Real Wedding: Alyssa & JP

Alyssa and JP had the perfect June wedding weekend in Deep Creek. The weather was beautiful and everything just looked lush and green.

As guests started to arrive we knew they were ready to celebrate Alyssa & JP. After the ceremony, everyone moved to the salon for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. The room was full of laughter, hugs, and conversations of reminiscing. When the reception started all the doors and windows had been opened and a nice mountain breeze blew through. Throughout the evening guests mingled inside and out…until it was time to dance. The packed dance floor was proof this group was in the mood to celebrate.

Mr. & Mrs. Stephen, we love you both! Come visit soon ❤️.

VENDORS

Venue/Catering/Cake/Planning: Chanteclaire Farm

Photographer: Erin Brennan Photography

DJ: Sounds Fun DJs

Florals: Farmhouse Fete

Hair & Makeup: Poetically Brushed

Shuttle: County Caravan

Officiant: Caitlin Stephen

Real Wedding: Danielle & Keith

From the moment we met Danielle and Keith we knew we were going to be having a great time together. They were such a fun-loving couple that we knew their wedding day was going to be epic.

The wedding came and it was the perfect May day (sunshine and no rain). As guests started to arrive we just knew that they were ready to party and celebrate the couple. Throughout cocktail hour you could hear the laughter and conversation flowing and people were enjoying their time together. During the reception, Danielle surprised everyone (even us!) with an AMAZING second dress. It was totally her fun personality.

Danielle & Keith, we love you both. Thank you for letting us host your special day! ❤️

VENDORS

Venue/Catering/Cake/Planning: Chanteclaire Farm

Photographer: Simply Kacie Photography

DJ: Sounds Fun DJs

Florals: Farmhouse Fete

Hair & Makeup: Dara Weaver

Shuttle: Kevin Green

Officiant: Nicholas Mageras

Real Wedding: Maria & River

If we had one word to describe Maria & River it would be love. Watching how they love one another, how they love their people, and how their friends and family love them was amazing to watch (those toasts even had us misty-eyed). The laughter and “I love you’s” were abundant.

It rained that morning (that’s good luck anyways right?), and by the time the ceremony started it had cleared up. After a ceremony overlooking the pond, everyone enjoyed cocktails and appetizers in the salon. A huge group photo moved into everyone heading upstairs for the rest of the reception. The evening ended in an epic dance party that had everyone on the floor singing along to all the songs.

Thank you for choosing us for your day. We just love you both ❤️

Vendors

Venue/Catering/Cake/Planning: Chanteclaire Farm

Photographer: Kirsten Getz

DJ: Sounds Fun DJs

Florals: Farmhouse Fete

Hair: Deep Creek Salon

Makeup: Flawless Faces by Megan

Liquor Provider: McHenry Beverage Shoppe

Shuttle: Kevin Green

Officiant: Dan Meadows

EXCITING NEWS FOR ANYONE PLANNING THEIR OWN WEDDING

We are ecstatic to officially launch a project that has been in development since 2020…

What we are launching:

The teams at The Fête Companies (Farmhouse Fête, Chanteclaire Farm, and Sounds Fun DJs) have packaged up all of our wedding planning tools and methodologies and are sharing it with couples everywhere.

We have created THE EPIC WEDDING, which teaches couples how to craft a wedding like a highly skilled planner, at a fraction of the cost.  

Our core product is THE EPIC WEDDING Masterclass….an 8 Module online class with over 270 videos, which covers all of wedding planning from engagement through your wedding day.

While the Masterclass will launch in early 2023, we are immediately rolling out the first two modules in a standalone short course called Wedding Foundations that covers engagement to booked venue.

We walk you through your roadmap, your vision, your guest list, a detailed budget, and finally your venue search. This is a video-based course with downloadable materials, our signature tools and methods (including our Every-Kind-Of-Wedding budget tool), an online planning portal to keep all your decisions organized, and plenty of support from our team and other couples.

Wedding Foundations has over 4 hours of content and about 40 videos.

Who this is for:

Engaged couples tend to fall into one of three wedding planning categories.

The first has the money and the understanding that they need to hire professional planners and pay them to guide them through the process.

The second group is people who would much rather find experts that they trust to do most of the decision making for them.

They are B-Type personalities who just want to show up to the party, and who will enjoy the day no matter how it unfolds. Couples like this love all-inclusive venues like Chanteclaire Farm, where the venue does everything for you, and you’re left with very little planning.

But if you happen to be part of the third group - people who don't have an unlimited budget but care deeply about the final quality level of their wedding - this course is for you.

You are going to put the emotional effort, the time and energy, and so much money into your wedding because you want to get it right.

We want to harness all that beautiful A-type personality inside of you and show you how to throw an absolutely EPIC event. You’ll get the full expertise of our planning, day-of-coordination, floral, design, venue, catering, cake, and DJ teams. We bring in officiants, photographers and videographers, and anyone else you need to learn from.

This level of comprehensive planning advice has never been offered before. In fact, we’re so confident in our format that we think we can change the entire wedding industry with these products. 

Classes from THE EPIC WEDDING will give couples a new sense of confidence and security in all their decisions and a support system to back them up - at a fraction of the cost of a wedding planner.

What makes us different:

All strong wedding planners can help you create a Day-Of Timeline, recommend local vendors, and give you a plethora of tips and tricks to avoid the things they’ve seen go wrong at weddings.

What makes us different is how we became planners…

We started as a venue, then started bringing all services in-house. We became caterers, bartenders, cake bakers and designers, and day of coordinators. Then we became florists, planners, DJs, and Emcees. We did this because, as a venue, we put enormous effort into creating the perfect stage for a wedding, only to watch the wedding turn out mediocre because the food, music, décor, and other elements of the day were not well coordinated.

Even if a wonderful caterer was chosen, the food could end up dry and tasteless because the cocktail photos ran over by 20 minutes. When one vendor didn’t live up to the highest standards, other vendors just shrugged, because there wasn’t anything that could really be done about it.

This is how wedding planners learn - by seeing each phase of a wedding play out so many times that they learn what can go wrong and can advise their clients to avoid those pitfalls.

But they usually don’t really know WHY things went wrong.

For example, after seeing 100 weddings, a planner probably knows not to stage the wedding cake in direct sunlight at mid-day. But that’s not the same as knowing the exact temperature that makes YOUR icing melt (hint: it’s based on how much butter is in the icing). We teach you how to decide which icing to use based on how protected your venue is from the elements.

And there are thousands more examples like this – where advising our clients is better because we are ALSO cake bakers, caterers, etc.

Here’s another example:

A venue owner may or may not care about having dimmable lights in key transition areas (and it’s scary how many don’t). But if you’re a venue owner AND a wedding planner, you can customize every area to perfectly enhance the mood. If you’re also a baker, you can create special lighting for the cake. If you’re a caterer ALSO, you can custom build a service area that hides ugly chafing dishes and creates optimal flow through the buffet.

The more roles you are expert in, the farther you can take wedding planning.

Here is why that matters to you……

 L. Hewitt Photography

Once you control every aspect of a wedding, you can tweak each element to create the ultimate result – MOOD. And mood is where the magic happens.

The only reason to have a wedding is to create a bonding experience that is bigger than just eloping. At weddings we bring our entire histories – the people who raised us, influenced us, and made us feel confident in the world. We bring them together to cross a new threshold with us. It’s a celebration that is steeped in meaning, in love, and in hope.

The catering, the cake, the décor, the venue – all of those things exist with one real goal – to help your guests relax, open their hearts, and bond with one another until it’s one of the best days of THEIR lives.

Jacqie Q. Photography

That’s an EPIC wedding. And if you can’t achieve that then you’ve wasted the time, energy, and money to throw the wedding.

To achieve EPIC, you need to know how to make sure that each element of the day builds side-by-side with the others toward this one goal.

Sadly, most weddings don’t quite achieve that. But we hope to change it through THE EPIC WEDDING, and offer the level of advice that allows anyone to reach this goal.

This level of experience, this vision for weddings, in a full-tech format, is what we bring to each class from THE EPIC WEDDING.

 And we cannot wait to share it…with YOU.

PS: Want to find out more about the strange minds behind this new project? Check out our bios, mission, and wedding manifesto at About Our Team.

Get Your "Signature" Drink On

Our semi-annual tasting and planning events provide an opportunity to show off the year's newest recipes. This spring we focused on signature drinks. Our team gathered a week before the event to taste a bevy (pun intended) of homemade lemonades and teas with champagne, vodka, whiskey and a few french liqueurs. 

The outcome (besides a whole lot of giggling) was a collection of signature drinks that were light enough for a hot day, but strong enough to be be converted to a masculine version. 

We have a feeling these taste tests may continue on a regular basis. You know, just to make sure we still like them. 

Here is our take on four classic drinks:

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French 75

Our favorite of all cocktails, this Gin & Juice (ok, there's champagne involved too) concoction can be altered in so many fun ways. We like versions with C2 Cognac & Citron, puréed strawberries or huckleberry juice (below). 

Kir

The 1841 birth of Creme de Cassis made Kir a popular French cafe cocktail. We created several variations on this theme using blackberry juice (de mûre), hard cider, Chambord, peach purée or even blood orange (below). 

Midori Sour

We've used the tart apple version of our lemonade and created our own take on the Midori Sour. 

Lillet Rose

This apéritif made from wine is excellent paired with lavender, lemon juice and champagne. It's soft and earthy for those who don't like super sweet cocktails.