MEGAN AND BOW Rinder-Goddard
were married on July 8 at Button Bay State Park.
Photo by Mae Memories Photography

Megan Vaughan and Bow Rinder-Godard have been together for a decade. They met during the summer of 2013 while swimming at the Gorge swimming hole in East Middlebury, and they’ve entangled their lives together since then. So when the two decided to get married, they said it wasn’t the type of dramatic engagement that some people talk about — and they’re OK with that.

“To be honest … we have five children together and it was time to unite our family,” Megan says. “It was more of a mutual decision that the time was right. I wouldn’t have changed it for a big surprise engagement at all.”

The couple got down to business when it came to planning their nuptials. 

They chose Button Bay State Park as the venue for the big event. They appreciated how beautiful a state park can be for a wedding, especially a Vermont State Park. Lake Champlain provided a natural backdrop for the drama of the ceremony, and they report that the pavilion at Button Bay is absolutely beautiful.

Everything at Megan and Bow’s wedding was hand crafted. They used wooden dyed flowers that the family had hand-dyed themselves. These formed the basis for all of the bouquets and the men’s boutonnieres. Megan created a wedding board on Pinterest, and she proudly recounted she completed everything that she had put there. “We had used a Boho Theme, and everything came out exactly how I wanted it to!” she says.

The Rinder-Godards urge others planning weddings to have fun and stop stressing so much. They know from experience that you will put so much work into the wedding and in the blink of an eye it’ll be over, so slow down and enjoy the moments because it goes by very quickly.

There was one important thing she couldn’t account for on Pinterest — the heat. They got married on July 8, which was the right time for many reasons, but temperatures that day ended up being quite seasonal. “Man oh man, I wanted a summer wedding but underestimated how hot it was actually going to be in July in a wedding dress,” Megan says.

MEGAN WITH FLOWER girl Flower Girl Esmae Luna Rinder-Goddard.
Photo by Mae Memories Photography

But those high temps and beautiful setting seemed to melt away for Megan when she walked down the aisle with their sons. The moment she saw Bow is etched in her memory. “I could read his lips — ‘Wow’ — and the look in his eyes. I will never forget that moment,” Megan says. “It made me feel like I was the only thing that mattered in the entire world in that moment.”

MEGAN AND BOW Rinder-Goddard
were married on July 8 at Button Bay State Park.
Photo by Mae Memories Photography