Before Haley Poland and Chase McGowan ever considered having a rock-infused, rustic wedding in the Catskill Mountains, the doctor and drummer had to meet with a little help from a smartphone app.
Poland, a resident physician, and McGowan, a website community manager who moonlights as a drummer for the band STRNGRS (pronounced “Strangers”) told TODAY.com they met through OKCupid.
“I mainly went on there as a joke,” McGowan said, “[but] then I met Haley, so I was only on the service for about a week before I had to de-activate it, basically.”
Poland said that while she’d met some cool people on OKCupid, she almost gave up on it. “We were actually a 99 percent match, which neither of us had ever seen before,” she added. “But he wasn’t showing up in any of my searches! He could see that I was his No. 1 match, but he wasn’t showing up in any of mine. [My settings] were set to at least 6 feet and older than me, and Chase is 5-11 and younger than me.”
After taking a risk by contacting Poland in October 2011, McGowan invited Poland, then a Manhattan resident, out to Brooklyn. “She met all my friends in one night,” he said, commending her for how well she fit in, despite how intimidating that experience can be. “I was quite impressed. I was completely sure I was marrying her.”
Added Poland, “And he actually said that, that night. He actually said he knew how his dad felt – this was after a few drinks, I’m going to admit – he knew how his dad felt when [his dad] met his mom, and he basically said, ‘I’m going to marry that girl.’ And I said, ‘I can’t believe you’re saying this,’ but it turns out he was 100 percent correct.”
McGowan admitted that, before meeting Poland, he used to think his father was crazy for saying that, “but I don’t think that story is so silly anymore.”
For Poland, meeting McGowan was a totally new experience. “I’d never felt anything close to that before,” she said. “I kind of thought that that was ridiculous in a lot of ways, like it didn’t really happen like that – which isn’t to say that it was perfect right away – but there was just a feeling about it. With him, I felt more like myself than I ever had.”
McGowan, an Ivy League graduate, said he was excited to realize “she was smarter than I was, which I value, and how compassionate she was. That, and she’s beautiful.”
In July 2013, McGowan proposed during a trail hike in the Berkshires, and Poland said yes. The night before, he’d texted her to wear comfortable clothes and bring an overnight bag. Poland said she had a strong suspicion about what was to come. “As soon as I saw that, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s on,’” Poland said with a laugh. “But it was still awesome.”
While scouting wedding and reception venues for McGowan’s brother, they stumbled upon The Inn At West Settlement in the Catskills of Roxbury, New York. “We were like, ‘Let’s just kind of keep this place to ourselves,’” Poland said with a laugh. “This was the very first place we looked at, and we got it right away. We were like, ‘Yeah, let’s just [book] this right now.’ We tend do that a lot. We kind of did that with our apartment [in Brooklyn].”
Many a tree has grown in Brooklyn, but the setting for the June wedding was a little different in the Catskills. “It’s that time of year when you have every possible shade of green at the same time,” Poland said. “So, it was kind of perfect for that."
Describing the so-called "rockstar-doctor wedding" as “very rustic, and very casual,” McGowan wanted guests to feel comfortable.
“We wanted everyone to interact and not feel like they were relegated to this table or that table, or sit on the groom’s side or bride’s side,” McGowan said. “We didn’t have any of that stuff. It was more of a laid-back situation.”
That echoed his wife’s philosophy. “We don’t like weddings where you end up sitting around for a long time, being like, ‘What are we doing? Give us food, or give us drinks, or something!’" Poland said. "So, we kind of decided to keep it going, like a normal party would – like you were having a house party. And I think we were really successful.”
Hendrick Moy, who took the official wedding photos, also was impressed by the lush aesthetic. He told TODAY.com: “Though a relatively new wedding venue, well-placed details adorned every corner of an old barn, ripe with elegance any engaged couple from Brooklyn could appreciate, thanks to the styling of wedding coordinator, Kelly Liberis.”
In addition to help from Liberis, the couple got a lot of assistant from their families. “We did so much of it ourselves,” Poland said. “We ordered the flowers wholesale, shipped from California. Then my sister, my sister-in-law and I put together the bouquets, and the boutonnieres. We made the table settings. … To make it look so casual and easy, it really does take a lot of work.”
There were personal touches that made the couple’s celebration their own. Their dog, Levon – named after Levon Helm, the late drummer of The Band – milled about the venue, about an hour’s drive away from Helm’s Woodstock home. “Everyone loved him,” McGowan said of their canine guest of honor. “He even had a bowtie collar on.”
Almost as popular was a slideshow, of the bride and groom as kids, projected onto a wall near the bar.
And then there was the lantern launch, which wound up yielding stunning photographs, but were tougher to pull off than they’d anticipated.
“It ended up a little less organized than we wanted,” Poland said. “It was just a symbolic way to tie things up, and it was colorful. Logistically, it was challenging. It was windy, and so, it took a long time to get them all started, but it actually added a lot of comic relief to the event. A guy almost lit my hair on fire. And for whatever reason, I was holding my beer the whole time. I didn’t want to put the beer down while I tried not to blow away with it. Everyone was laughing really hard. … One did got caught in the power lines for about 20 minutes, and it finally got free, so it was just really funny.”
Toward the end of the reception, McGowan switched out his fork and knife for a pair of drumsticks to join his band, STRNGRS, for a few songs to entertain the guests. It helped that his other two band members had pulled double-duty as groomsmen.
“We had a DJ, but we stopped the DJ and played for about 15 to 20 minutes,” McGowan said, “which was cool, because I had a lot of extended family hadn’t had a chance to come out to New York and see us play.”
And Poland didn’t need to be convinced. “I was a huge proponent of having the band play,” she said. “There was a question of whether we should do that or not, but I said ‘Absolutely!’ I really love it. You know, I’m not just a fan just because I’m his wife. I really love the music.”
Some of her favorite wedding moments, and related photos, were her interactions with STRNGRS.
“I was just really, really happy,” she said. “While they were playing one of my favorite songs was playing, I just danced with him at the drum kit.”
As the wedding weekend came to a close, McGowan had a realization.
“That was the most fun weekend I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “That’s probably a good sign.”
All photos provided by Hendrick Moy Photography. Check out more TODAY real weddings here. Follow TODAY.com writer Chris Serico on Twitter.