The Start to a New Life, A New Year and Endless Love

“It was sunset and it was the same spot that his dad asked his mom to marry him,” she said. “So it was pretty special.”

Jenna and Benjamin were married on December 31, 2021 at Saint Peter’s Church in Lowville. They chose that location because both Benjamin and Jenna are Catholic and “it was important to us to have a Catholic Mass.” For the reception, they looked at a number of places in the area, since Jenna wanted to support local businesses wherever she could, but most of them weren’t large enough to support their families and friends comfortably.

“My dad is one of 14 children, so I have quite a large family and Ben has quite a large family as well,” Jenna said.

They looked at venues in the Finger Lakes and on the river, but ended up using Three Willows in Lyons Falls because it was the only space large enough for the couple hundred people they expected to attend the wedding. Jenna said the Three Willows was perfect for them because of its size and the fact that they wanted to have their wedding on the day of New Year’s Eve. They wanted a New Year’s Eve wedding because their families would be home for the holidays and they felt like people would be more excited and have more fun on such a celebrated night, when people ring in the new year with well-wishes and expectations of the upcoming months being good ones. Jenna added that neither she nor Benjamin wanted to be at the center of attention and hoped that it being New Year’s Eve would take some of the pressure of them, too.

“New Year’s Eve is one of those holidays that I feel like everyone is down to have a good time, but rarely do you do the same thing every year,” she said. “All of our guests were super excited to get all dressed up and party with us, and the open bar was an added bonus!”

To personalize their guests’ seating placements and add a bit of that New Year’s Eve magic to the reception, Jenna said she took a lot of inspiration from Pinterest and its wide variety of New Year’s Eve themed decoration ideas. They incorporated analog clocks into their theme at the reception and had a table filled with items that are popular for the holiday, including hats, tiaras, noise makers, horns and necklaces. In lieu of name cards at each table, Jenna said she, Benjamin and a couple of other family members personalized each place setting with gold blow horns that had their guests names on them.

“It only took us five hours to hand apply the black sparkly vinyl on each horn,” she said.

To make the day more spectacular, they wanted to have a special event at midnight because it was New Year’s Eve, and considered having a screen with the Times Square countdown displayed on it, a champagne tower, or confetti cannons, but ended up going with a balloon drop because it seemed like the most fun. The night before the wedding, a crew of family and friends all helped to blow up 500 balloons and rig a net up on the ceiling for the drop, and “crossed our fingers” that it would go off without a hitch the night of the reception.

“It was a magical moment, bringing in the new year as a newly married couple, surrounded by all of our favorite people. I still get that feeling when I look at the pictures,” Jenna said. “A minute later, all the balloons were popped on the dance floor, but it was all worth it for that moment!”

Since they decided to make it a winter wedding, Jenna said she had to consider what clothes would not only look good on her and the wedding party, but what would keep them warm. The day of the wedding, there was only a bit of snow on the ground, and she had gifted fur shawls to all of the bridesmaids to wear while photos were being taken. She wore her mom’s Alaskan fur coat and wore white boots with a heel that she bedazzled to “dress them up a bit!”

Jenna got her dress from Mirror Mirror Inc. in Baldwinsville, the Vanilla Bean Bakeshop in Lowville made the wedding cake and cupcakes for the couple, and Nolt’s Country Store made Jenna’s “favorite” maple cream cookies, which were very popular with guests at the reception.

“It’s funny, everybody was right by the bar, and everybody that walks by was wondering where the maple syrup smell was coming from,” Jenna said. “It’s 200 cookies, that’s what it was.”

They asked local musician Travis Rocco to play at their wedding, and he performed acoustic pieces and was the DJ at the reception with a mixture of live and recorded music for guests. Chelsea Walts Photography took all photos for the wedding and reception.

Jenna said she and Benjamin planned to go to Hawaii for their honeymoon but covid restrictions prevented that from happening, so they went to Key West for a week instead. She added that they do plan to travel to Hawaii eventually, but Key West was “very fun” and they had a great time there.

Jenna said that planning the wedding through the pandemic was an “experience” that added a great level of uncertainty to all of their plans. She learned that she had to focus on the big picture and not stress over minute details, but remember that she was getting married and “that’s the reason” for all of it.

“My sense of planning was pretty much thrown out the window, so I just kind of had to go with the flow and realize that what will be will be,” she said. “At the end of the day we knew that the biggest thing was we were getting married and not to worry about anything else. The people that wanted to be there would be there and everybody ended up having a fabulous time in the end.”