Special Publications - Whatcom Weddings - weddings2009

POSTED: Sunday, Feb. 01, 2009

Mother designs family's Squalicum Mountain yard as a setting for daughter's wedding

If you can't find the perfect wedding site, create it yourself.

That's what bride-to-be Larkin Temme, 26, and her mother, Bellingham landscape architect Misty Philbin, decided last year when try-ing to determine where to host the big day. The result was a personalized and beautifully landscaped outdoor wedding.

After becoming engaged to Nick Temme during a family vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in January 2008, Larkin returned home to Bellingham and began the planning process immediately.

"She organized meetings the very next weekend," Misty says. "I was dizzy with how organized she was."

That's when discussion began of where to host the event. Both Larkin and Nick had spent most of their 20s moving around the coun-try. Originally from Bellingham, Larkin had gone to college in California and on the East Coast, where Nick was from. When the couple decided to settle down and start a life together, they decided that their wedding should symbolize "home."

'NO BETTER PLACE'

As a professional landscape architect, Misty took to the idea immediately, but her husband, Cavin Philbin, warned of the over-stressed mother-of-the-bride syndrome.

"Dad said, 'You know, Larkin, your mom is going to go crazy if you have the wedding here," Larkin says. Out of respect for her mom's sanity, and despite her mom's insistence that she wanted to host the event, the couple looked at a few event spaces in Seattle, but soon realized nothing could compare to Misty and Cavin's home on Squalicum Mountain overlooking Lake Whatcom, Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands.

"We wanted to do the wedding outside in August - there was no better place than home," she says.

It was Misty's idea to completely re-landscape her garden for the wedding. As the owner of The Philbin Group, Misty designs about one wedding landscape a year, so she already had an idea of how to proceed. Her country garden had been a work in progress for a few years, but she knew she needed to give herself at least six months to transform it into a wedding-ready space.

She wanted the garden to symbolize the couple's individual and shared identity. Both Larkin and Nick enjoy gardening and wanted the wedding to have a casual but fun feeling.

"We didn't want to have a cookie-cutter wedding," she says. "We wanted wild flowers, lots of color, and wanted it to be pretty casual. We told our guests to wear sundresses and flip flops if they wanted to."

'LIVING GREEN'

Misty's first undertaking was to design the bridal aisle for the procession and the ceremonial circle. To honor Larkin and Misty's Celtic ancestry, she planted the aisle and circle with Irish moss and white star creeper. For the groom's Italian heritage, she lined the aisle and circle with creeping thyme and Italian oregano.

"It was a living green carpet," Misty says.

In the beginning of the planning process, Misty started annuals in her greenhouse, in order to save some money.

She eventually ringed the ceremonial circle with zinnias and Mexican sunflowers, to symbolize the couple's engagement. She also planted bright, colorful dahlias - Larkin's favorite flower - and hydrangeas. There were practical considerations: In order to accom-modate guests, Misty brought in portapotties and built a sink.

"It was a lot of work. I gardened about two hours every day before going to work, and more when I got home," Misty says.

OUTDOOR ROOMS

When the big day finally came, the sun blazed down on the guests as they began to arrive in the afternoon. For shade, Misty had set up imported parasols from India, which symbolized Larkin's time spent there doing service work.

With the help of caterer Alex Chavez, who owns Bellingham-based Lotta Fuda catering company, Misty created three outdoor "rooms" using different levels of the garden. In order to do this, she had to remove several trees on the site, but the result was transformational.

"The most impressive part was the amount of trees that needed to be moved," Chavez recalls. "Everything she did was for the ease of the guests."

The upper portion of the garden served as the ceremonial area, where Misty and Cavin opened the day by surprising the couple with a release of doves over the mountain, while a harpist played Celtic music.

"The day was so sunny and the view was so fantastic," Misty says. "It was very spiritual."

'SO SPECIAL'

After the vows, guests moved to the lower lawn for cocktails and then to the middle level for dinner under a tent. After dinner, a rock band made up of Nick's friends from Boston "rocked the north part of the lake, and everybody danced like crazy," Misty says.

"People were in awe," Larkin says. "Everyone said it was the most beautiful wedding they ever went to."

In hindsight, Misty says landscaping her garden for the wedding was probably not the most cost-effective way to go, mainly because she had such a high level of expectation for herself. She says many people could do it for less. One benefit, she admits, is she now has a beautifully landscaped garden and a former wedding circle that she is thinking about turning into a meditative labyrinth.

Larkin couldn't have asked for a better wedding gift.

"It was so special to have it at home," she says. "In fact, I even had a friend ask if she could get married at Mom's, too."

Heidi Schiller is a Seattle freelance writer and journalism graduate of Western Washington University.