Michelle Rago, Ltd.—Blog

The Straight Wharf is the quintessential Nantucket restaurant for a rehearsal dinner or small wedding reception. Imagine calling “central casting” and asking for the perfect New England dining spot with great food and great service. Operator “12″ would politely respond- “Good news Michelle-there is this place called the Straight Wharf Restaurant.”

Below is the view from the back porch of the restaurant where guests can watch the boats from the harbor or, if your number of guests is small enough it would be a fanatasic spot for cocktails.

In classic Michelle Rago style, we styled a grouping of nautical elements for the cocktail tables including vintage spy glasses that guests could attempt to catch a glimpse of Moby Dick with.

New chef/owners, Amanda Lydon, Gabriel Frasca, Scott Fraley and their team jumped through hoops to accommodate. We moved furniture around, rigged candles from the ceiling, put shuffles in the powder rooms with whale songs and added a trio for dinner. It was the perfect night for the couple, their families and friends. Make sure you try Straight Wharf’s “clambake,” which includes corn pudding, little-necks, and lobster.

For the seating cards we simply scanned the existing business card from the restaurant and added table numbers and guest’s names.

This is a great shot of the dining-room. My team hung the candles from the rafters and…..that was it. All the chairs and tables belong to the restaurant and this is their standard table setting. Scott even graciously supplies the table numbers not to mention he pours a mean glass of red wine.

The colors for the papery and guest gifts throughout the wedding were hot pink and navy. We ordered L.L. Bean bags and sent them to be embroidered with this cute whale tail design. We filled them with a baseball cap with a different whale image, Nantucket chips, whoppie pies from the Nantucket Bakery, Aunt Leah’s fudge and a little boat building kit. I love coming up with cute catch phrases to be used throughout the wedding as they really help to set the tone and unify the guests.

We also had the gift bag emblem, which we pulled from the invitation, printed on the cocktail napkins not to mention the father of the bride loves whales. I will doing a piece just on the papery from this wedding as it one of my favorites!!

Planning Team Rago from left to right-Shana, Casey, Michelle, Kelly and Shira…(missing Danielle & Michael who are busily overseeing the tent set-up for the wedding reception.)