Blithewold Mansion for Weddings and now a Baby Sprinkle (a.k.a. shower!)

On June 30, 2001 Matt and I were married at a beautiful church in Providence, RI (where my parents were married) and had our reception at the most glorious place in Bristol, RI… Blithewold Mansion.

I’ll never forget driving by Blithewold Mansion when I was a kid, I just remember thinking it was the most gorgeous place I’d ever seen. As I got older, that beauty and wonder never left me… and when Matt and I got engaged, I immediately called them to see if they had any openings in June 2001 for a wedding reception. It was my DREAM place to have a wedding reception and it was picture-perfect for us… even with it was 105 degrees that day!

The day was filled with magic and beauty and memories… and Blithewold became a piece of our love story from that day on.

Here we were on June 30th, 2001…

And so… after having 4 boys in a row, when my husband found out we were expecting a baby girl, he said to me, “I want to have a baby shower for you for her.” I was beyond touched by the gesture. It meant the world to me that he wanted to do this for his 2 girls. 🙂 About 2 weeks ago we were sitting in our kitchen and I asked him, “So how is the planning coming?” He smile and said, “I want it to be a surprise for you.”

Well… there are 3 things I know for sure:
1) My husband can’t keep secrets from me.
2) I will ask and ask and ask and ask until he breaks down and gives me details
3) I didn’t want it to be a surprise, not this time around.

So… I got him to tell me where he wanted to have it. He said that when he thought of all the special places he could have it, the one place that kept popping up was Blithewold. It holds a ton of meaning to us, and he thought it was the perfect and “elegant” affair for a baby shower for a little girl!

Yesterday we took the boys to tour the grounds and see the space 12 years later with the “men” in our life. It felt like we were stepping back into time, but this time around we had 4 kids and one on the way! I never dreamed in a million years that 12 years later we would be coming back with our brood of boys and little lady… it was perfection to be there, it felt right.

We re-created some shots…

I can’t wait to share this day with my family and friends.