WELCOME

To our friends and family:

We are so very excited to welcome you all to Belfast for our wedding on the weekend of August 13, 2011. Belfast is a bit of a hike from, well everywhere really, and we are incredibly grateful for your willingness to come so far to be with us. In addition to being the place where Anne's mom made her home and where her stepfather remains something of a local kingmaker, Belfast is a truly fantastic small town hugging the edge of the Penobscot Bay, offering a wealth of gorgeous venues for activities ranging from hiking, sailing, and biking, all the way to eating, loafing, and napping. We hope this site makes it a bit easier to navigate your options for joining us, but if there is anything at all we can do to make planning easier, please don't hesitate to ask. We have a variety of fun events planned for the weekend, beginning on Thursday night (AA baseball in Portland!) and wrapping up on Sunday morning. And of course, we'll be getting married somewhere in there (Saturday, August 13). We hope you'll be able to be there, and in the meantime, thanks for visiting the site!

Yours,
Anne and Ben

ANNE AND BEN'S MUST-DOs IN BELFAST, MAINE:
--stop in at Chase's Daily for the most divine all-local, meatless cuisine on the planet. Pick up a bouquet of wildflowers, a bag of purple and orange carrots, a batch of fresh chard, all grown on Chase's farm out in Freedom, Me., or sample some of his daughter Phoebe's fabulous pastries.

--take a stroll over to the Belfast co-op for the best people-watching on the mid-coast. Nowhere represents the slice of Belfast to which Anne's mother and step-father belong better than the co-op, so it's a place we greatly enjoy.  Wonderful salads and sandwiches as well.

--grab a slice of pizza at Alexia's on the corner of High and Main streets, and slide into a booth to eavesdrop on what the 18 and under crowd is up to this weekend.

--visit the Grove Cemetery, either with the Saturday morning tour or on your own. It's one of our favorites, and this from a couple who had two of their three first dates in cemeteries.  Keep a list of your favorite names as you wander among the tall trees and old headstones--see if you can find the stone of the woman married to one Frederick Poor, a woman with, evidently, an excellent sense of humor. Belfast was once a major shipping port, a fact reflected in the stones of its young men, many of whom were ship captains and died all over the world. It's an interesting place.

--all of these are in addition to the obvious: spend some time down by the harbor, walk out to the boathouse, take in some of the domestic architecture, venture across the footbridge for a great view of the town, especially at dusk. Swing by our wedding, 4 o'clock on Saturday, at the First Church.