By Clark Judge
(September 6, 2024) — Allison Wendt and Eric Nadolny are getting married at Deer Lake on Satruday, September 7, 2024, which is notable because it’s the first wedding this year at the former Boy Scouts reservation. But it’s also notable because of the date. It’s September 7th, and maybe that means nothing to you. But it does to Allison. So certain was she that the ceremony should occur then that she picked it out five years ago.
“It’s when she said that she knew she wanted to marry me,” Eric said.
And so she will.
But while Allison chose the date for their wedding, she didn’t choose the place. Then again, she didn’t have to. The two made that decision together, though it wasn’t really a decision at all. They will marry at the site where their relationship began and flourished.
And that’s Deer Lake.
While the two grew up in neighboring Connecticut towns, and Eric was in the same Scout troop as Allison’s brother, they didn’t know each other until the summer of 2012 … which is where Deer Lake comes in. Eric was the waterfront director at a Cub Scout resident camp there, and Allison was the crafts director. They’d met a year prior but never really knew each other until working together.
At first they were little more than friends. Then they became close friends who started dating the following February. After two years at Deer Lake, they went off to college but never strayed far from each other. Both attended schools in New Haven – he at Southern Connecticut; she at Gateway Community College – and remained together before deciding to be joined together.
That took years. The site for their ceremony did not. It took a nano second, with no other sites considered.
“We met at Deer Lake, and we love Deer Lake,” said Allison. “We decided it would be important for us to share this place we love so much with other people; to have it be where we get married because this is where we really started our relationship.”
That relationship included so many cherished memories that when asked to identify one, Allison had trouble. There was the evening when they planned a campfire with a bunch of Scouts, but nobody brought matches. So everyone had to wait 20 minutes while someone retrieved them. Then there was the time when she was walking behind Eric on their way back to DaRos Lodge, where male counselors were housed, and decided it would be a good time for a piggyback ride. But as she leaped on his back, she inadvertently punched him in the face, causing his nose to bleed.
“It was so embarrassing,” she said. “And yet, lo and behold.”
Ah, yes, and lo and behold. Here they are, a decade later, getting married where it happened … and where they enjoyed so many friends and experiences that Eric confessed, “I just love the community we made. We were like a bunch of silly kids having a great time with one another.” Truth be told, however, his affection for the property goes back to his youth when he was a Cub Scout and, later, an Eagle Scout who camped at Deer Lake.
“It was wonderful,” he said.
Former camp ranger Mark Clifton once said that what makes Deer Lake so special is “nothing,” as in no cellphones, no TVs, no video games, no Amazon delivery trucks … basically, no distractions to interfere with the personal contact campers experience with their peers, their counselors and their environment. Allison nodded in agreement, except that her summer experiences with Eric were something altogether different than what Clifton described.
They were everything.
It’s where they first became acquainted. It’s where they shared treasured memories. It’s where she first asked him to name his favorite color (“pure pigment red,” Allison said), where they gained lifelong friends and where Eric still reminisces about staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning, sitting on the porch at DaRos and talking with friends. Even today, the connection is so strong that he and Allison continue to return from their Trumbull home. In fact, when friends from Ohio visited them last November, they took them to Deer Lake and went hiking.
“What do I miss about it?” Eric asked. “I guess not being there, not being a part of the summer camp anymore. I still visit. I still see the sites. I see all the renovations, and it looks awesome. We still hike the trails. But just that magic of hundreds of kids running around, screaming and jumping in the water … that was pretty special. That’s what I miss.”
If the weather cooperates, the two will be wed at the Deer Lake amphitheater, just below Wheeler Pavilion where Allison worked summers. Then they’ll join their guests at nearby Clifton Lodge for the reception and embark on their honeymoon later this month in Alaska.
“What I like most,” said Allison, “is that we’re able to find adventure anywhere. When we went camping a few months back on Memorial Day weekend, we were at the grocery store before we went, grabbing a few last-minute items. And we were cackling at everything, having a blast and just being silly.
“It was just such a testament to the amount of fun we have with each other, with us always being so goofy. As much as we’re so excited about going to Alaska and being with each other, I thought if we can find adventure at the grocery store, that’s hands-down what I love about our relationship.”
Photo above by Allison Wendt (left) with her future husband, Eric Nadolny, (right) and two campers at Deer Lake in 2013.
