Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s new weddings column.
Ashley Kirouac and Kevin Fitzgibbon chose their Derry, N.H., wedding venue in November 2023, though it wasn’t at all what they had imagined. Yet.
“I booked it as a dirt pile,” says Ashley. “But thank goodness I saw the vision.”
The booking was actually set days before the proposal, which Ashley had known was coming for about a year. A wedding planner by profession, she was also clued in to the fierce competition for vendors and was steps ahead. Bolstered by a supergroup of industry professionals who had become her friends through work, she confidently chose the brand new Hyla Brook Estate, due to open just weeks before their 2024 wedding date.
“I’ve seen every venue in the city … multiple times,” says Ashley, who is the Fairmont Copley Plaza’s director of event sales, executing some 25 weddings at the Back Bay hotel each year. “The idea of having something no one’s ever seen before was just beyond exciting to me.”
Ashley and Kevin have a knack for seeing the potential in the unknown. They met the summer of 2021 while working at the Fairmont. At the time, Ashley was the event sales manager. Kevin, a US Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, was a new face on the hotel’s security detail.
Wearing masks as part of COVID-19 safety precautions, the pair didn’t see each other’s whole faces until right before their first date. Kevin had briefly popped out of his office, unmasked, and Ashley, in passing, paused: “You have a mustache.”
“I think that’s what really sealed the deal for her,” Kevin says.
While crushes manifested on both sides, Kevin and Ashley had only been professionally cordial before grabbing drinks at Citrus and Salt in the Back Bay that August. Conversations that began over margaritas turned into all-night text-a-thons.
Kevin’s then-boss, the late Daryl Gagne, noticed the spark between them, and encouraged their connection.
“He was really, really chuffed,” says Kevin, who is now part of the security team for Santander Bank. “He played both sides of the fence and very much enjoyed seeing our relationship start and blossom into something.” Ashley remembers Gagne talking Kevin through his “mental blocks” and advising him: “Get out of your own way, kid.”
The relationship bloomed as their out-of-office lives intertwined. When they caught the same bug that September, they quarantined at Ashley’s South Boston apartment, bingeing “Blue Bloods.” Kevin — an accomplished home cook — filled her fridge with soups and Bolognese. “I can host a great party, but Kevin, from the very beginning, would cook at my apartment for me and then completely clean my kitchen after,” she says. “He was always proactive in making sure I was well-fed in a healthy and really delicious way,” she says.
They laid the worry about their 10-year age gap to rest — she was 37 and he was 27 when they met. “Women live longer anyway,” she had told him.
By late December, after her friend’s 30th birthday party, Kevin told her he loved her. “You’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he remembers saying. (Both say they’d known long before they said the words to each other.)
They moved in together in May 2022, filling their North Shore home with more than 40 houseplants and becoming the go-to dog sitters for their hospitality peers. Ashley is the “number one auntie” to the Fairmont Copley’s canine ambassador, Cori Copley. The black Labrador retriever is their frequent houseguest.
Kevin viewed a 10-day trip to Thailand in February 2023 as a test for the relationship — “I’m not going to marry someone I can’t travel with.” But he had already received Ashley’s parents’ blessing before the four of them attended the Holiday Pops. He proposed beneath the foliage in the greenhouse at Kane’s Flower World in Peabody the following fall.
Hyla Brook Estate — a contemporary farmhouse-inspired venue with black iron chandeliers, soaring beamed ceilings, and shiplap walls — opened in October 2024.
Ashley and Kevin wed in an outdoor ceremony at the Southern New Hampshire venue on Nov. 2.
The professional wedding planners in Ashley’s friend group had viewed the under construction venue’s renderings and approved, knowing both the couple’s “vibe” — and their high expectations.
“My goal was to have laidback but perfect,” says Ashley. “I wanted all of our guests to be more than taken care of, the food to be spectacular, the flowers to be amazing, and it was a 10 out of 10, that’s for sure.”
The day brought together the things and people they loved the most. Planner Renée Sabo, cofounder of Baciare Events, and florist Camille Dolloff of Artistic Blossoms served double-duty as bridesmaids. The Boston floral design studio incorporated succulents in hanging glass orbs and oversize monstera deliciosa leaves — a nod to Kevin’s green thumb — into the whimsical structures that framed the reception room and created a collar made from burgundy blooms for Cori. The pup played the role of flower girl — and inspired a signature drink, Cori’s Cooler, borrowed from the Oak Long Bar + Kitchen’s menu at the Fairmont.
For the father-daughter dance, Ashley surprised her dad with John Doe’s recording of “I Will Always Love You” — which plays on the jukebox during a scene in Whitney Houston’s 1992 film, “The Bodyguard,” a family favorite. Kevin stepped behind the mic, much to the surprise of their guests, to perform “Some Kind of Wonderful” by Grand Funk Railroad with wedding band, Hot Mess.
But it was the quiet, one-on-one moments the couple remember the most, including the first time they saw each other alone before the ceremony.
“Kevin makes me feel beautiful all the time. He does every day,” says Ashley. “But just seeing his reaction to my dress, my hair — he took in every single detail. I knew that I made the right decision, and this is who’s going to be by my side, from that moment through the end of the night and then forever.”
This story has been updated to correct errors in Ashley Kirouac and Kevin Fitzgibbon’s wedding date, and in Fitzgibbon’s job title.
Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s new weddings column.
Rachel Kim Raczka is a writer and editor in Boston. She can be reached at rachel.raczka@globe.com.