Focus on the love.
He heard her playing guitar for a couple of friends in her college dorm room. So he walked in, sat on the floor, and started making requests. That’s how Andrea Vought met Scott Robitaille. To celebrate their love for music and learning to play guitar together throughout their six-year courtship, Andrea played her version of Bon Jovi’s “Thank You for Loving Me” at their September wedding last year at Farm Neck in Oak Bluffs. “I thought I would be nervous, but when the time came, I wasn’t. It was like we were the only two under that reception tent. It was one of the most special parts of the day for me.” Her advice to brides: “Your guests won’t remember the color of the linens on the tables or the chairs you spent so much time choosing, they’ll remember the personal touches that made your day uniquely yours. So think back on your relationship and on what makes you guys ‘you’ and tie it into your big day.”

Carpe diem!
Each for their own reason, couples decide to elope on the Vineyard in large numbers. “We chose this place for its known beauty,” says Eileen (O’Leary) McGinley about her elopement wedding last September to hubby Michael. They tied the knot in the gazebo in Oak Bluff’s Ocean Park. Once back home in Michigan, Eileen says they shared the big news with family and friends and joyfully began planning a December reception to celebrate with them.

Personalize your celebration.
For their wedding last September at The Inn at Blueberry Hill in Chilmark, Chick Dowd and Tyler Stapleton decided on a grape theme to honor Chick’s mother, who passed away six years ago. She was a Vineyard ceramist, known for her grape imagery – which also ties into the Island’s name (there are wild grapes here, though the only winery recently closed). Some of the vases used for centerpieces were her mother’s originals, and Chick, also a ceramist, made the favors: Island-shaped ornaments with a grape motif. Sugared grapes adorned the wedding cake made by Vineyard Haven’s Kim Munn of Something Sweet, bunches of glass grapes held the table cards, and grapevines were used for napkin rings.