PERSONALIZED WEDDINGS Careful planning is key to an at-home ceremony

It's often more work than the traditional wedding, but it's more personal.
WASHINGTON POST
Jason Altieri stepped out of the front door of his best friend's home in Mansfield, Conn., and waved to the crowd. Brides often are described as radiant, bridegrooms less often. But radiant was the right word for the tall man who waited, smiling and impatient, checking his pocket watch in mock alarm when his bride was a few minutes late for the ceremony on the patch of lawn in front of their family and friends.
Allison Mackay walked across a scattered trail of rose blossoms and lilac flowers to join the man she had met over lunch and quickly judged "dreamy."
Therese and Bruce John, the couple's close friends, served as host and hostess for their wedding.
Jason and Bruce play guitar together professionally and for fun, and when Jason and Allison got engaged, Bruce suggested having the wedding in their big backyard, Therese says.
The engaged couple looked at other venues, but the idea of a handmade day with family and friends came to seem most important, says Allison, adding, "Bruce and Therese are truly an extension of our family."
With room under the big, white tent and in their spacious landscaped yard, the Johns hosted about 175 guests on a sunny, gusty Saturday in May, proving that home weddings needn't be small, although careful planning -- important for the traditional church-and-restaurant wedding -- is still key.
Childhood celebrated
Jaime Aiello concurs. She and her sister Michelle Aiello are going to have about 170 guests at their double wedding at their family's waterfront home in Clinton, Conn., later this month, and the two have planned an occasion that celebrates their closeness as sisters and their childhood on the water.
The wedding is being celebrated at the house where their grandparents once lived and where their parents live now. The sisters will have two tents for their reception, in case the weather is bad. The tents were custom-made, "to control the noise," Jaime says.
The brick house facing the Sound is steeped in memories of the grandparents, who are gone now, and childhood summers at the beach, so the wedding has a beach theme. There will be seashells in dishes with floating candles on each of the tables at the reception, and the sisters' cakes also will have a beach theme.
Wedding planner Carol Gergley says the at-home wedding gives couples a chance to really customize their big day in every way.
"It's often more work, but it's more personal," says Gergley, whose Torrington, Conn.-based Weddings Plus plans weddings and parties all over the state.
Although home weddings are not necessarily less expensive than more traditional affairs with a church and reception hall, the wedding planner says an uncertain economy is making couples more budget-conscious.
Painless planning
Paige Rubino planned her big, elegant 2002 wedding to restaurateur Steven Abrams in one month, and it was at the home they had bought just weeks before.
The short-planning window didn't faze Rubino. As director of facilities, sales and services at a performing arts center, she had planned bigger events than her wedding, which had a mere 190 guests. Her friends and a sister helped with the planning, which she describes as "very painless," and as co-owner of the Max Restaurant Group, her fiance has important food-industry relationships.
They checked with the town government and police about noise ordinances and parking, and because they had just moved into the neighborhood and planned an eight-piece band for the reception, they left a note and a bag of cookies in their neighbors' mailboxes. They explained that they were having a big wedding and that, "We're not always this noisy!"
Gergley sees the home wedding as a bit more kid-friendly because the children can play and run around the yard after the ceremony. "You can't ask your sister not to bring her children," she says.
Mother in charge
Ann Carta created something beautiful for her daughter, Maura, and the memory of the occasion is still clear 12 years later. An artist and actuary, Maura wasn't very interested in managing the details, so her mother, a former research librarian, planned everything.
Maura married David Greenlaw at a Congregational church, then she, her groom and her 125 guests crossed the street for a reception in the spacious backyard of her parents' early Georgian home in Glastonbury, Conn. Ann Carta planned the late-day June wedding for six months and said she needed nearly every minute.
A dozen members of a choral group performed and a well-known local caterer was responsible for the food.
Snags often occur
But even great planning can't prevent snags.
Debbie Brydon and her husband, George, married at their home in Pleasant Valley, Conn., six years ago, two days after Hurricane Floyd blew through Connecticut and blew down their wedding tent. The day before their wedding, the bakery making their special wedding cookies burned to the ground.
"We were just waiting for the third problem," says Debbie, but the rest of their at-home wedding went off beautifully, and she remembers the day as "truly magical."
George is from a small town south of Edinburgh and had a bagpiper accompany him down the aisle and to play as Debbie joined him in front of the justice of the peace for their vows. The justice of the peace was a neighbor who also provided parking space for some of the Brydons' 70 guests.