Just Married: Sarah Reeves and Eric Naioti

A beautiful autumn wedding, complete with deep, rich hues to complement the season and overflowing with meaningful personal touches. When it came time to plan their wedding, Sarah and Eric made walkability a priority for their guests, and Glens Falls turned out to be the perfect place for folks to stroll from their hotel to the rehearsal dinner, ceremony, and reception locations. Read on to see and hear about all of the details of their downtown wedding, with gorgeous images by Kimberly Nicole Studio!

THE COUPLE - Sarah Reeves and Eric Naioti

Tell us about yourselves!

We met at college at SUNY Geneseo. We were both Chemistry Majors. Turns out, we had excellent chemistry!

There is almost nothing that we don’t like to do together. We love to ski, cook food from our favorite cooking magazine (177 Milk Street), and paint together. Most of our paintings are landscapes and we have about 3 around our apartment. We also trained and ran the Buffalo marathon together in May 2019.

We have a black cat; her name is Hiccup. She is simultaneously the cutest and most ferocious creature in the world, and we love her very much.

On Glens Falls

I grew up in Queensbury, and Eric and I now live in Binghamton, NY.

A few of our favorite things about coming back to visit:

Exploring the goodies at The Farmers Market
Cooper's Cave ice cream. I'm very fond of a Wild Cherry float after biking downtown on a hot summer day.
Spot coffee and sandwiches at The Exchange Cafe
Skiing at West Mountain
Going for day hikes or snowshoeing in Lake George / the High Peaks
Catching up and spending time with friends
Christmas shopping at The Shirt Factory
Hot cider donuts at the Silo

This list could almost go on forever. The area is a year round playland and I hope someday we can move back!

THE PROPOSAL

We were hiking in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. While we were in the middle of the hike called Falling Waters and I noticed Eric was lagging behind, I doubled back to tease him for being slow and he got down on one knee and proposed! I was completely surprised and honestly shocked that I hadn’t seen it coming. I’m known for being a snoop around the house.

The ring was bought from a vintage jewelry store in Ithaca. Its center stone is a sapphire with a diamond on each side and a white gold band.

THE WEDDING - October 12, 2019

The Planning

My favorite part of the planning process was getting to spend time with my mom and my maids of honor making the decisions for the wedding. It was fun feeling like we were on a mission together to find beautiful flowers at a reasonable price and search craft stores and sales to find decorations that would work in our vision.

There were a lot of challenges in planning. Choosing a venue was difficult as well as hearing other peoples’ (sometimes negative) opinions on the details I was very excited about. It was also challenging to find time to answer all the questions that came last minute.

The Venue

We chose to have our wedding at Morgan & Company, in the heart of Glens Falls. Most of the reception was held outside. Morgan & Co. rented tents to make this happen and they set up a bar on the front lawn and outdoor seating as well as the dance floor which was perfect for busting moves all night long.

The Details

We had a romantic/moody theme with deep reds, forest green, black and gold accents. We wanted the day to feel cozy and warm while matching the changing colors outside.

So many of the details in our wedding were so personal to us and made our wedding day feel intimate and close to our hearts. We wanted the day to not only be “the perfect day” but truly be a celebration of beginning our life together as a family.

The bridesmaid dresses were black and they all wore pearl necklaces and burgundy pashminas. The pearls were a special touch because my grandmother gifted each of her granddaughters a pearl necklace on our 18th birthdays. She had started making them for us when we were each born. My cousins both wore those necklaces.

Another special touch was Eric’s tux. After struggling to find a tux that “fit his personality”, we decided to go rogue and purchase a burgundy tux jacket that Eric could swap for the rented black jacket that matched all the groomsmen.

I wore a vintage dark ivory lace dress from Bride & Gown with long lace sleeves and gorgeous back detail. I absolutely loved the classic look to this dress and the dark ivory went perfectly with our romantic vision.

Our wedding bands are originally my grandparents. My grandfather passed away when I was young, and my grandma graciously handed down the rings to us for our wedding.

We had a beautiful hand painted cake by The GingerSnap Cake Shop. I really liked the idea of having a cake that looked like a painting rather than a sculpture of frosting. It was a two-tier pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting.

Yet another special touch was the blackboard sign that welcomed our guests to the reception. My sister in law is an artist and created a beautiful calligraphy style sign inviting our guests to enjoy the special day.

The most unique element of our wedding was the local set up. One of our goals for the wedding was to have all the event locations in the same area. An issue we had encountered at a few weddings we’ve attended before was transportation for the guests between locations. Our vision was to have everyone be able to walk between all the main spaces. So, we decided to host everything in Glens Falls: the rehearsal dinner was at The Bullpen Tavern, our guests stayed at The Queensbury Hotel, the ceremony was at St. Mary’s and the reception was at the Morgan and Co.

The Moments

My favorite moment of the day was talking to my grandma after the ceremony. She was very excited because during the ceremony the rings were blessed. Only known to her was that the rings had been blessed previously at her wedding in 1966. It was very humbling to see how much that meant to her and made the gift feel even more personal.

The Honeymoon

We went on a honeymoon right after the wedding. We went to France and spent time in Paris and Colmar. We had an amazing time.