Chef Anne Burrell Dishes on Her "Fairytale" Wedding Weekend Upstate (which Rach was in!)

Chef Anne Burrell is married! She joined Rach in our studio to cook a delicious date night meal of Lobster Risotto with Saffron, Tomatoes and Zucchini and dish on her recent wedding to hubby Stuart Claxton. "I have made this for Stuart," Anne says about the risotto. "It's one of the first things I made for him and I think what got him hooked," she laughs.  

Not only was Rachael at Anne and Stuart's fall wedding in Anne's Upstate New York hometown, but she was also one of Anne's bridesmaids! "I was in that barn. I was in the wedding in that barn. We had the best time," Rach says excitedly while looking at photos from the wedding weekend. 

"It was dreamy and magical and it was everything that I wanted. It makes me weepy thinking about it," Anne recalls. 

"Everything was magical," she continues. "Riding, arriving to the wedding in the horse and carriage with my mom—even though it was raining, my mom and my sister and my nieces had a nice little time." 

"It was dramatic and beautiful," Rach agrees. 

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"I was like, I want the fairytale. I'm only going to be a bride once," Anne says. "We wrote our own vows which I thought were very cute and lovely. And then when it came to the time to say I do, it just came out of me and I was like, 'YES I DO!' But my favorite part I think was just the feels of the weekend. Everyone that we wanted to be there; it was just filled with love and happiness and joy and dancing. It just felt like love. That's all we wanted." 

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Anne and Stuart also did a choreographed first dance together to "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons. "[It's] such a happy song, and it came on my Spotify feed right after Stuart proposed, so I was like this has got to be our wedding song," Anne shares. According to Rach, the dance was "insane. It was like 'Dancing with the Stars,'" she adds. 

"It was so fun," Anne says. "It wasn't pretty... In the beginning of the week when we were practicing, it was a little touch and go whether we were actually going to make it to the wedding," Anne jokes. "But we got over that and then the dance was really fun." 

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Another close friend, "Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro, made "a beautiful delicious cake. We're still eating it," Anne says. "We had two flavors of cake. One was a zucchini cake and the other was a lemon, olive oil and rosemary cake." 

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"All the food was just so beautiful and so different. There was a pig roast, and there was the amazing smoky chicken and all the sides, and then on the day..." Rach says. 

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"The day. The caterers—which were from a local restaurant called the Cider Mill but they have a company called Diamond Catering—did an amazing job. I worked with them with the menu and they were very gracious to allow me to write the menu, but they did an excellent job executing it. It was delicious, it was fun, it was joyful," Anne says.