JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I have to admit, I always had fantasies about one of my kids' weddings being in the New York Times wedding section, but with the way print readership is plummeting today, this may get just as much attention as a column there. Plus, I don't have to take a picture where the couple's eyebrows are in a line. (Yes, that's a real requirement for the engagement photos!) So:
Mrs. Ross Hugo-Vidal
is pleased to announce
the blessing of the marriage of her daughter
Victoria Hugo-Vidal
and
Emilia Hugo-Vidal
August 30th, 2025
This announcement is the most formal thing about the ceremony, which combined the Episcopal church recognizing their union, a baby shower, and an afternoon grilling outdoors at a Maine lake house. You can't get much more efficient than combining a wedding, a shower, and a Labor Day weekend BBQ!
The setting was courtesy of the great generosity of our own Celia Wakefield. Interestingly, this isn't the first nuptials to take place in this lovely setting; she hosted her daughter's first wedding here.
The weather was fine; partly sunny, but cool enough so no one was in danger of heat exhaustion. (Sounds unlikely, but I've been to some summer weddings... )
Victoria's brother and sister were both there, from Norfolk and Den Haag, respectively.
Beautiful flowers and a delicious cook out. This was the table before getting covered with enough hamburgers, sausages, corn on the cob and pasta salad to feed a small village.
My sister Barb can always be counted upon to lend a hand. The brides had the most delicious cupcakes from a small local bakery.
Friends and family were so generous in getting this new little family on its way...
And my daughter was a beautiful bride!
Dear readers, share some of your wedding stories with us in the comments!
Congratulations and best wishes to Victoria and Emilia . . . .
ReplyDeleteLovely setting, May love and joy and strength fill their days. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteJULIA: Many thanks for sharing the happy scenes from yesterday's wedding/shower/Labo(u)r Day BBQ.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations and sending best wishes to Victoria & Emilia!!
Congratulations to all! Wishing them a lifetime of happiness and health!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pictures, and what a lovely setting. Best wishes to Victoria and Emilia and the baby. May they enjoy a long and happy life.
ReplyDeleteJulia - thanks for sharing these wonderful photos of your daughter's wedding. What a special place.
ReplyDeleteI have to make note of the gorgeous flowers!! Congrats to Victoria and Emilia.
Lovely! Thank you for sharing the photos. Many blessings and years of happiness to Victoria and Emilia!
ReplyDeleteOur most recent family wedding two and a half years ago was my younger son's to the lovely Alexandra on the permaculture educational farm in the mountains of western Puerto Rico where they both lived and worked. Everyone, including staff, family, and guests, helped spiff up the place, pick flowers, decoate, build the bamboo arch they were married under, and more. It was beautiful, bilingual, and lasted hours! They are expecting their first child in early January.
DeleteMore joy! That is wonderful news--a cousin for Ida Rose, too!
DeleteHow wonderful! Congratulations and best wishes for a life of love and joy to Victoria and Emilia!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations and best wishes to Victoria and Emilia. The photos are gorgeous. What a perfect day! I think a wedding barbecue on a lake is my ideal wedding.
ReplyDeleteHow perfectly lovely. On all dimensions. It’s bringing back memories of my daughter’s wedding on an island in Maine… Local flowers, local cupcakes, gorgeous bride, Happy families!
ReplyDeletecongratulations on that most beautiful celebration--couldn't be happier for all of you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the amazing photos of an unforgettable day. Congratulations to Victoria, Emilia, and the new little one who will be here soon. What a lovely way to celebrate amid a beautiful setting!
ReplyDeleteThe most memorable wedding in our family was my twin's wedding. They married at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. Another lovely day in a spectacular setting.
Congrats to Victoria and Emilia and best wishes to the new family!
ReplyDeleteMy son had a beautiful New Orleans wedding in the 1880 Board of Trade complex: courtyard wedding and indoor (a/c) reception followed by a second line through the French Quarter. My daughter had a Cape Cod beach wedding with the reception and dancing in a tent. She arranged for generators to provide the necessary power for a live band.
One child left...
Congratulations to Victoria & Emilia.
DeleteBeautiful setting for a wedding.
Dianne Mahoney
Many, many good wishes!! And the faces in the photos are so relaxed and joyful (thus writes a clergyperson who has seen soooo many stressed, distressed and downright unhappy faces at weddings when one little thing goes wrong!)
ReplyDeleteFifty-five years ago my beautiful bride was a student at Lowell State College (now UMass Lowell) and living on campus in a dormitory, Concordia Hall -- which is where she wanted to get married. Concordia Hall had a large reception area with comfortable seating and couches; and at the center was a statue of Orpheus which literally tinkled water into a very small basin -- somebody forgot to turn off the water during the ceremony, so our vows were drowned out by the splashing of water. The president of the college sent over a large floral arrangement. Kitty was Catholic, and luckily the reception area had been consecrated because Sunday services were held in there, allowing the priest at the college's Newman Center to perform the service. (I was not Catholic but willingly went through the pre-Cana course with her. Both Kitty and I were absolutely at odds about many things,; when we happened to meet the priest who married us about fifteen years later; he told us we were the one couple he was absolutely convinced would not last, but that we were the ONLY couple that he married who did.) It was an evening wedding and gaggles of girls (love that phrase!) who lived at the dormitory lined the reception area to view the ceremony, many of them in their pajamas. (A local group played folk music. (Many decades later, I was talking to Joe Frazier, who was a member of the folk group The Chad Mitchell trio -- and also an Episcopal priest, and mentioned that one of their songs was played at our wedding, and he just smiled with happiness.) Our reception was held across town at the local Howard Johnson's, which was a fairly big venue in those days of yore; it was a champagne reception and the venue soon ran out of champagne (they were evidently unfamiliar with the capacity of many of Kitty's relatives and of the local college population), and had to send people throughout the city to find more champagne. My bride complained that she had only one glass of champagne, not remembering that people kept filling up that glass for her. A good time was had by all, especially my Uncle Arthur, who kept flirting with one of the bridesmaids, much to the displeasure of my Aunt Thelma. All in all, it was an interesting start to a fifty-two year marriage that I sincerely wish could have been longer.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely story Jerry.
DeleteI love this story, Jerry.
DeletePoignant memories, Jerry.
DeleteLovely story! John Denver was part of the Chad Mitchell Trio before he became famous.
DeleteJerry, a glass that kept refilling! Magic! And it sounds like 52 wonderful years kept the magic going!
DeleteCongratulations and best wishes to Victoria and Emilia!
ReplyDeleteJulia, such lovely photos, and it sounds like a lovely wedding, baby shower, Labor Day picnic indeed! Wishing Victoria and Emilia and baby-to-be a very long and happy marriage and parenthood and lives.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful setting for a wonderful wedding/baby shower/barbecue! Congratulations to all!
ReplyDeleteOh, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen! Everyone looks so happy… And this is absolutely gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous! Yaaayyyy!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations & Best Wishes To All ! Everyone looks so happy, healthy and brilliant ! Gorgeous flowers, food and setting ! Mary E.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your perfect day with us, Julia. May this new little family go on as they have begun, with joy and love, and surrounded by the support and comfort of their family. Peace, health, and a long and happy marriage to Emilia and Victoria!
ReplyDeleteMy oldest daughter had a massive, splashy wedding, fraught with just the right details. Fun, but I was a nervous wreck, and so was she. The youngest had a "real" wedding with the white gown and her first husband in his military uniform, and a fancy dinner with dancing. The marriage sputtered out, though. Her second wedding was just the two of them, his two children, and Steve and me, standing on the hill above their first home together, with a friend officiating. My son-in-law was wearing shorts. Our other two daughters were "there", joining us via Zoom and FaceTime, and the oldest was sobbing and crying so loudly the officiant asked if she could turn down her volume. The whole thing was over in 10 minutes, then we trudged down the hill for a barbecue.
Many congratulations to the couple and to Julia for hosting the event. Baby shower next !
ReplyDeleteMy future grsndddughtef-in-law is having her wedding shower next week. I offered her to pick one of our antique family items and she was thrilled!
Oh, was it baby shower too? How efficient!
DeleteSo lovely! Best wishes to the brides and congratulations to you and all around!
ReplyDeleteAs an Altar Guild member, I have assisted with many weddings.... Chair need to be near the groom in case he got too emotionally overwhelmed......bride insisted on a flower designer be used for her flowers, not just church flowers and then threw a fit when she thought they had delivered dead flowers. The flowers were blue iris in balls of ivy. Blue doesn't show up well in our church.... Waiting 30 minutes due to a forgotten wedding license.....
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, beautiful setting... Wedding, baby shower, family gathering..... Blessings to all. Thank you for including us, Julia. (Now, go put your feet up, ask for a huge icy drink and just enjoy the day after gathering when others should be waiting on you.)
Congratulations to Victoria and Emilia! What a lovely setting for the ceremony/shower/barbecue. May they have a long, loving, and happy marriage filled with healthy children and surrounded with loving family and friends. — Pat S
ReplyDeleteJULIA: Congratulations to your beautiful daughter Victoria and Emily on their wedding. And will this be your first grandchild? The wedding photos are lovely. It looks like the whole community was there to share in the joy of the wedding celebrations. Blessings to all.
ReplyDeleteOver the years I attended many weddings. I was a bridesmaid in several weddings. The most recent wedding was in the Autumn of 2024. The wedding official was a lovely tall man wearing makeup, reminding me of the beautiful men working at MAC cosmetics at the local department store. It was an outdoor wedding and luckily it did not rain. We went to another wedding in Canada and this wedding was also outdoors at the beginning of the summer. That was many years before the pandemic. I remember the food was very good. The bride was beautiful. As a teenager, I was a bridesmaid in several weddings. One wedding was outdoors and I remember getting a dress from the Laura Ashley shop. Another wedding was in the church where the groom's father was the clergyman.
Love learning about different wedding traditions from reading the comments.
Congratulations to all on your special day. My husband and I married in our 40s. I wore a bridal dress, my one requirement, and we did have a Prince song, but otherwise it was a traditional church wedding with the reception being a cake and coffee gathering at the church. The unique part was that it was on Groundhog Day, a requirement of my husband as he said it was a family tradition. Thus I placed a groundhog figurine on top of the cake. Marjorie
ReplyDeleteCongratulations and best wishes to Victoria and Emilia – may years of happiness be filled with love. ( Right – too mushy from me…). I love to see a wedding where formality is not the key. Our youngest was married nearly 10 years ago at our place in a ‘wedding pagoda’ constructed by his father, while the bride approached through the woods. They were married by a Justice of the Peace wearing a very sharp MacLeod tartan vest – his family and coincidentally my grandmother’s were MacLeods, and he talked and laughed and told lovely stories about them in spite of never knowing either of them, all the while Lea’s legs were shaking so much the pagoda was shaking too – he commented! Food was in a tent – well actually lobsters (in September, not in season) and French fries from a food truck of course, and the next day, just because everyone was staying at ours – we of course barbecued a whole pig – weird, but it worked.
ReplyDeleteI will also say that the more I learn of her, the more generous and kind I know she is, and I wish I was her neighbour is Celia. Thank you for sharing.
I love everything about this!!! Congratulations to all, especially the brides and the lucky baby!!!
ReplyDeleteThe vibes are immaculate!! Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteI returned from being best woman in a wedding in Florida to find my music cancelled for my wedding the next weekend. Happily there were musicians at the local conservatory who knew Pachelbel’s Canon and had their Sunday free.
Other friends had their flowers not show up. Got the bride a gas station bouquet.
At my niece’s wedding my sister (MoB) a) forgot her shoes and b) had lost so much weight since she made her dress that the bodice gaped completely open. I had brought a wrap for the outdoor-in-November ceremony that we put to work and wore tennies after giving my sister my shoes (yay for a long dress!).
I am a big fan of low-key and low-stress weddings.
Such a wonderful day. I'm so happy for you all! When is the baby due?
ReplyDeleteThat looks like a perfect wedding to me, Julia!! Enjoy it all, and congratulations to the brides/moms to be!
ReplyDeleteOh dearest Julia, I am so happy for this wonderful day of celebration in your family. I love the picture of you and Victoria. There's such a joyful vibe that you and Ross instilled in your family, and it always rises to the occasion. Please pass along my congratulations to Victoria and Emilia! And, a baby soon, too. The happiness cup overflowth and so deservedly so. And, kudos to wonderful Celia for her ever present generosity. This celebration reaches all of us and gives us some hope for joy that might still touch our lives.
ReplyDeleteMy wedding was lovely, held in the church in which I grew up. A small hometown and a father in the real estate business and my hometown friends assured me of a big crowd. And, it made my mother so happy that we had this type of traditional wedding because the rest of my siblings did not. We had a brunch that morning at the Country Club, the reception in the church basement, and close friend and family at the house afterwards for some snacks of country ham on beaten biscuits, scalloped potatoes, corn pudding, and transparent pie. The ideal wedding turned into a less than ideal honeymoon, at least for that night. We were going to Gatlinburg, Tennesse because we loved the mountains and it was fall. We planned on stopping on the way at a hotel that night. Well, for the first and last time, I let my husband (what did I know then?) take care of reservations, which he did fine with for our final destination. However, the University of Kentucky and the University of Tennessee both had home football games that evening, and there was no room at the inn for starry-eyed newly-wed me and and husband. I'm serious. No rooms anywhere between Lexington and Knoxville, and past Knoxville, too. So, we drove through the night on to Gatlinburg. We checked, just in case our room was free, but of course it wouldn't be ready until afternoon. So, we drove up the mountains and down the mountains several times and ate breakfast at least twice. When we finally got in our room, the romance had to wait because we were exhausted and fell into bed to sleep. I have been in charge of hotel reservations ever since, almost 49 years.
Oh Kathy, I feel for you--but you were definitely a fast learner! :-)
DeleteThanks for sharing your celebrations, Julia! Wishing much happiness for Victoria and Emilia (and an easy delivery and a baby who sleeps through the night, hey, wishes can be big ones, right?). This was definitely my idea of a low-stress, focus on what matters kind of celebration--and it certainly shows in the photos!
ReplyDeleteThat's me above, aka Anonymous...
DeleteCongratulations to the lovely couple and blessings to the little one that awaiting time to make a memorable entrance. My first wedding was simple and the one thing I really wanted was to have the ceremony where the bride and groom each take a lit candle and use it to light a third together. We didn't practice it ahead of time and it turned out that the candles were almost out of my reach when it came time to blow the original one out. I got so tickled it just got worse and took me three tries to get that sucker blown out. My MIL-to-be told me later she was so afraid I would be in tears when I turned around and was relieved to see my smile. -- Victoria
DeleteAmanda here: What a wonderful day! Mega congratulations to Victoria and Emilia. Blessings on them, their marriage and their baby!!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to the brides and families and one and all! I've never done a wedding in a kilt; something to put on the list.
ReplyDeleteoh happy day and all the days to come
ReplyDeleteMe topé con https://calculadoradedias.com/ cuando planeaba un viaje largo y necesitaba saber la duración total en días, y realmente me ayudó a cuadrar mejor las reservas de hotel y transporte sin equivocaciones.
ReplyDelete