Courtney and Jonathan found us while digging through our site for venue ideas. Jonathan’s inquiry put it this way: “When we looked through the first set of photos you took of a wedding, I felt I got to know the venue. Then, we looked at those again and I felt I understood the couple.” That’s about the best description of the job we’ve ever been handed.
The photos below run from the ceremony beside the Sugar River through the reception under the tent and out onto the patio, where the dancing didn’t stop until the string lights were the only light left.
Paoli Mill
Paoli Mill has been on our short list of favorite Wisconsin venues for years, and it earns the spot. The town sits on the Sugar River a short drive south of Madison, and the mill dates to 1849, a sawmill first, then a three-story stone flour mill added in the 1860s. It’s on the National Register. The whole complex has the same small, unshowy charm as Viroqua, if Viroqua had a river running straight through the middle of it.
Courtney and Jonathan married right beside the water, black walnut trees hanging low over the ceremony space. Afterward everyone moved to a tent a short walk away, where flowers hung upside down from the ceiling and the table numbers sat against a moss backdrop. Texture and green everywhere, and none of it fussy.
No wedding party, and a first-time officiant
Courtney and Jonathan didn’t have a wedding party, and they were upfront about why. After years of moving for work and building close communities in a lot of different places, they didn’t want to single out a small group over everyone else who mattered to them. So there was no line of bridesmaids and groomsmen. There was Lizzie.
Lizzie was their first friend as a couple, made during two months working together in Istanbul, and she officiated. It was her first wedding of any kind, including as a guest. She pulled it off with the kind of grace people who’ve done a hundred of these often don’t manage.
Jonathan came from theatre directing and Courtney from scenic design, both of them working in nonprofits by then, and between the two of them they’d built a wide circle of people. Instead of narrowing it down for the day, they brought all of it to one riverbank. A hundred and sixty guests, nobody elevated above anyone else.
A few things that happened
During cocktail hour, one of the guests walked down to the river with a fishing pole in one hand and his two-year-old in the other arm, to see what he could catch. We got a few frames of it. They’re some of our favorites from the whole day.
Courtney’s father had died that Christmas, only months before the wedding. The family brought his car, a red Ford he’d restored himself, and parked it next to the tent for the day. It sat there as its own kind of guest.
Dinner and dancing moved out to the patio, right where the creek runs out, string lights overhead. The whole layout felt more like a really good backyard party than a formal reception. This crowd danced hard, long past dark, and didn’t need much encouragement to keep going.
Somewhere in the middle of the dancing, instead of a rice or bubbles send-off, they set off colored smoke. It filled the patio in a way that’s hard to describe and easy to photograph.
Jonathan had told us one of his favorite things is Courtney dancing, especially somewhere that doesn’t call for it and usually with no music playing. This time there was music, and she had plenty of company.
Thanks, Courtney and Jonathan. We’re glad the venue hunt led you to us.
This wedding is from a while back, shot on cameras and finished in editing software we’ve since replaced, so the color and grain won’t match our newer galleries exactly. The way we spent the day, standing back and letting it happen, is the same.
Bakers, growers, and chefs: Paoli Bread and Brat House, Sherri and Justin
Brewer: The Hop Garden, Rich
Florals: Sunborn Gardens, Lisa
