, 2014 at 12:52 AM

      You’re so welcome Kathie! It was truly a pleasure to be there. Feel free to share it! There’s even a button just above the comments here that lets you share it directly from the blog 🙂

      Reply
  • Bernadette Harris
    December 20, 2014 at 5:19 PM

    Thank you for this Katrinka – I have said to Glyn that I would love to re-live his wedding day as so much thought had been put into the arrangements and I felt that I had missed so much of the lovely little touches but reading your beautifully written blog transported me back to that day. Absolutely delightful!

    Reply

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