Melanie Watman and Benjamin Engle | Photo by Jia Yao, Frame Your Love Photography
Filled with family heirlooms and cherished traditions, a postponed wedding was worth the wait, as this romantic first look makes clear.
Melanie Watman and Benjamin Engle briefly considered a civil ceremony when faced with postponing their wedding in 2020, but they couldn’t bear the idea of bypassing the cherished elements of a traditional Jewish ceremony. Instead, they waited until June of 2021 to trade vows under a chuppah, hand-embroidered by the groom’s late grandmother and supported by a structure built by his grandfather, at Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown. According to the bride, it was worth the wait.
“After postponing our wedding, due to the pandemic, like many other couples in 2020, there was so much uncertainty surrounding when our wedding would be, what it would feel like, and how we could celebrate our 12-year relationship safely with family,” Watman offers. “While we’ve spent many, many hours together over those 12 years, our ‘first look’ was one of our favorite moments of the day. It was then we knew that our wedding was really going to happen, and we were able to have a quiet moment together, to soak it in, after all the obstacles of 2020.”
Now, the couple are excited to continue their lives together. “We always think about being the home our families will come to for big holiday get-togethers,” the bride adds. “We are excited to continue being a team, making decisions together, and sharing a family.”
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