Chelsea & Aaron's Fake Wedding: How a Couple Staged Their Dream Day (and Why You Might Want To)
By Gary Pope
Let me answer the obvious question first: yes, a fake wedding ceremony in Connecticut is a real thing people do, and no, it is not as weird as it sounds. Chelsea & Aaron got fully dressed up on a gorgeous October day in 2020, drove out to an open field by a lake, and had a whole wedding for exactly two people. No guests. No officiant. No timeline anybody had to keep. Just the two of them, a bouquet, and a lot of golden light.
And honestly? The photos are some of my favorites.
So what is a fake wedding, exactly?
A fake wedding is what it sounds like. You put on the dress, he puts on the suit, and you have the day, or a slice of it, without the legal ceremony, the guest list, or the reception. Some couples do it as a dress rehearsal. Some do it because the real wedding got postponed and they refused to let the year go by without feeling like a bride and groom at least once. Some just want a few hours that belong only to them, before the chaos of a hundred guests and a schedule.
Chelsea & Aaron's fake wedding ceremony fell in October 2020, which if you were paying attention back then, was a year that ate a lot of real weddings alive. I won't put words in their mouths about their reasons, but I'll say this: a lot of couples that year found a way to celebrate on their own terms, and this is one of the prettiest versions of that I've seen.
Why you might actually want to do this
I'm not going to pretend a fake wedding is for everyone. But here's the honest case for it.
- It's just the two of you. No wedding party, no in-laws, nobody asking where the seating chart is. Chelsea & Aaron didn't have a single other person in frame all day, and you can feel it in the pictures. They're relaxed in a way people almost never are on the actual day.
- You can change your mind about everything. Chelsea wore two completely different gowns during their session. One was an ivory beaded gown with a deep neckline and delicate pearl strands across the shoulder. The other was a white lace halter style with beaded trim. If you have ever agonized over picking one dress, a fake wedding lets you have both.
- No clock. The light did whatever it wanted. We shot through golden hour, midday, and into the afternoon, moving from the field down to the rocky shoreline. On a real wedding day you get maybe twenty minutes for couple portraits if you're lucky. Here, the whole day was the portrait.
- It takes the pressure off the real one. If you do end up having a big ceremony later, you've already had your quiet, personal moment. The public day can just be the party.
How they pulled it off
The logistics of a fake wedding are refreshingly simple, because you're cutting out most of the things that make weddings complicated. Here's the shape of what a day like Chelsea & Aaron's takes.
- Pick a location that does the heavy lifting. Theirs was a sprawling grassy meadow bordering a calm lake, with fall foliage in gold and rust across the far shore and big boulders down by the water. You don't need a venue with a reception hall and a caterer. You need a spot that looks incredible and lets you actually be there. If you want a real venue with that New England fall feeling, places like The Barn At Allen Hill Farm in Brooklyn, CT sit on hundreds of acres along the Quinebaug River with a scenic boulder called The Big Rock that makes a stunning backdrop. But an open field and a lake worked beautifully here.
- Keep the outfits flexible. Aaron wore a dark suit with a crisp white shirt, and swapped his tie a few times through the day (and loosened the collar entirely for the beach shots). Chelsea's two gowns and her layered pearls gave us a totally different mood between sets. Multiple looks are one of the great perks when there's no ceremony to sit through.
- Bring flowers. Their bouquet was a hand-tied round of coral, red, and yellow roses with green eucalyptus, and it tied every single shot together. Flowers are one of the few real "wedding" details you'll want, because they read instantly and they photograph like a dream.
- Then just be together. That's the whole plan. Chelsea & Aaron ran through the field laughing with her dress and hair in motion, they leaned in nose to nose against a clear blue sky, and they wandered down to the rocky beach as the water turned sunset colors. Nobody had to announce anything. That's the magic of it.
What a fake wedding taught me
I've shot the full spectrum. I've done a Halloween wedding where the groom showed up as a full Wolfman in prosthetics and fangs and the waitstaff were painted as skeletons. I've heard about Star Wars weddings with Darth Vader officiating and R2-D2 as the ring bearer. Big, loud, unforgettable stuff, and I love all of it.
But a day like Chelsea & Aaron's is the quiet counterpoint, and it reminds me of the thing I tell every couple: the best wedding is the one that authentically reflects who you are. Sometimes that's a hundred guests and a lightsaber exit. Sometimes it's two people, a field, and a bouquet, with nobody else invited. Both are completely valid. There is no single right way to do this.
If you're thinking about it
A couple of honest notes before you book anything.
- Decide what "fake" means to you. Some couples treat it as a private ceremony with real vows they say out loud to each other. Some treat it purely as a chance to dress up and have gorgeous photos. Either is great, just know which one you want so the day feels right.
- Be picky about the light and the location, not the guest list. Since it's just the two of you, the setting is doing most of the work. Chelsea & Aaron's fall lake did a lot for them.
- You can always add the real thing later. A fake wedding doesn't cancel out a real one. If anything, it takes the pressure off the big day so you can just enjoy the party.
The takeaway from Chelsea & Aaron is simple. A wedding doesn't have to be big to feel real. It just has to be yours.
If a private, no-pressure day like this sounds like exactly what you two want, or if you're a geeky couple planning the whole loud, fandom-filled production, I'd genuinely love to hear about it. Come say hi to Love Long and Prosper and tell me what you're dreaming up. No sales pitch, I promise. I just like this stuff.