Ten years ago, Katie and Abram’s first date was a hike through the woods of New Hampshire. No itinerary. No real plan beyond staying outside a little longer than either of them expected to. Their officiant, a friend who’d known them both since long before they were “them,” brought the hike up in the middle of the ceremony. The trail. The trees. Two people who kept choosing to be outside together. That’s the story behind Katie and Abram’s Elizabeth Park wedding in West Hartford, Connecticut.
They didn’t plan a garden wedding because gardens were trending. They planned one because two people who fell for each other in the woods went looking for a venue and found sixty acres of public garden space instead of a ballroom: a greenhouse, a rose garden, a tree-lined amphitheater. For them, Elizabeth Park wasn’t scenery. It was familiar ground, just better landscaped than New Hampshire.
A (Somewhat) Snowy Engagement Session in Waterford
Months before their wedding, we met at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford, with patchy, thin layers of snow still on the ground here and there. The gardens there were dormant. Hedges bare, beds cut back, the whole place quiet in the way coastal New England gets in February. Katie and Abram walked it anyway, because of course they did. Cold has never been the thing that keeps those two inside.
Getting Ready at Avon Old Farms Hotel
The morning started at Avon Old Farms Hotel, away from the park, in the kind of quiet that only exists before a wedding day picks up speed.
By the time Katie was dressed, the day had already shifted.
From a hotel room built for waiting, into a day built for being outside, which is where the two of them have always loved being together anyway.
A First Look Under the Arborvitae
Katie and Abram had their first look under a line of arborvitae trees at Elizabeth Park. Dense, evergreen, close enough to the tree line that it could pass for the woods that started all of this.
Just the two of them, in the trees, the same way they started. (But if you look closely, you might find the matron of honor shedding a few tears in the background of a picture or two.)
Portraits Through Elizabeth Park
ELIZABETH PARK
From the arborvitae, the day moved through the rest of the park. Past the greenhouse. Into the rose garden, past a gazebo wrapped in vines that most couples don’t even know is there until they’re standing under it.
Out to the open field by the amphitheater, where Elizabeth Park stops looking manicured and starts looking like the kind of place you’d actually want to spend an afternoon.
This is the part of an Elizabeth Park wedding that a lot of couples underestimate. It’s not one photo backdrop. It’s four or five distinct environments inside a single Greater Hartford park, each one asking something different of the light and the two people standing in it.
A Ceremony on the Patio
The ceremony happened on the uncovered patio at Pond House Café, in full spring sunlight. No tent, no shade, just the day as it was.
Katie walked in past the pond with her father. Both mothers stood up and spoke. One of Abram’s brothers read a letter his mother had written for him, out loud, in front of everyone.
If you’re comparing ceremony spaces inside the park itself, Pond House Café is the one with direct pond access, great catering, and wonderful service.
Vendors for This Elizabeth Park Wedding
- Getting Ready Hotel: Avon Old Farms Hotel (Avon, CT)
- Venue: Pond House Café at Elizabeth Park (West Hartford, CT)
- Hair and Makeup: Modern Design Salon (West Suffield, CT)
- DJ: DJ Alex Vollorano of Powerstation Events
The Reception
Two speeches. Parent dances. And at some point, the couple started throwing out t-shirts (basketball game style) printed with a vintage three-wolves-and-the-moon design, except it wasn’t wolves. It was their dog.
Half the reception was wearing them by the end of the night. Katie and Abram left the way they seem to do most things: fast, together, straight into a waiting car with no formal goodbye line.
Ten Years Later
A first date in the New Hampshire woods doesn’t usually turn into a wedding officiant’s speech a decade later. It especially doesn’t turn into a wedding inside a public garden, under trees picked because they looked close enough to the ones that started it. But that’s what an Elizabeth Park wedding gave Katie and Abram—not a departure from how they met, but a return to it, with everyone they love standing around them.
More Elizabeth Park Wedding Photos
About the Author
Terrence Irving is a wedding photographer based in Connecticut, working across the Northeast. He photographs weddings at Elizabeth Park, Pond House Café, and venues throughout Connecticut and New York.
