Jenn & Eric — An Intimate Nantucket Wedding at Brant Point Lighthouse
Some weddings arrive exactly as planned. This one didn't — and it was better for it.
Jenn and Eric were supposed to get married at a venue on the mainland. Then 2020 happened, and they made the kind of decision that takes real clarity: they let go of the big day, kept the people who mattered most, and got married on Nantucket on a Thursday in September with nineteen guests, two lighthouses, and a string trio.
I was on that ferry. I wouldn't have missed it.
An hour by ferry.
A world apart.
Nantucket is about an hour from Hyannis by ferry — close enough that I've made the crossing more times than I can count, far enough that arriving always feels like stepping into something separate from the rest of the world. The cobblestone streets, the grey-shingled houses, the Atlantic light that hits differently out there than it does anywhere on the mainland.
It's one of the most naturally photogenic places in New England. Not because it's manicured or staged — because it isn't. It's weathered and specific and unlike anywhere else. For a wedding photographer, that specificity is everything.
A watch set to
four o'clock.
Jenn and Eric both got ready at The Nantucket Hotel on Easton Street — the same property where their cocktail hour and reception would be held later that evening. There's something I've always liked about weddings where the whole day lives in one place. The energy stays contained. Nobody's rushing between locations. Everyone has time to breathe.
The detail that stayed with me: Jenn had gifted Eric a new watch for the wedding day. She had set the watch face to the exact start time of the ceremony. Four o'clock. I didn't notice it until I was editing — zooming into the frame and finding it there, deliberate and quiet. It was one of those details that only reveals itself if you're paying attention to everything, and it said everything about how intentional this couple was about their day.
Siasconset Bluff Walk.
Grassy, windswept, completely their own.
The first look was on the Siasconset Bluff Walk on the eastern edge of the island — remote and natural in a way that felt completely removed from everything. Grassy bluffs, the Atlantic below, the kind of quiet that only exists when you've driven far enough from town that the noise falls away entirely.
It was exactly the right place for a first look. The kind of setting that doesn't ask anything of the photographer except to pay attention and stay out of the way.
After the first look we made our way to Sankaty Lighthouse for portraits — the striped lighthouse perched at the edge of the bluffs, the ocean behind them, that September light doing everything right. I had my drone with me. The aerial perspective out at Sankaty is something you have to see to understand — the lighthouse, the bluffs, the ocean, two people standing in the middle of all of it.
Brant Point Lighthouse.
The first thing you see arriving by ferry.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, Jenn and Eric exchanged their vows at Brant Point Lighthouse — right at the mouth of Nantucket Harbor. If you've ever arrived on Nantucket by boat, you've seen Brant Point. It's the first thing you see as you pull into the harbor, small and white and iconic, standing at the edge of the water like it's been waiting for you.
A string trio played. Linda Simmons officiated. Nineteen people gathered in the September afternoon and watched two people choose each other in one of the most quietly beautiful spots in New England. No big production. No excess. Just exactly what it needed to be.
"No big production. No excess. Just exactly what it needed to be."
Nineteen people.
The whole island to themselves.
Cocktail hour started at five at The Nantucket Hotel, followed by dinner and dancing from six-fifteen. Toasts from Jenn's parents, toasts from the couple, first dance at six-forty. Kinship Florist had handled the flowers. 45Surfside made the cake. The same string ensemble that played the ceremony provided the soundtrack for the evening.
For nineteen people it was a complete, fully realized wedding. Nothing was missing. Everything that mattered was there. I caught the 8:25 ferry home that night with a full card and the specific satisfaction that comes from a day that went exactly right.
Nantucket is an hour away.
It feels like another world.
For couples from southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut, Nantucket is genuinely accessible in a way that a lot of destination venues aren't. I'm based in southeastern Massachusetts. Getting there is a ferry ride — the same ferry I took home the night of Jenn and Eric's wedding.
What I know after photographing a wedding there: the island gives you something the mainland doesn't. The light is different. The landscape is specific. The pace slows down in a way that makes everything feel more intentional. And the locations — the bluff walk at Siasconset, the lighthouse at Brant Point, the harbour at golden hour — are unlike anything you'll find anywhere else in New England.
If you're getting married on Nantucket, I'd love to be your photographer.
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