Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium Intimate Wedding
Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium Intimate Wedding | Centerport, New York Weddings | Long Island Microwedding Photography | Apollo Fields Wedding Photographers
Meghan & Samuel
Like many other industries, photographing fellow wedding industry pros can go one way or another— either it is a total dream or the experience backfires and you end up with a micromanaging know-it-tall. Luckily for me, Meghan and Sam’s wedding was the former!! It was exactly that: a total dream!
This sweet couple unfortunately had their original wedding plans totally derailed by COVID but still wanted to honor their love by getting married this year. The plan was to postpone the big wedding to 2021, but as the year continued on, they ultimately decided that this wedding would be the wedding— and honestly, I can relate so hard to this! Planning any wedding celebration is a lot of moving parts even in non-pandemic times, and I cannot imagine how tough it must be to have everything turned upside down and then trying to reconfigure multiple weddings.
At the end of the day, the most important part of a wedding– whether it is just two people or two hundred people–is the love between the couple and their commitment to one another. Meghan summed it up best when she said, “ I work in the wedding industry and love attention to details” she started, “But for myself, I would say to ignore any pressures to deliver anything perfect! If there is anything that 2020 has taught us, it is the importance of family and health and spending it with the ones you love most”.
That is exactly how their wedding felt, too! Meghan and Samuel exchanged their vows in front of six guests at the Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium in Centerport, NY. The venue is stunning and sits right up against the water. We were lucky to have a perfect autumn morning and were able to have the ceremony at the fountain in the back of the courtyard. Their ceremony was personalized and so sentimental, and I think that because it was so intimate, their promises were that much more special.
After they exchanged the vows, rings, and “I do’s”, Meghan and Sam had their first dance in the courtyard followed by parent dances. You could just feel how light and easy the day was flowing without all the chaos of hundreds of guests and tight timelines to stick to, and I admit that it makes a big difference as a photographer, too, to be able to lean into my creativity instead of worrying about huge shot lists and complicated moving parts.
We were able to do family photos without needing a party planner, an ambassador, and an assistant all coordinating people and then I was able to steal the couple for some romantics of just the two of them without having to rush them back to cocktail hour in five minutes. Such a luxury! We wrapped up the morning with a sweet cake cutting and a quick toast before heading out and I left the venue just beaming with happiness for this amazing couple!
Enjoy these sneaks from Meghan & Samuel’s intimate wedding:
Vendors:
Photography: Apollo Fields
Venue: The Vanderbilt Museum
Rentals: Elite Party Rentals
HMUA: Hair Salon of Centerport / Genna Makeup
Florals: Cold Spring Harbor Flowers
Officiant: Michele LaRosa- LI Officiant
Videography: Purroy Video
Dress: BHLDN
Bakery: Blondies Bake Shop
Long Island Elopement Photography
Erin & Cody’s Backyard Intimate Wedding | Long Island Elopement Photography | Apollo Fields Wedding Photographers
Photography: Apollo Fields
Summer 2020 Wedding in Long Island, NY
Billy & Cara’s Summer Wedding in Long Island | NY Weddings on the North Shore | Apollo Fields Wedding Photography
Returning to work has felt like going back to my childhood home, rolling the garage door up, grabbing a basketball, and heading out to the hoop in the street. Even though my old hoop may be long gone; I still remember the give of the plexiglass backboard, the strange bend on the rim from when it fell during a storm, and how I used to countdown from three right before I heaved up a game-winning shot. Those memories literally feel like a physical part of me. Then this past weekend, when I walked into Billy’s mother’s house and began joking with the groomsmen as they bent their wrists as they put on their helicopter cuff links, I realized that Apollo Fields is becoming part of me in the same way.
Billy and Cara, like many other 2020 couples, have been run through the gamut of rescheduling their wedding (twice). On top of that, Hurricane Isaias knocked power out of Cara’s parents’ house and the location where they planned to have a small reception. Resilience, patience, and kindness are the first words that come to mind when I think of the way that Cara and Billy handled all of these obstacles, but even they don’t do justice for their wonderful relationship.
A couple of Long Island natives, their engagement story is one of my favorites. Billy planned a kayaking trip on a bay on the south shore, going beforehand to bury a small box in the sand and marking it with an ‘x.’ They brought a couple of sandwiches with them on the trip and while Billy was doing his best to nudge Cara to hunt for buried treasure, all Cara could think about was how hungry she was and that she wanted her ham sandwich. “Who passes up buried treasure for a ham sandwich?” Billy playfully asked in the questionnaire we give to our couples to get to know them better. I’m sure any groom that has taken romantic lengths like this one knows all too well the anxiety of trying to maintain the surprise while trying to play it cool. “Just hunt for the treasure, damn it!”
You would never have guessed with Cara and Billy’s cool and calm demeanor during their wedding that they’re actually fierce competitors. Bowling and mini-golf are games in constant rotation, and Cara refuses to leave the alley until she wins a game (Heather does the same). Cara even disclosed in the questionnaire that she won’t play Clue with Billy’s family until they learn to play by the right rules (lol), showing the integrity of a competitor that we 100% respect. Whether it was from this backbone of competitiveness against the events of 2020 or the sentimentality behind buried treasure and a ham sandwich, we’re so happy that the celebration of their love prevailed.
It’s crazy how our memories and our work entangle with our identities, reinforcing who we are even though we think we are just living our lives. I definitely err on the side of reflection and contemplation as opposed to impulsivity, and am grateful that my job, through Heather’s undeniable artistic talent, continues to shape my reality through stories of love and basketball. Cheers to the love of Cara and Billy, who helped me realize that work can be just as powerful as nostalgia.
Wedding Vendors:
Photography: Apollo Fields
Ceremony Venue: St. Kilian Parish
Videographer: John Morelli
Officiant : Deacon Bill
Florist: Bloominous
Dress : BHLDN
Suit: Generation Tux
Rings : Blue Nile
Hair and Makeup: Luxe and Co
Invitations and Save The Dates: Minted
Transportation / Limo: All Star Limo
Northport Long Island Elopement Photography
Jamie and Allison's Crab Meadow Beach Wedding Portraits | Northport NY Photographer | Apollo Fields Wedding Photography
The birds of the beach soared over our heads, higher than the early morning rising summer sun, taking turns plunging into the Long Island Sound. Their impacts sent a sputter of splashes on the surface, wings flapping amidst the spray, almost like they were cooling off in a ceramic bird bath at the center of a peaceful garden. The air was fresh and only slightly saline as high tide swept up the shore, covering the thousands of small, hollowed-out sandy homes of Crab Meadow Beach with a shifting layer of foamy water. Allison and Jamie bowing their heads, gently closed their eyes, bringing their foreheads to softly rest upon one another like wings spread in the wind, floating above the earth, ready to take their dive at any moment.
Jamie and Allison took the proverbial “plunge” or “dive” a couple months prior under the tree cover of a forest in Maryland at the height of quarantine. They, like many other couples who planned to get married in 2020, had to decide what the celebration of their love would look like during a pandemic. It’s so hard to shift expectations when they’ve already been set, but if it’s anything we’ve learned from Jamie and Allison and the difficult situation in general, is that love, like water, will always find a way.
Jamie and Allison’s Zoom wedding celebration in June was intimate and endearing, heartfelt, and natural. Figuring out how to get hundreds of little faces to fill a series of screens on several different devices changes the physical landscape of the audience but not the nature of the celebration. Love is—and always will be—at the core of weddings, and we’re watching in real time how we are all adapting to our expression of it. While a few family members were on hand to photograph the ceremony and first dance on the day of, Jamie and Allison decided they would take a trip up to us in Long Island, NY, to further honor and document their love and connection.
The idyllic found a home in circumstances less than ideal that morning on Crab Meadow Beach. Jamie and Allison moved effortlessly in the sand in their stunning wedding clothes as we watched and snapped away in awe. Heather is a sucker for evening golden hour and sunrise wedding photography and our morning with Allison and Jamie further solidified her resolve. The golden shape of their smiles and the aura around their faces hit the lens and our hearts with equal emotion. It was hard not to be happy.
And that’s what many couples think they are missing during this tough time. There’s definitely some truth to it but Heather and I and Jamie and Allison are the silver (or golden) lining kind of people; we are the kind of people who know that our love and our effort will carry us through the tough times and lift us even higher in the lighter ones; we are the kind of people who commit and take a plunge when we need to but extend our wings and float in the breeze while we can.
Enjoy some of the pics from Allison & Jamie’s Wedding portraits:
