Oyster Haven: Fit for a Bride

My husband and I have been working very hard to get our new house on Lake Champlain, a soon-to-be VRBO rental property we've decided to call "Oyster Haven," ready for a spring opening.

This house is a charming circa 1830's Colonial with a 1940's addition, and it features many marvelous updates in the kitchen and bathrooms.  It is truly a mixture of vintage charm and modern convenience, and we think we hit the jackpot when we found it.  We weren't even really looking, and then this beautiful former farmhouse, situated on the most glorious and expansive piece of lakefront property, presented itself as the opportunity of a lifetime.  Suddenly, we were in the real estate biz.

One of the big pluses about this house is that it is located right next door to a large conference center, which serves as a popular venue for big events like weddings.  (In fact, one of our nieces had her reception there several years ago.)  We think that makes our house's location even more enticing; because although there are rooms at the conference center for putting up brides and their families and friends, there might be large weddings where extra space is needed for out-of-town guests.  In those sorts of cases, Oyster Haven would make the perfect place to handle any spillover.

With this in mind, we decided to showcase areas of the house that would make lovely backdrops for wedding photos.  The upstairs hallway is one of those areas.

I even made over the hall closet, stripping away dirty, decades-old plaid wallpaper from the interior and painting it, and then furnishing it with a pretty basket and matching hangers.

I also found the perfect piece of framed vintage artwork to accent this space, bought at a downtown secondhand shop for $10.

A few nights ago, one of my nieces was in town visiting her mom, who happens to be my husband's older sister, and she agreed to pose in this upstairs hall, wearing my mother-in-law's wedding gown (the same gown she wore when she got married five years ago).  My baby sister, who is an awesome photographer, agreed to shoot some pictures of her.  The results...well, my friends, I believe they speak for themselves. 

Wow.  What a great place for bridal photos, am I right?  (And it doesn't hurt that this particular model is drop-dead gorgeous!)

There are other areas in the house that work well for photo shoots, too.  The living room, for instance.  With all those big windows facing the lake.

These photos were taken at night; but if taken during the daylight hours, a bride could pose in front of the windows, with the view of the lake in all its splendor behind her.  Instead, my beautiful niece is posed like she would be for a Christmas wedding (my favorite kind--my anniversary is December 27!).  The tree will go up in that corner ever year, ready to become a backdrop for any winter bride.

Many thanks to my sister and my niece, for making this happen.  (And thank you to my niece's little guy, who waited patiently with his Nana until his mommy finished her modeling gig!)  Hopefully, these pictures will help to "sell" our house to prospective renters!