Zari Sadri, director of marketing for luxury alpine apparel brand Alps & Meters, and Dillon Wright, a senior marketplace manager at skincare brand Ursa Major, met when they were 15 years old. His cousin, Colleen, was her best friend in high school, and they would all spend summer weekends at his family’s home on the Cape. “In high school, Dillon was really shy, and I was really the opposite,” Zari says. “I think I terrified him into liking me, honestly.”
The two reconnected in college, and after seven years together, he proposed on their anniversary in Mexico City. One night after dinner, they decided to take a walk in the park in Condesa. “I was busy educating Dill on the faux bois, concrete technique of the park benches and sharing how Martha Stewart collects faux bois in her Maine home and gardens, while he was trying to propose,” Zari explains. “I was oblivious, and SO surprised.”
A few months before he proposed, Zari recommend The Notch House in Vermont to Dillon’s mother as a possible family, summer holiday getaway on Lake Willoughby. She booked it, and it also happened to be the perfect setting for their intimate wedding, which they planned in fewer than six months.
Inspired by Vermont’s hazy, golden summers, where goldenrod fills every field, and the pink beach roses of Cape Cod, Stitchdown Farm nailed the palette and texture of their wedding florals. Since Zari grew up working alongside her hotelier and sommelier father, she knew her way around a wedding and planned her own. “I sourced the rentals, decor, and tablecloths and hand-dyed the napkins with avocado skins two days before the wedding.”
Zari was adamant that she wanted to wear something non-traditional and wanted people to dress for the occasion, even though a backyard wedding had the room for people to dress more casually. “It’s not a party without a party dress,” she says.
She chose a beautiful Lela Rose gown from a Ceremony Boston sample sale and worked with a seamstress to make it fit to perfection. To complete her look, she added a pearl veil and Loeffler Randall shoes.
Dillon is a stylish man and was adamant that he wanted to look like “a Bond villain on Lake Como.” He looked the part in a Ralph Lauren Purple Label linen suit with a silk, knit tie, suede tassel loafers from Grenson, and a Drake’s pocket square gifted to him by his future-father-in-law.
Their one attendant, their golden retriever, Charlotte, wore a floral collar from Rita at Stitchdown Farm. “As soon as I picked it up, Charlotte walked over to me, sat, and stretched out her neck, as if she knew the whole time that it was for her,” Dillon says. “That was the first of many times I cried that day.”
Once it was time, the bride’s parents walked down the aisle—her father was the officiant. “The second I saw Dillon and Charlotte waiting for me, the crying started, and it basically didn’t stop,” Zari says. “We alternately sobbed and laughed the entire ceremony.”
After being announced as a married couple, the reception started and felt like a big dinner party with all of their guests. The Hindquarter cooked everything on live fire and planchas, and it was entertaining to watch them cook during cocktail hour. “We chose a very small, simple, but delicious menu and served dinner family-style, set to my favorite dinner-hour music, mostly made up of Nancy Meyers movie soundtracks,” Zari says. “Dillon and I both sabered bottles of bubbly successfully, but my father, the sommelier, didn’t fare too well.”
During dinner, heartfelt group speeches were made—including one from Zari’s best friend, Alex, who decided to “Ice” the couple with two bottles of Smirnoff Ice. The meal rounded out with a beautiful cake by Dillon’s sister, Jess. It’s also worth noting that Dillon’s other sister, Sarah, designed the menus and Zari’s father selected the wines, so the whole sit down affair was a community effort.
The newlyweds had a romantic moment when they danced to Nat King Cole’s “The Very Thought of You.” Rain cut-off the rest of the dance party around 10 p.m. “Some folks moved inside, but the dinner area under the lights was quickly turned into an impromptu drinking game arena,” the bride says. “We jumped in the lake in the rain and finished the evening drinking Lambrusco from the bottle on the porch with our bartenders. It was perfect.”
