Real Wedding: Cailin & John
Photography: Claudia Kronenberg
Cailin Hughes caught John Broere's eye when she helped decorate his company's office building in London. Working at the Belgravia Gallery, it was her job to align a customer's taste for art with an appropriate piece of artwork and she and John worked closely to furnish the offices for his forty colleagues. During this time John seemed to develop a passion for art and became a regular face at Belgravia's gallery openings. Eventually he asked Cailin to help find a painting for his new London flat, and the two spent months searching for the perfect painting. Little did Cailin know, John never intended to purchase anything. His attendance at gallery openings and effort to decorate his flat were all part of a clever plan to win Cailin's heart. Luckily for John, the plan worked!
After dating for several months, Cailin accepted John's proposal over a New Year's Eve toast in Florence, Italy. He had spent the day eyeing the city for the perfect proposal location, but could not make up his mind. So, after a glass of champagne, and watching the New Year's ball drop on TV in their hotel room, John popped the question.
Planning their wedding was a challenge. Though they were both living in London, John was from Vancouver, Canada and Cailin was from Boston. No matter where their wedding was, it was clear that it would require extensive travel from at least half of the guests. John and Cailin settled on marrying in Nantucket, a location that would appeal to all guests and offer tastes of things John and Cailin cherish-the ocean and fall foliage. These things offered the inspiration for the wedding's color palette. Everything from the wedding arch to the cake reflected autumnal colors.
On top of choosing a location, Cailin and John were faced with the challenge of planning a wedding from across an ocean with a five-hour time difference. They communicated with their vendors through emails, phone calls, and image exchanges.
Combining wedding guests from Canada, the United States, and London, meant that many attendees had never met. Cailin and John did everything they could to make guests feel welcome in Nantucket. They made gift baskets with suggestions about local things to do and places to eat, and included a list of "Cailin and John's favorites" to personalize the location. They encouraged mingling by mixing up table assignments at the wedding and labling tables after places they have visited together, including Boston, Vancouver, and Florence.
Each guest was assigned to a table with at least four guests he or she had never met. Cailin explains that she and John took a risk by doing this, but, "it couldn't have worked out more perfectly," she says, "Everyone embraced the opportunity to meet new people and enjoyed learning why each new face is important to us." Focusing on details like this allowed Cailin and John to reflect their relationship with family and friends as much as possible. They viewed their wedding as a union between each other, but stress that it was the people who attended the celebration who made the day special.
Luckily, Cailin and John's attention to detail and focus on making their wedding a celebration for all of their guests made the international challenges they faced while planning inconsequential. They only experienced minor mishaps the day of the ceremony-Cailin watched from her hotel room's balcony as two table cards caught fire and waitstaff had to reset the tables. The union though, as decribed by Cailin and John, proves that as a couple they are "inseperable in love and couldn't be happier." And though they have since moved in together, John claims he is still searching for the perfect painting to hang in his house, and is still expecting Cailin to help him find it.