The Bride Rocked a Patterned Dress at This Coastal Garden Wedding in Biddleford Pool, Maine

Scarlett Bermingham and Andrew Rhymer love all things botanical and celebrated their marriage with a garden-inspired wedding at Scarlett's family home on the coast of Maine in Biddeford. In keeping with the garden aesthetic of the day, Scarlett even donned an epic floral-print wedding dress for the occasion. While the wedding looked amazing in the end, the couple actually "really didn't want to have a wedding," confesses Scarlett. "We wanted to have a party. In fact, we insisted on not calling it a wedding at first." In fact, for years, the couple, both of whom work in the entertainment industry (Scarlett as an actress and Andrew as a producer), were against tying the knot—so much so that they even made a movie, Plus One, "making fun of weddings." However, in 2019, they were "in Seville for New Year's Eve and decided together that we wanted to throw a party to celebrate us and maybe it would look a bit like a wedding. We'd been together for 16 years and we wanted to celebrate our relationship."

When it came to actually throwing their "non-wedding" party to celebrate their marriage, the couple "thought 2020 sounded like a nice round number and well...wrong. How do you throw a party without your family and friends? So we pushed our date to June 2021. In the amorphous meantime, it became really clear to us how important it is to mark time, to have structure, to gather. It made us do a bit of a 180 and well, it ended up looking like a wedding with a capital W. And honestly, it was fabulous. We celebrated our community and the continuation of our relationship. Our best friend we've known since college officiated and she crushed it. Since we were in our backyard, we had a ceremonial tree planting moment. Fingers crossed the tree thrives...but if it doesn't, it's cool. Gotta let nature do its thing."

Scarlett's floral wedding dress informed much of the day's visual aesthetic. "My dress was Oscar de la Renta. It was silk with bold floral embroidery," says Scarlett. I knew I didn't want to wear a solid white gown. I'm not trying to neg this as obviously so many brides look fab in white. But I tried a few on because I felt like I should and I felt like I was wearing a costume. I think some people felt bad that because of the pandemic I was trying on dresses alone, but I kind of liked it. I felt like I could really listen to my own thoughts and make a decision that felt very me. Ultimately, I fell in love with the colorful Oscar dress and loved wearing it." With her dress as inspiration, the couple leaned into an all-out garden aesthetic that complemented the coastal private estate venue where they were celebrating. 

Given that the couple's wedding had a garden vibe to it, it was so surprise that their flower arrangements were, in the bride's words, "out of control. Our floral designer was a genius. And when you're working with a genius, you gotta let them fly. All I did was show her my dress fabric and say 'I trust you.'  And wow did she deliver. The aisle was lined with tall elegant delphiniums. We were in Maine so obviously, there were blueberries in the boutonnieres (whaat?). The tables had a beautiful scattering of oyster shells, tiny tomatoes on the vine and even decorative mushrooms! All accenting the most insane blooms I've ever seen arranged in the most creative ways. Because my dress had such a strong pattern, she made my bouquet two-sided so I could decide how to hold it. One side was softer, romantic, more neutral. The other had bold fabulous pops of red and gold. In the end, I opted for the bold and fabulous side. The floral designer even took the extra fabric from my dress and wrapped it around the stems. We thought it would be wildly amusing to make our two adult guy friends be 'Flower Bois' rather than choose one of them to be a best man. So our floral designer surprised us by making them decorative wearable garlands to really complete their looks as they tossed petals."

Beyond jaw-dropping flower arrangements, the couple filled their wedding celebration with ample personalized details to ensure the entire event felt like a true representation of them and conversely avoided elements that didn't reflect their relationship. "The best thing we did, was anything that felt like a 'should' we bagged. If something didn't feel true or organic to us, we didn't do it. As long as our family and friends were safe (and fully vaxxed), all of us getting to be together to celebrate was the most important thing. Since we spent a lot of the year not knowing what we could or couldn't do, the best part was really having all our friends and family there for the week in Maine leading up to the wedding/party. It also was so nice because it put less pressure on the day. Andrew even got a frose machine and it was a BIG hit."

Scarlett goes on to explain that "after such a nasty year, we wanted our friends to feel great so we encouraged anyone in our ceremony to wear whatever made them feel fabulous. We didn't have a wedding party, instead, we had a 'parade of emergency contacts.' Additionally, we couldn't get excited about cake so we had pie and our friend made a chocolate torte. We cut the tort and it meant way more that our friend made it. Naturally, there were going to be moments of stress when hosting that many guests, but we reminded each other that no one has fun with stressed-out people. No element was going to make or break this and perfection is overrated. We were really looking forward to having a dance party with all our friends. The love around us was just so intense and it was really the most fun. Our friends and family who gave speeches really blew it out of the water."