Our Wedding: Newport, Rhode Island

It’s Wedding Week at Sue At Home!

This Friday July 27th, Pablo and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary. I can’t believe that the time has flown by so quickly. I figured I’d share some wedding pics with you this week to help commemorate one of the most amazing days of my life. Today, I’ll set the scene.

We were married at the Astors’ Beechwood mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. When we were dating, we spent a lot of time in Newport with my parents (who had a boat at the time) and we fell in love with the charm of the seaside city. Plus – we loved the fact that we could have a destination wedding that wouldn’t require air travel for most of our guests. Much to our delight, many of our friends and family made a vacation out of it and spent several days in Newport.

Back in 2002 when we got married, the mansion was open for tours during the day and was rented out for weddings and events in the evenings. It was originally owned by the Astor family and Mrs. Caroline Astor was quite the grand dame of New York and Newport society. Her son, John Jacob Astor was married in the ballroom where our reception was held. He was famous for being the wealthiest man to die on the Titanic. (Remind me not to take a cruise.) Recently, it was sold to the founder of Oracle who now owns it as a private residence. I read an article saying that he has plans to renovate it and use it as a gallery. I don’t care what he does with it, as long as I can walk through it again someday!

Our ceremony took place on the lawn behind the mansion overlooking the water. Pretty dreamy, huh?

Did you notice those people in the far distance by the fence? They’re on Newport’s Cliffwalk. It’s a walkway that goes between the Bellevue Avenue mansions and the ocean. The views are spectacular – and it’s free! If you’re visiting Newport, it’s not to be missed.

More ceremony pictures:

The cocktail hour was held on the veranda on the back of the mansion. (I wish I could tell you more about this part but I was busy taking pictures so we missed the whole thing. If I could redo one thing from our wedding, it would be to skip the formal family and wedding party pics. Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing!)

The reception was held in the ballroom of the mansion. I usually don’t get into such antiquey stuff but I love the gold details and all the amazing lighting. It was so romantic!