Lisa and Mike get married at Thornewood Castle

First off I have to apologize for how long it has taken me to get this post online.  Lisa and Mike left town right after the wedding for a month-long trip to Italy, and I wanted to get some info from them before doing my blog post of the wedding.  I really should have just done the post and then changed it as needed once I had the info.

Thornewood History

First I’d like to say a little bit about their venue.  Thornewood Castle is simply one of the coolest locations imaginable for a wedding!  Here is some info that I copied from Legends of America.  For the full story just click on the link.

“This magnificent three story manor home was built by Chester Thorne, one of the founders of the Port of Tacoma. Taking almost four years to complete, the 27,000 square foot manor was finally ready in 1911. Only the very best went into the building of the manor, including 400 year old bricks from an original English castle.

Thorne was fascinated with the grandeur of old English estates and the wealthy man was determined to reinvent his own castle and dream house. Built to last through the centuries, Thornewood Castle has solid three-foot-thick foundations, 18 inch floors of concrete and cinder, 10 inch walls, and hand hewn woodwork from ancient English oak, held together by solid wood dowels. Three ships had to be commissioned to transport the original bricks, wood and windows around Cape Horn to the Pacific Northwest.”

The original estate was 100 acres, with a formal garden that encompassed 37 acres!  Most of the estate was sold over the years, and is now a total of just over 4 acres, with the garden about 1/2 acre in size. Thornewood Castle served as the site for the filming of Stephen King’s mini-series “Rose Red” in 2002.

OK, enough about Thornewood, you now have a better idea of what an amazing venue this is and the photos below will demonstrate that.

Pre-ceremony preparations

On the day of the wedding I arrived at Thornewood at about 2PM.  The ceremony was scheduled to begin at ~4PM, and we wanted to have time to take photos around the estate before the guests arrived.  But as is often the case with weddings, it took a bit longer than planned for Lisa to get ready for photos.  Mike and I worked together on some photos while we were waiting, and I also got lots of photos of the grounds as things were being set up.

When Lisa was ready for photos it was well worth the wait.  She looked incredible in her black lace wedding dress, one of the more amazing wedding dresses I have ever seen.  I get that black is not a “usual” choice of color for a wedding dress but after seeing Lisa I think you’ll agree that more brides should think further about their color choice.

We made our way to the Formal Garden to begin our photo session.  Joining us were the wedding party, which consisted of Mike’s sisters Rebecca and Ava and his brother Adrian, as well as Lisa’s brother Jeff.  Nice to be able to supply an entire wedding party using only siblings!  Also accompanying us were Lisa’s dad Winston and Mike’s dad Rob, step-mom Shel and mom Margie.  Once we finished with photos of the wedding party and family everyone made their way back to the manor, where Lisa got out of sight as the guests arrived.

The Wedding Ceremony

As always seems to be the case at a wedding, time was just flying by and it was now time for the guests to take their seats in the Garden, where the ceremony would take place.  It was a perfect August day, sunny and warm but not hot.  Once all of the guests had made their way across the lawn to their seats the wedding party made their entrance.  Now the wedding party made their way to the altar area, with the men walking in on one side of the garden and the women on the other.  The wedding party met at the altar, where officiant Shari Lynn conducted the ceremony.  It was a very nice ceremony in a beautiful location, pretty hard to do better than that.  Plenty of photos of the ceremony to be seen below!

The Reception

At the conclusion of the ceremony everyone made their way back to the manor for the reception.  I love the chairs that are supplied for the bride and groom for receptions at Thornewood, they look like thrones!  The reception began with a happy hour, and everyone had a chance to grab a drink and some tasty appetizers.  As a nice twist to the usual beverages one might find at a wedding, Lisa and Mike also had several types of mead available for their guests.

After the newlyweds had a chance to mingle for awhile with their family and friends I dragged them away so we could get more photos in some spots we had not had time to explore before the ceremony.  The grounds at Thornewood offer a lot of photo possibilities, and I usually find that I run out of time before I am able to take a couple everywhere.

Then it was back to the party and time for dinner!  The food was catered by Upper Crust Catering Company, and was excellent.  After dinner and more mingling time, Lisa and Mike were ready for the cake cutting.  the cake was made by Honey Crumb Cake Studio and was really a work of art, as well as being a very tasty cake!  Be sure to see the cake in the photos below.

As the party began to wind down it was getting close to sunset, so I took Mike and Lisa down to the manor’s dock on American Lake for some photos of the setting sun over the lake.

It was an amazing day, and everyone there seemed to greatly enjoy themselves.  I hope that you’ll now check out the photos, there are quite a few so hopefully you’ll get a good feel for the day.