Nantucket Wedding Photography, Private Home

Every happy couple planning a fall wedding in New England tries to block out the thought of a hurricane arriving on their special weekend. But, sometimes that’s reality! Lindsay and Jake were married earlier this month as Irene swirled towards their Nantucket wedding. Being stranded on an island 30 miles out to see with all your family and friends… it could have been worse!

Lindsay and I just clicked from day one. I love her connection to Maine, her love of Nantucket  (something we shared) and her excitement to marry Jake and share all the details she was creating by hand for the wedding just made me smile! She shared with me a bit about their relationship over the years and just how fitting their wedding weekend ended up being for the two of them.

From Lindsay:

Jake and I met our first week of freshman year at Colby College. We started dating sophomore year and continued to do so for the next eight years, despite living in different countries for five of them. Of course I would fall for a Canadian hockey player!! Love truly got us through those years of seeing each other only every 6-8 weeks. Nantucket has always held a very special place in my heart and serves as the background for some of my fondest family memories. In August 2010 Jake surprised me while I was vacationing there with my family (they were all in on it!) and proposed with a copy of my grandmother’s engagement ring. We decided Nantucket would be the ideal spot to get married one year later under a tent at my grandmother’s house.

We didn’t choose colors or have a particular theme or motif in mind when we started planning; if anything, I suppose we were inspired by Nantucket herself! The only thing I was sure of was the groomsmen’s attire – I loved the quintessential island look of Nantucket reds paired with blue blazers and Sperry topsiders. Jake definitely received quite a few strange and skeptical looks from his Canadian groomsmen when he tried to describe the color of the pants they would be wearing for the ceremony! From there we just followed our instincts and incorporated as many fun colors (like the blue bridesmaid dresses and my blue shoes) and details (like the American/ Canadian flags and starfish boutonnières) as possible and luckily it all came together!

Our wedding wouldn’t have been complete without a little travel complication (in the five years Jake and I have flown back and forth to visit one another NOT ONCE have we had an entirely smooth round trip – it’s become a running family joke), but we certainly didn’t factor in the appearance of a hurricane!! I hadn’t spent my entire year planning for the perfect tented wedding only for it to be spoiled by Hurricane Irene – we broke out the cute yellow rain boots, prepped the Colby umbrellas and fielded phone calls from desperate guests cancelling at the last minute since all modes of transportation off the island had been cancelled for Sunday.

Amazingly, the weather held out for us that day and the overcast skies made for great pictures. We even managed to snag a photo at Brant Point which featured a ferry in the background that contained the entire island of Nantucket fleeing. The captain gave us an appreciative honk as we waved goodbye!

The wedding was better than we ever could have dreamed – I was able to showcase all the little DIY projects I had worked so hard on (including the menus, programs, escort card display, signature drink setup and straws), the lanterns my dad and father-in-law stayed up all night stringing looked fabulous, one of our groomsmen got up on stage and sang a song especially for us and my brothers (one being a volunteer firefighter no less!) and groomsmen surprised us with a fantastic self made fireworks display that would have rivaled any formal 1^st (for the Canadians!) or 4^th of July celebration – only fitting since Jake and I had decided to inscribe our wedding bands with the phrase “To A Lifetime of Fireworks”.

We literally missed the hurricane by hours – as soon as the reception ended the wind picked up and vendors were on site to break down the tent and collect the rentals. All of our guests were stuck on Nantucket the next day, but we kept the festivities going by hosting a “stranded” party! We honestly could not have asked for a more fun or memorable wedding weekend!!

Catering: A Taste of Nantucket

Florist: Jean Cawley, A Taste of Nantucket

Band: Jeff Ross

Tent: Nantucket Tents

Hair & Make-up: Darya Salon

Brides Dress: Amsale  Shoes: Kate Spade

Bridesmaids Dresses: Lilly Pulitzer   Shoes: Jack Rogers

Grooms Pants: Murray’s Toggery Shop   Shoes: Sperry Topsiders

Groomsmen Ties: Etro from Barneys