Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 18 : Fall 2013 | Page 15

As with the rest of the wedding, the
decorations were rustic. Pinterest™, an online
bulletin board, inspired many of Gabrielle’s ideas.
Looking at those pins, I realized that most of the
items could be recreated easily with things we
already had on our land: logs, wood slabs, wooden
circles. City girls were paying upwards of $105 for
wooden signs and $50 for a cake stand made of
three pieces of a tree; I even saw a rustic backdrop
for $145. They were buying birch bark napkin
rings, wildflowers, and burlap table runners and
paying thousands of dollars to rent tents, tables and
chairs, and even horses for photo opportunities.
Here, in The County, we had or could easily find
all of these goods. This is where even more County
family pitched in to help us.

When our neighbor, Bob, saw my husband
and me hauling fallen trees from the woods behind
our house, he came over with his chainsaw and cut
the trees into small pieces for table decor. When
he learned we needed logs to hold mason jars of
flowers, he cut up some of his recently delivered
firewood logs. When we needed burlap for table
runners, I went to Marden’s bought the burlap, cut
them to size and took them to our local seamstress,
Pat, to surge them. Voila! We had the same table
runners people were charging upwards of $20 for
online.

Speaking of Pat, Gabrielle trusted no one but
Pat Troike, of Pat’s Sewing Room in Fort Fairfield,
to alter her gown. Coming up for her first fitting
was eas 䰁