Real Wedding: Jaclyn Schelzi & Chris Powers
September 12, 2015
Ocean House
Watch Hill, Rhode Island
Photograph by Rebecca Arthurs
THE STORY
Before they started dating their junior year at Lynnfield High School, Jaclyn Schelzi thought her classmate Chris Powers had a thing for her identical twin sister, Katelyn. “He was always talking to her,” she says.
“I was just too shy to talk to Jac,” Chris explains. “I always thought she was pretty.” Chris, whom Jaclyn dubbed “kind of a punk” in elementary school, was a popular, funny high school jock with “a big personality.” Yet academics were important to him, and in Mr. Howard’s high school science class, he sat up front, while the twin sisters sat in the back, giggling and chatting. The turning point came when Jaclyn invited Chris to join her and a few friends at a Kiss 108 concert, sparking a romance that culminated in “I do” 12 years later.
But it wasn’t always easy, the couple concedes. After college, Chris moved to Croatia to play professional hockey for two years. Jaclyn was completing her master’s in education at the same time, so she wasn’t able to visit very often. When Chris got an offer to play another two years in Europe, “we huddled,” he says. After much debate, the couple decided it was time for Chris to come home. They settled in Charlestown: He got a job in finance, and Jaclyn taught preschool.
Life was good. Yet friends and family wondered: Would they ever get engaged? Chris spent three long years cramming for his Chartered Financial Analyst exams, and after he passed, it was finally go time. “I had this idea that rather than celebrate me, let’s celebrate us,” he says. They went for drinks at the Inter Continental Boston, where he surprised her by asking her to marry him.
The celebration continued a year later at their Ocean House wedding, where the couple rarely left the dance floor. “We didn’t even stop to cut the cake!” Jaclyn says. Adds Chris, “Jac always has more fun when the people around her are having fun. It’s easy to be with a person like that.”
THE DETAILS
Photograph by Rebecca Arthurs
A few minutes into their first dance to “Tupelo Honey,” by Van Morrison, the couple invited their parents to join them for a “family dance.”
Photograph by Rebecca Arthurs
“The setting is so beautiful—we didn’t need to do much,” Jaclyn says of the Ocean House, which sits on a bluff overlooking the ocean and dates back to 1868.
Photograph by Rebecca Arthurs
The bridesmaids, in champagne-colored J.Crew dresses, carried small bouquets of ranunculus with sprigs of boxwood; the bride carried gardenias.
Photograph by Rebecca Arthurs
In order to dine with the entire bridal party, which included 23 family members and friends, the couple arranged for guests to sit at long tables.
Photograph by Rebecca Arthurs
The tantalizing dessert bar included chocolate-chip-cookie ice cream sandwiches, doughnuts, cake pops, chocolate fondue with fruit, and mini cupcakes.
THE FILE
Band The Sultans
Bride’s Dress Carolina Herrera, L’élite Bridal Boutique
Flowers Stoneblossom
Hair The Salon on Haven
Makeup Katie Bouchard, Beauty Muse Bridal
Lighting Ryan Designs
Planner/Designer True Event
Rentals Rentals Unlimited; Reserve Modern Event Rental
Transportation Rockstar Limo
Videographer SH Videography
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