Three Village Inn Wedding Photography in Stony Brook
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kelly & derek’s Wedding
I’ve taken 25A heading west on Long Island countless times in my life. Grandma’s house, Smithaven Mall, Port Jefferson Ferry, baseball games in St. James--it’s the kind of road that I never needed to use a GPS for. But just like the rest of this summer, I turned off of 25A towards Three Village Inn for Kelly and Derek’s wedding and stumbled across beautiful places I’ve never been to before.
First, Heather and I grabbed a snack at a local cafe tucked into Old Stony Brook Village, a charming village center of storefronts and restaurants whose timeless facades have been preserved through time. Later in the day we visited Kelly and Derek’s old apartment on Setauket Harbor and captured romantics and bridal party photos to commemorate their relationship’s beginnings as the sun set in the background.
Heather and I love traveling to places where our couples formed core memories of their relationship. It doesn’t get much more romantic than watching a couple sit down in the exact place where they used to picnic, remembering favorite meals as their bodies gradually move closer to one another. I’ve noticed that the natural state of a relationship emerges when sharing a meal; a few pilfered fries here, a sip of a drink there, each partner knowing exactly what they can and can’t get away with--sharing food turns out to be a surprisingly intimate experience.
When Heather and I eat on the road it’s not pretty: gas station snacks, Clif Bars, Starbucks sandwiches, bags of chips or nuts we forgot were in the center console. But when we have time to make a home-cooked meal, or better yet, host a dinner party, there are few things we enjoy more. Our speciality has always been fresh cooked pasta but we love to explore different cuisines, test our skills, and expand our palates. Maybe it’s because we have a lot of experience in hospitality, but we don’t quite understand when people stress about hosting others for a meal. To us, as long as you greet your guests with a drink and have some snacks ready to go, the vibes will take care of themselves. We’re actually waaay overdue on hosting so once wedding season slows down a bit we will totally be busting out our dirty aprons!
When I think about it, the best part about this summer is a lot like entertaining guests in your home: striking up a conversation with a table full of people is all about uncovering beautiful things about your guests that you didn’t already know. Just like traveling is all about discovering places you’ve never been before. We will always feel more comfortable in the familiar, in places we love and with people we know, but real connections happen by taking that extra step and finding the beautiful in the unfamiliar. So turn off your GPS, throw your cookbook away, and invite some friends over for dinner!
Enjoy these photos from Derek & Kelly’s wedding:
vendors
Photography | Apollo Fields
Venue | Three Village Inn | Stony Brook, NY
Dress | Family Heirloom made by Great Grandmother
Videography | Violet and Iris Cinematography
Event Coordinator | One of a Kind Gatherings | Cynthia Lynn
Flowers | Wildflower Touch
Makeup & Hair | Beauty Marks Spa and Bridal Studio
DJ | Todd Barrie Music
Trolley | Hampton Jitney
Limo | LIE Lite Limo
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Madison Beach Hotel Wedding in CT
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Laura & Zach’s Wedding
No matter how early I suggest leaving for a wedding, Heather always adds on extra time. I used to push back but it’s one of her things--and it is the correct logical and professional thing to do. We can’t afford to be even one minute late to a wedding. So when we were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95 on our way to Laura and Zach’s wedding at the Madison Beach Hotel in Madison, Connecticut, we weren’t sweating it. We still had enough time to stop for sandwiches at a local charcuterie and cheese shop before heading to the venue.
As soon as we arrived on location we made our way up to the bridal suite, where Laura and her bridesmaids were relaxing and getting ready. Zach and the groomsmen weren’t arriving for another hour and a half, so I headed back downstairs to get a lay of the land. The Madison Beach Hotel is located right next to the West Wharf, a local beach on the Long Island Sound. It’s not often that I look at the Sound from this angle, as I’ve spent most of my life on Long Island looking across at Connecticut wondering where I was looking at. This whole summer feels like I’m finally understanding the area I’m from by looking at it from different perspectives.
One of my favorite things we do to get to know our couples better is ask them to fill out a questionnaire. The questions range from “How did you first meet?” to “Tell us an embarrassing story about your partner,” and we see all kinds of answers. Well Laura and Zach each gave us an all-time great answer when responding to: “Describe your partner as a scene, song, animal, or inanimate object. Be as descript or simple as necessary.” Zach said, “Laura is a toad. We joke, whenever her mood is "off" she is a toad on a log. Just sitting there not doing anything except making a lot of noise.” LOL. Laura replied, “Zachary is a lake house. Mostly calm and tranquil; simple - what you see is what you get - but can host a rockin' party, family reunion or romantic getaway.” Take notes, people. This goofiness is how you know: 1, that they really love each other, and; 2, that they know each other well.
Heather and I love when our couples don’t take themselves too seriously--it means that they’re really comfortable with one another. That they’ve stayed up late, laughing and asking those questions that always push the next one a little further. Early on in Heather and I’s relationship we skipped town (NYC) every couple weeks to explore a place we hadn’t been before. We camped near Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, caught the Perseid Meteor Shower at Sharp Top Mountain on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, and endured a torrential storm inside a leaky tent in West Virginia. We’ve been logging hours on road trips ever since and we still have a great time goofing around and asking each other stupid questions.
So when Heather asks me to leave two and a half hours early to get to a wedding 30 minutes away I don’t push back anymore. I just think of all the silly questions I can ask her when we’re sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic or scarfing down another meal on the road. There will always be more places to discover and new things to learn about your partner.
Enjoy these photos from Zach & Laura’s wedding at the Madison Beach Hotel:
vendors
Photography | Apollo Fields
Venue | Madison Beach Hotel
Floral | Candi’s Floral Creations
Suit | Ted Baker
Dress | BHLDN | Amsale
Rings | Tower Square Jewelers
Makeup and Bride’s Hair | Emily Nantucket | Blow Dry at the Beach
Signage | Fonts and Flourishes
Invitations | Minted
Cake | JCakes
DJ | Powerstation Events | Kevin Williams
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It’s us with Zach and Laura for our ‘last photo’ of the night!
Pastures of Plenty Wedding in Boulder, CO
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Mercie and Dan’s Wedding
Coasting down route 36, the Flatirons of Boulder, Colorado, grew larger by the minute. Memories flashed like road signs in the side-view mirror: like the time Heather accidentally sat on a fire ant hill on the side of the road; or the time I biked from Arvada to Boulder and flew down this decline like the red baron in an old Charlie Brown segment; or the many trips coming back from the hospital as we endured our experience with an ectopic pregnancy in 2019. Capa riding with us in the back seat to Mercie and Dan’s wedding at Pastures of Plenty has proverbially turned this sloped road into a rotary, and as we came full circle we turned to look at him and smile.
We first met Mercie when we were living in Arvada and she was working as a hostess at the same restaurant Heather was working at. Mercie always welcomed me into the foyer with the same bright smile, full of a genuine enthusiasm that most hostesses do their best to feign. Heather and I got to know Mercie and Dan as a couple when we took their engagement photos at Rollins Pass in Nederland a couple years later. It was quickly apparent that they share a wavelength--understanding each other through an invisible yet palpable electromagnetism--as after every photo they seemed to draw closer and closer together.
Fast-forward to 2021 and Mercie and Dan had a water slide at their wedding (in case it was too hot). And also appointed their young siblings as their officiants, DJs, emcees, and baby caretakers (For real, one of them took Capa mid-ceremony so I could take pictures). Everywhere you turned there was a role that Mercie and Dan empowered one of their siblings with. Where most couples cater their event to themselves--Mercie and Dan catered it to their family. A Captain Hook shy of Neverland and a religious scripture short of the Garden of Eden, Mercie and Dan’s wedding was a beautiful fantasy of love, support, and purpose. And they all made it a reality.
There were several moments at Mercie and Dan’s wedding where I had to stand back and ask, “is this really happening?” It got to the point where if one of the bubbles floating in the air turned into a glowing fairy I wouldn’t have batted an eye. I am apt to refrain from using words like ‘magic’ or ‘miracle’ when describing a wedding, couple, or family, but Mercie, Dan, and company made it really hard to describe it as anything else. The way that they spoke to all of their various members of their extended family: in soft affirmations, playful directions, and empowering words of encouragement, they reminded me of the way that Snow White spoke to her woodland friends. The exception, of course, is that Disney is a contrived monolith and Mercie and Dan are living, breathing, beautiful humans of sensitivity and intention.
As each of our families evolve and grow I can only hope to embody the acceptance and trust that Mercie and Dan cultivate on an everyday basis. It takes great patience, an even better understanding, and a dedication to emotional communication. While Heather and I already valued each of these attributes we were and are in complete admiration of Mercie and Dan’s intention and execution. It isn’t fairy dust that creates the magic in our reality, it is our thoughts converted into action.
Enjoy these photos from Merc & Dan’s Pasture of Plenty Wedding in Boulder, Colorado:
As seen in: Couture Colorado Magazine
vendors
Photography | Apollo Fields
Videography | Glasshouse Wedding Films
Venue | Pastures of Plenty
Invitations | Minted
Dresses | Galina
This was a special one for us…
…we have SO enjoyed our friendship with Merc and Dan and feel absolutely honored to have captured their joyful day!
Crescent Beach Club Wedding Photos
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Alex & Kim’s Wedding
Palm trees, a blaring midday summer sun, and steel drums ringing in the distance. Fresh seafood, a tiki bar, and smooth sand disappearing into a gentle tide. At a glance you would think we were at a resort in the Caribbean, a place where shirts and shoes were optional. Instead, Alex and Kim’s family and friends bounced around cocktail hour in gorgeous dresses and tailored suits, plucking hor d'oeuvres from trays like berries from a wild bush. Far from the Caribbean and close to our home, Heather and I were soaking in the experience at the Crescent Beach Club in Bayville, Long Island.
We first met Kim and Alex at a brewery in Huntington to talk over their wedding details over a couple beers. I remember how quickly we got to sharing stories and laughing, enjoying a comfortable conversation that usually takes a glass of wine or two to get to at a dinner party. As a couple, they just kind of get it. They are consummate professionals, thoroughly enjoy one another’s company, and ask the right questions. They are no bullshit in the best way possible--meaning--they like to have fun but they get shit done.
Kim and Alex aptly met at a quintessential Halloween dance party sponsored by the student bar association while studying at Villanova Law School. It still surprises me how fickle romantic beginnings can be. Kim and Alex, like Heather and I, so easily could’ve never been a thing if Alex and I hadn’t taken our respective relationship initiatives. “Kim did the mature thing that any self-respecting, young 20-something does the next day in class: ignored Alex and pretended she had never seen him before in her life. Luckily Alex had more maturity (or less self-respect) and immediately approached Kim to ask her to go out to dinner a few nights later.” Moral of the story? Shoot your shot and go to professional parties that serve free booze.
At the end of the night Heather and I first met, I walked her home to her apartment on West 105th street. When we stopped at the corner and she said, “well, this is me,” I told her how nice it was to meet her and that I would love to see her again. She quickly replied, “me too,” before nervously doing a 180 and began to walk away. Now, if I hadn’t been a little tipsy and characteristically overconfident, I would’ve just taken that gesture as a rejection. Instead, I blurted out, “hey, you know, your phone number would be great for something like that,” and lucky for me, she turned around as I handed her my phone.
That one line was the difference between going our separate routes in life and winding up in Jamaica together on our honeymoon. I still remember that feeling of limbo--those uncertain moments when you’ve shot your shot and the ball is up there rattling on the rim. But in my experience, and I’m sure Kim and Alex would agree--we would all prefer sitting on a lounge chair on a beach, sipping on a cold beer while reading a book as steel drums ping-and-pang as leaves of palm trees sway in the wind--rather than not shoot at all, doing the 1-2 step at a law school Halloween party waiting for someone to ask me out to dinner.
Vendors:
Photography | Apollo Fields
Venue | Crescent Beach Club | Bayville, NY
Floral | Lindenhurst Village Florist
DJ | Variety Music
Dress | Stella York | Max Bridal
Suit | Joseph A. Bank
Rings | Brilliant Earth
Hair | GetxGlamorous
Makeup | Christy Ann Cosmetics
Invitations | Etsy | Magnet Street
Transportation | Mark of Elegance
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