My now husband and I eloped at the Grafton Inn. I wrote a super detailed blog entry about it here if you'd like to read it, and I have a lot of pictures: http://dreamsinyellow.com/wordpress-dashboard-confessionals/
My mother found out about the Grafton Inn from doing research on bed and breakfasts to elope at. She got in touch with Angela Hartford, their sales and event manager, and my mom set up a weekend to go and visit. One weekend in January we visited it together, stayed the night, ate the food there, spoke with the event coordinator, and we were sold. In one visit we told her the colors to use for my bouquet: yellow and white, what flavor cake and icing: chocolate cake with vanilla icing, what style of officiant: non-religious, which room we would hold the ceremony in: the greenhouse of the breakfast room, and the date: March 20th, 2013. The Inn was quiet and relaxing, and my favorite part was choosing and eating breakfast there in the morning.
When we came back in March the snow was falling like crazy, but it just made the Inn look even more beautiful. We basically had the entire place to ourselves that weekend, which made things just really special and romantic. The staff were all so kind, and they really seemed like they were just genuinely super happy for us to be getting married. One really great thing was that me, my husband, my mom and her husband don't drink, so in their elopement package they allowed us to substitute the champagne for sparkling apple cider (my favorite!) and not all places will do that, trust me. They brought us out a sparkling cider toast for right after we said "I do", kept it flowing all evening, and had a bottle in our room with our gift basket. Also, because Angela said that cider was less expensive than champagne she put the extra money into my bouquet, which she didn't have to do.
I really can't emphasize enough how this place, and this location will just make you feel like you're in a different, wonderful world. We got our marriage license right across the street at this amazing historic building, and got our license from a lady named Kimberley RECORD, can you believe it? How perfect is that? Also walking down to the general store, which looks like it's right our of the past, and to the covered bridge, it's just a beautiful dream. If you go while it's snowing like we did, you come back in all cold, and you can warm up by one of their two fireplaces in the lobby, and help yourself to the warm complimentary coffee and chocolate chip cookies.
I really enjoyed the food that had there both nights. The first night I had my favorite: mussels, and for my wedding night I had lobster pot pie, which I'd never even heard of before, and I loved all of it. They made our wedding cake as well, and I am a very picky cake person, and I was just blown away. The vanilla icing was the perfect amount of sweet and had that kind of almost crisp taste to it when you first bite into it, which I love, and then cake was chocolate, and was thick, and moist, and just really flavorful. We saved a piece like you're supposed to for one year in the freezer, and ate it on our anniversary, and it was still just as good!
Breakfast both days was just as good as when my mom and I went to visit the first time, really tasty and generous portions. The waitress there figured out that we liked lots of the natural sugar, so she would always bring us over extra packets.
Our room was a suite, so we had a large bathroom with a huge, white claw style tub, a living room, and bedroom with a canopy style bed. Really, really nice and cozy. When we first arrived there was a wooden gift box (branded really nicely with their name, which I kept and it a great souvenir) filed with treats: the sparkling apple cider like I mentioned before, their homemade cheese, a cheese knife, jams, crackers, and cookies.
A great staff, a great place, and a great time. :) read more