EGM Weddings

Kristen Getler & Nick Laskovski: Love Is the Answer

By Maria Buteux Reade / Photography By Brent Harrewyn | July 09, 2018

Kristen Getler and Nick Laskovski's wedding in Roxbury, Vermont.

Kristen Getler is a food and farm educator; Nick Laskovski consults for wind energy and runs a shiitake farm. They met at a mushroom cultivation workshop at Nick’s place, Dana Forest Farm in Waitsfield. Nick was teaching and Kristen showed up in her green forestry shirt and Carhartts, dragging 10 high school kids up the hill. Ahh, the magic of mushrooms. That mystical luck has blessed their partnership ever since.

“There was so much serendipity involved in our wedding,” Kristen recalls. “It was like, roll the dice and let’s see what comes up! Our wedding had about six different iterations before we landed on Teela-Wooket at Windridge. We called them on a whim in April, and August 19 was the one weekend they had free to host a wedding. When we toured the camp, the ground was snow and mud, the cabins hadn’t been readied for summer, and nothing was set up so it took some imagination to envision our August wedding. But we’re pretty campy, rustic people, and the people who run the place are incredibly accommodating. Every answer was just plain “Yes.” That clinched the deal.”

Having the space to spread out at Teela-Wooket allowed Kristen and Nick to create their ideal wedding-scape. 200 acres to call their own for a long weekend, with kids—and adults—free to roam. That summer camp feel infused the entire wedding, from DIY projects to playing in nature to late night fire circles and bunking down in rustic cabins and cottages. A wedding ceremony in a wooded amphitheater followed by a pig roast and giant potluck. And dancing till all hours under a star-studded August sky.

More than 100 guests stayed in the bunk-style cabins and somewhat fancier cottages. They started descending on Wednesday and some stayed through Monday. Of the 220 guests, 50 were kids, so the camp’s rec hall became Kid Zone, and Kristen hired a couple of responsible local teens to look after the children. They jumped on their bikes, hit the woods or the trails, played basketball or tennis, swam in the pool. “In the end, everything worked out the way it was meant to happen,” Kristen says. “And stories are still emerging.”

An informal wedding council evolved with some core folks who showed up on Wednesday and muscled it out through Monday. Flower Mavens, Dining Room Czar, Sage Spreadsheet Counselor, Food Advisor, Campfire MC’s, Task Master and, of course, the trio of Moms and the Sisterhood. “These folks were with us at every turn and kept us sane,” Kristen marvels. “There’s no way we could have put this together without them.”

Get into the Spirit

Kristen and Nick embodied the summer camp ethos. Wednesday afternoon, Nick brought friends trail biking in Warren and Northfield and then hit the pond at his Waitsfield farm. The next day, he led a cohort on tours of Bent Hill Brewery and Good Measure Brewing. (“We had to sample a bunch so we could vote on what to serve for the weekend—tough job.”) Meanwhile, Kristen and her Flower Mavens drove a van to collect buckets of freshly picked flowers from Flower Power Farm in Ferrisburgh. (“We stopped along the way and ran into a field to pick wildflowers. I think that was the moment I finally began to relax and have fun.”) And while some guests headed for the links at the Northfield Country Club on Friday morning, about 30 women gathered to make the bouquets that would grace the dining hall and tables for the weekend. Total creative license, no formula. “Nick’s aunt Mimi was out foraging in the forest for cool things to add to these giant swags and buckets of flowers she set up around the dining room.”

After the rehearsal late Friday afternoon, 50 family members enjoyed a welcome dinner orchestrated by the Teela-Wooket chef. As darkness descended, the rapidly expanding crowd gathered around the campfire to “roast and toast” Nick and Kristen, after which they crowd-surfed Kristen around the circle into Nick’s arms, a community blessing of the union. Soule Monde, an avant funk duo with two members of the Trey Anastasio Band, took the stage after that. “Our friends from the city were like, ‘Who are these guys?’” Kristen recalls. “Welcome to the magic of Vermont where people don’t have anything to do but get really good at what they do!” Nick laughs, “I think we drank all the wedding beer that night. Fortunately Mike at the Craft Beer Armory in Northfield hooked us up on Saturday morning.”

DIY

“Nick and I did serious wedding workshop under the floodlight in the backyard. We made 250 napkins from flour sack dish towels and hand stamped each one with a custom-made stamp from Etsy. Guests took them home and discovered the teal paint was glow-in-the-dark. Bam!! Ditto for the beer cozies. We harvested some young birch trees from Nick’s farm then skinned the bark and wrapped it around the Mason jars and milk bottles for the table flowers. A friend cut the trees into 30 discs, which we used on the tables. Our wedding rings were handcrafted by our dear friend Sam Hagen, who lives in Warren. Nick’s band is black walnut, mine is cherry, both with inlays of a quartz stone we mined from Cox Brook up the road from our home here in Northfield Falls.”

“It’s hard to find vendors who can roll with a DIY approach, but every time, we struck gold,” Nick says. “We found people we synced with and who were happy to go on this wild ride with us. Norbert Auger, the director at Teela-Wooket, Lisa Rubin of the Farmhouse Catering Company, Anne Flack-Matthews of Flower Power Farm, the good folks at the Falls General Store. These people were incredible. We ended up bartering some of my shiitake logs as part of the photographer’s payment!”

Circles of Love

On Saturday afternoon, everyone converged upon the outdoor amphitheater. The Flower Maven had made a beautiful flower mandala in what was dubbed the Circle of Love. A suite of flower girls, including Kristen and Nick’s two year- old daughter, Ophelia, floated down the aisle with baskets of wildflowers and sprinkled petals. Kristen reflects, “It was really powerful to stand in the Circle of Love and be surrounded by all the people who made it possible for the two of us to be there together.”

Nick’s step-brother Matt Grady officiated the ceremony, which lasted a bit more than an hour. Several family members did the readings, and Nick and Kristen wrote their own vows, finishing them on Saturday morning. “Two of my best friends from childhood, Danny and Andrew, are total rock and rollers,” says Kristen. “For our processional, they played the instrumental part of “Even the Darkness Has Arms” by the Barr Brothers. Ethereal fairy tale music. At the end, we walked out to Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” Everyone was like, let’s get this party started!”

From the start, Kristen and Nick wanted a massive potluck centered on a Hadley Gaylord pig roast. “Hadley is like an uncle to me,” Nick says. “He also provided the beef for the sliders and the bacon for Sunday brunch. Having him as a guest at our wedding and feeding our people was really meaningful to us.”

Guests were welcome to contribute a dish to the potluck as their wedding gift. Side dishes (salads, mac ’n cheese, baked beans, corn bread) were suggested but culinary creativity was encouraged. Kristen and Lisa Rubin lined up two places, Falls General Store in Northfield Falls and Hunger Mountain Co-op in Montpelier, where guests who had traveled could order the designated dishes. “That was our way of infusing some investment in our local economy, places we really value, like Falls General Store and the local breweries.”

The Farmhouse Catering supplied Vermont cheeses served with local breads, crackers and fig maple spread; veggie fritters with buttermilk dipping sauce; caprese bites; Vermont salami and chorizo; sliders with Gaylord Farm beef. Over the weekend, people sipped from kegs of Good Measure and Bent Hill, von Trapp and Lost Nation pilsners, and Fiddlehead IPA. No bar? No problem! Like any good home brewer, Nick bought a triple tap setup and ran CO2 lines.

For dessert, guests enjoyed an ice cream bar with tubs from Gifford's of Maine. Kristen and Nick harvested 60 pounds of strawberries and 50 pounds of blueberries earlier in the summer which Lisa made into sauces and purees for the ice cream. Platters of chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies appeared along with coffee roasted by Nick’s step-brothers, who run Stagecoach Coffee in Cooperstown, New York.

And then, to put the proverbial icing on the nonexistent wedding cake, Kat Wright and the Indomitable Soul Band arrived and kicked the party into even higher gear. Brent Harrewyn, the photographer, shares his assessment. “I’ve shot more than a hundred weddings and can see what works and what doesn’t. Kristen and Nick went all out on food, drink and entertainment and showcased some of Vermont’s best. If you nail those three things, you’ll have a great party. They created a three-day event with a casual vibe where people had quality time to connect. No rush, no worries.”

Sunday involved nothing more strenuous than brunch, swimming and doing the rehash. “Come Monday, I couldn’t wait to get back to being a mama to Ophelia.” Nick agrees. “Yeah, it was a sweet party and we’re still coming down from it. But we’re so stoked to put the spreadsheets away and just be in the afterglow. Grow food, do some hiking, and hang out with each other. And somehow, we still have wine left over that didn’t get finished.”