CONWAY — Carey Anne Bellino has memories of being with family, of reading, of playing hide-and-seek and, now, of love in the library.
On Saturday, Bellino, 36, married her husband, Justin Schwenk, at Conway’s Field Memorial Library.
For nearly her entire life, a black-and-white photo of an infant Bellino and her mother, Amy, sitting and reading at the Field Memorial Library, has hung on Bellino’s bedroom wall.
A copy of that photo — which ran in a 1983 piece about public libraries in the Greenfield Recorder — was handed to friends and family who entered the library Saturday afternoon to see Schwenk and Bellino tie the knot.
“It’s just a special place, peaceful,” said Bellino. “There’s that picture of me in my mother’s lap, so I’ve always had it in my bedroom.”
The 1901-built library has been a life-long favorite place for Bellino. It was one of the first places she took Schwenk after they began dating.
“We would come here and read, play hide and seek, climb on the walls out back,” said Bellino, recalling childhood memories of the old building.
Another photo that ran in the Greenfield Recorder at the time shows Bellino in a baby stroller being wheeled up to the library’s steps. The short piece, titled “The county’s public libraries,” ran in the paper’s Life & Times section, and featured a collage of photos taken by George Newton illustrating local libraries as “center(s) of community pride.”
Amy Bellino, at her daughter’s wedding, said at the time the photograph was taken, it didn’t seem so momentous.
“It was just the only library in town,” she said. “I just went for a stroll with her and we stopped here.”
Bellino, Amy’s daughter, is a speech language pathologist, and met Schwenk on the online dating app Hinge.
From the start, Schwenk said he knew the town Bellino grew up in, in particular the library, has held sentimental value for his now-wife.
“Carey loves this town,” Schwenk said. “When we talked about where we were going to get married, I said, ‘I just assumed you wanted it at the library.’”
In her white bridal gown, and preparing to walk the aisle, Bellino found the words to describe the Field Memorial Library.
“It’s just home,” she said.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.