Sarah Kresock and Jake Ferreira submitted the winning video about themselves and why they want to get married in the Mad River Valley at the 1824 House.
The Waitsfield inn and wedding venue announced the contest this winter and announced this week Kresock and Ferreira were the winners and will be wed at the inn in December. Kresock and Ferreira are both landscape architects who moved to Waterbury from Boston last June.
AVID ATHLETES
They are avid athletes who have embraced Vermont’s recreational offerings and their video featured clips of them skiing, snowboarding, biking, cross-country skiing and hiking.
Prior to moving here they were regular visitors to Vermont, skiing at Bolton and the day they got engaged they were riding bikes in South Hero in October 2020. As soon as Kresock said yes, it started to rain.
As winners of the contest, they will enjoy an intimate wedding at the 1824 House with 14 friends and family members enjoying a free two-night stay at the inn along with meals, a justice of the peace to perform the ceremony and many other perks including welcome bags from the Mad River Taste Place, DJ services for the reception provided by Premier Entertainment, custom cocktail designed by Mad River Distillers, a wedding cake from Goose Chase Cake Designs, table decorations and dressed by A Schoolhouse Garden and The Linen Shop. Lawson’s Finest Liquids beers will be paired with the reception dinner and Barrie Fisher Photography will capture the event. Fiori Bridal is offering a free wedding dress up to $1,500 for the winner as well.
FELL IN LOVE
Kresock is from Randolph and went to UVM. Ferreira is from Kennebunk, Maine, and attended the University of Southern Maine. The two met in graduate school at the Boston Architectural College where they were pursuing master’s degrees in landscape architecture. They fell in love while studying abroad in South America.
When they hatched their plan to move to Vermont, Ferreira had gotten a job in Burlington and Kresock had as well, but they were both working from home due to the pandemic. Coming from Boston, they expected to end up in Burlington, but instead they landed in Waterbury centrally located near their favorite recreation sites.
They are both Libras and they are both planners and to make their winning video which features short video clips and pictures of them playing outside, enjoying the Mad River Valley, drinking good beer and eating Red Hen bread, they made lists and bullet points to tell their story. Interspersed with the clips, they appear sitting in their apartment and telling the story of how they met and why they want to share the Mad River Valley with their friends and family.
They are very excited about their December 3 wedding and have worked with Sean Kramer and Farrell Leo on increasing the number of guests from14 to 40.
“That was our biggest question. Initially, we didn’t realize it was a micro-wedding but we were able to work with Sean and Farrell, they were flexible on the number of guests and their capacity is 40 people. We’ll cover the difference in cost,” Ferreira said.
‘REALLY AMAZING’
It’s all really amazing. We’d been trying to budget and have the wedding we wanted and a lot of the things in the giveaway package are things we were going to cut, like the dress and photographer,” he said.
“I had no idea wedding dresses were so expensive and hadn’t done any research because it was something we weren’t going to do. We were super surprised that we were going to be able to get a dress,” Kresock said.
They anticipate having some pre-wedding events this summer and fall to have friends and family come hang out in The Valley. Between now and December they’ll also be researching where to have a rehearsal dinner.
“I’m excited about how it happened. We’ve been struggling to pull together a wedding that’s within our budget and this checked all our boxes. This has been great,” Ferreira said.
“I’m really excited about getting to share the uniqueness of Vermont and the Mad River Valley with our friends and family. Getting to share that with Jake’s friends and family from Maine is going to be really awesome. We’re always trying to get them to come here and play in the outdoors. This is going to be a good opportunity to have them all here in one place,” Kresock added.
Check out their wedding-winning video here: https://youtu.be/U5uAhAwmaLI
