Right away, we knew we wanted to have a destination wedding. We chose Bar Harbor because Mark and I go up to Maine every summer to Mark’s parents’ cabins. We had day-tripped to Bar Harbor many times and loved the atmosphere of the small town. Plus, how much more destination can you get then Bar Harbor? The only way to get to Bar Harbor is either drive or take a ‘puddle hopper’ into the Ellsworth. We ended up choosing the Bar Harbor Regency as our venue. It was gorgeous and exactly what we were looking for– a ceremony site and reception area all in the same location. Plus, our guests could stay at the hotel right on the property making it easy to walk to and from the wedding.

Next, we booked a retired Sea Captain as our officiant. Captain Ken Barnes had a great speaking voice and gave a very spiritual ceremony without being totally religious. He even made us a fake marriage license that everyone could sign as being witnesses to our marriage. We used this as our guest book.

Our wedding’s theme organically became a Nautical theme. I had an idea to use a bunch of antique oil lanterns my mother-in-law had as the table center pieces. Each lantern was different. We added sea rocks from Rhode Island and used shells from New Jersey to paint the table numbers on.

We also made our invitations ourselves. We got all our supplies from A.C. Moore and Paper Source (who I highly recommend– we went to two different stores and both had a very courteous and helpful staff). Our accent color was purple so we chose plum and lavender paper. We embossed a compass stamp (you can’t get anymore nautical then that) onto the invitation and envelope. This ended up turning into our wedding’s logo or symbol so we used it on the programs, menus and place cards we made as well.

For a wedding cake, we chose to have gourmet cupcakes. We had 12 different flavors like Maine Blueberry, Smores, Chocolate Caramel and Grasshopper. Because we had so many different flavors, our baker made custom purple wrappers that said the name of each flavor. She also designed a cupcake tower (also purple) to display the cupcakes on.

My mother-in-law made homemade raspberry jam for the wedding favors. I got the idea to cover the jars with cupcake wrappers (kinda appropriate since our cake was cupcakes) from an article I saw on Martha Stewart’s website. We secured the wrappers with purple ribbon and put stickers we made (bought through Paper Source) on the tops of the jars with our names and the date.

Our florist was especially wonderful! Since the weather wasn’t cooperating, the ceremony flowers would have to be hung inside. The only problem was there was no where to hang the flowers. So about an hour before the ceremony (still raining mind you) she made the executive decision to have her husband bring a trestle and set it up so she could have something to attach the flowers to. Speaking as a bride on her wedding day, it was great to have a vendor that figured out what needed to be done, got the job done and didn’t really get me involved in the process– she kept things very stress free! Besides the ceremony flowers, the florist designed boutonnières for the groom, groomsman and fathers as well as small bouquets for the mothers. My bouquet was purple flowers with a touch of ivory while the girls had ivory flowers with a touch of purple.

We had 4 people in our wedding party plus our dog, Buckley (he was the ring bearer and yes he wore a bow tie). Mark’s sister was the Best Woman and my brother was a groomsman/keeper of Buckley. My best friend was the Maid of Honor and my sister was a bridesmaid. All three girls wore different dresses, but they were the same color purple, same fabric. They wore matching neutral color wedges and their gift from me were purple Swarovski crystal dangling earrings I made myself (with the help from my Maid of Honor). Mark and my brother wore matching purple striped ties and our fathers wore matching grey and purple striped ties. My dress was designed by Liz Fields. I wore a feather head piece in my hair, which I bought on a whim because the store where I got my gown from was going out of business and sold it to me for 60% off. For jewelry I wore a pair of white Swarovski crystal dangling earrings made by my aunt. Shoes were the hardest thing for me to find. I wanted something comfortable, but appropriate (I was getting married after all). After about a month of searching I finally found a pair of white beaded wedges from Clarks.

I used Mark’s iPad to continuously run a slideshow of baby photos of Mark and me, photos of us in college and our engagement photos. A colleague and friend of mine, Heather DiPiazza offered to do an engagement photo shoot for us.

Mark’s dad played Pachelbel’s Canon on the guitar for the processional music. Prior to the wedding Mark and I decided to take ballroom dance classes. As our first dance, Mark and I did a choreographed fox trot to “A Whole New World”. The dance included a lift with a spin and a dip at the end. We received a standing ovation from our guests. As dinner was ending, my girlfriends and I performed a surprised flash mob for the guests. We performed the dance routine to “Move Your Body” developed by First Lady Michelle Obama and Beyoncé. You can check out the video from the wedding on youtube. The night couldn’t have been as much fun as it was without the help of our amazing DJ. He did a really great job paying attention to the crowd and keeping them on their feet.

Despite the weather, all of our guests told us that they had a great time and our wedding was one of the best they had been to. That made us feel good – for all the hard work we put in that year planning, it was good to hear that it had paid off. To see our engagement photos and more pics from the wedding head on over to flickr.

“Lauren Mandilian choreographed Information Overload to first-rate music by John Avarese and Matthew Baker. She also created splendid animation with letters falling like rain down the screen and architecturally dissecting lines. Five dancers did their turns nicely until a fatal error message appeared on the screen. In this dance there were no errors.”
- Merilyn Jackson, Philadelphia Inquirer

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Kaidan Insuto is an interactive performance installation in the vein of a haunted house. Inhabited by the same characters found in Kaidan, Kaidan Insuto is an environment the audience enters into (those who choose to becoming a part of the performance).

“In The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, the Victorian home office on Baker Street is smartly designed by James F. Pyne Jr. That setting is fluidly transformed by Lauren Mandilian’s video projections into a moving train, and to street scenes and to the waterfall where Holmes apparently dies.”
- Steve Cohen, Broad Street Review
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“The sets by scenic designer James F. Pyne Jr. and video designer Lauren Mandilian cleverly use back projection to suggest settings ranging from Holmes and Watson’s living room to a railway carriage to a London park.”
- Bill Murphy, Broad Street Review
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“Three blank panels that form the rear wall of Holmes’ Victorian drawing room, designed by James F. Pyne Jr., frequently spring to life, occasionally assisted by Lauren Mandilian’s inventive video projections.”
- Wendy Rosenfield, The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Photos taken by Mark Garvin