Water's Edge Winter Wedding Photos

Apollo Fields | Water’s Edge Wedding Photos | Centerport Wedding Photographer | Long Island Wedding Photographer

AlexANDRA + BryaN

I never thought of it before, but a wedding is like a home. It is a place to celebrate the people you love with food and drinks, complete with little pieces of yourself scattered about like clues to your soul. Some weddings are sterile like condos with uncomfortably modern furniture, while others are welcoming like old homes with large wooden tables and smooth wooden benches. You know as soon as you walk in, right after you hand your coat to the host or the coat-check, what kind of experience you’re about to embark upon. Well Alexandra and Bryan’s wedding at Water’s Edge in Centerport, New York, was the kind of celebration where you have to wait ‘til the next morning for the candle wax to dry, because no one was blowing out any candles any time soon.

Centerport Wedding Photographer

Shortly after moving into their early 20th century, 1,200 square-foot house in Centerport in 2017, Alexandra and Bryan started becoming obsessed with local history. They became increasingly involved with the Greenlawn - Centerport Historical Association and knew that they would want to keep their celebration as local as possible. Enter Water’s Edge, the historic Thatched Cottage seated on the edge of Mill Pond with a brand new lease on life. It was the perfect place to celebrate their love and it was just a stone’s throw away from their front door.

Water’s Edge Wedding Photos

When you walk into the foyer of Water’s Edge, the clean white marble and large spiral staircase harkens back to the glam ballrooms of the Gatsby era. The decor is modern yet timeless, and the various spaces allow for customization to your heart’s content. Alexandra seized this opportunity to celebrate her love of F. Scott Fitzgerald and imprinted the beautiful blank slate with impressions of her home on every table and in every corner. Vintage books with beautiful blue bindings beneath every dried floral centerpiece, a one-of-a-kind dreamy moon-themed photobooth, and matchbox and candle wedding favors that were both cute and functional. There were no design pages left unturned.

Personal Wedding Vows

Coming from a writer who couldn’t quite get the right words for his own wedding vows, I couldn’t advocate more for speaking about your love at the altar. Just like everything else in life, it’s less about what you say, and more about how you say it. Bryan decided to use Alexandra’s name as an acronym and to use every letter to symbolize something meaningful about their relationship. Alexandra decided to quote a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald depicting the responsiblities of marriage. In my experience as a wedding photographer, your wedding day is a sort of dress rehearsal for the rest of your relationship, and when things inevitably go wrong, how do you handle it? Well when the brakes of the special-ordered vintage car smoked and caught on fire, Alexandra and Bryan rolled (literally) with the punches and embraced the change rather than fought against it. Something tells me that these two will be loving each other for a long, long time.

Inviting Us into Your Home

When we said our goodbyes to Alexandra and Bryan at the end of their wedding, it was like embracing guests at the end of a dinner party. You want the candles to keep burning, the cocktails to keep stirring, and the laughs to keep going. That is what is undoubtedly the best and most rewarding thing about our jobs as wedding photographers. To develop relationships with people like Alexandra and Bryan who would rather build a longer table than a higher fence. In a home and a life like the one they’re building, it’s no surprise that their benches are smooth with the company they keep.

Vendors

Photography: Apollo Fields
Venue: Water’s Edge
Flowers: Hydrangea Home
Photobooth: PicPerf Photobooth, Jenn and Laurie, 917-301-4974
Cake: Dortoni's
Music: Absolute DJs
Guestbook: FeteFone
Wedding band (Alexandra): Erstwhile (created by Erstwhile)
Engagement ring: Erstwhile (vintage)
Wedding band (Brian): Rustic & Main (whiskey barrel, mahogany, rose gold in lay)
Suit: Men’s Warehouse
Dress: from BHLDN FiDi in Manhattan, shoes from BHLDN website (Rachel Simpson)
Transportation: MV Limosines
Invitations & Menus from Paige & Co (UK) - Moon & Stars suite
Make up - Erica Heras
Hair - Danielle Cosmo

Coastal Wedding at Water's Edge in Centerport, NY

Apollo Fields | Long Island Wedding Photographers | Best Wedding Photos | Water’s Edge Wedding in Centerport | NY Wedding Photographers

Erin + Gavin’s Wedding

Wedding season 2022 is upon us and it feels gooooood! Heather, Capa, and I spent most of our “off-season” traveling: a couple of work trips to Florida, and a few leisure trips to Mexico City, Aruba, and Vermont. Everything and everywhere seems to feel fuller, more enriching with Capa growing by our sides. The bigger he gets the more he engages, and the more I want to throw him on my shoulders and show him the world.

Water’s Edge Wedding Photos

The venue formerly known as Thatched Cottage on 25A in Centerport has gotten a fancy new facelift and it is stunning. Clean, marble surfaces, pristine white walls and columns, and a beautiful expansive patio out on the water. The decor is modern and inviting, well lit, and flattering. We were so excited to work in the space and Gavin and Erin’s wedding did not disappoint!

Oyster Bay Engagement Photography

We began the day at Gavin and Erin’s gorgeous home in Oyster Bay, where the girls were getting ready while the guys relaxed at the Marriot hotel in Melville. As a photographer, there are a few things you come to expect when you walk in the door: clouds of hairspray, half-drunken mimosas, curling irons, makeup kits, and empty water bottles, and a bride slightly on edge. Everything is finally coming together and the reality of their wedding day is beginning to set in. We like to plan to arrive 30 minutes before the bride gets in her dress, and Gavin and Erin’s home checked all of the boxes except that Erin was as calm as a breeze passing over Oyster Bay.

Wedding Vibes Come From the Top Down

You can pretty much tell how a wedding day is going to go when you see a couple engage with each other after their “first look.” Up until then, the jitters of marrying your partner play in your mind like those nostalgic butterflies on the playground—except they feel a lot larger. Before Gavin even turned around to see Erin he turned to me and said, “I know I’m gonna cry,” and that’s all you really need to know about their relationship. They have a kind tenderness to the way they look at each other; and we knew that when we did their engagement session a few months earlier.

Bridal Parties Amplify the Vibe

A proper bridal party knows their couple inside and out, tends to their wants and needs, and parties their faces off. Whether that means packing the dance floor, carrying the bride’s train, or pouring her a baby shot of vodka to curb the jitters, a bridal party knows what to do. That couldn’t have been more true for both sides of Gavin and Erin’s bridal parties, who gave support and care when their best friends needed it, and were the first ones to lift them off the ground when they asked for that too. They were a photographer’s dream: photogenic, packed with energy, and followed direction to a tee. Bravo to the couple for picking solid crews to surround them!

Rain Happens, But Don’t Let it Cloud Your Wedding Day

The more perfect you expect your wedding to be the more upset you will be when things out of your control happen. I’m not saying don’t get excited, I’m saying be prepared to embrace contingency plans. On an otherwise gorgeous day, Gavin and Erin had to shift their ceremony location change at the last minute due to rain in the area, but they didn’t let it get them down. The strength of their relationship and their connection to each other permeated the stress of the situation and they still had a beautiful ceremony thanks to the fast-moving team at Water’s Edge. Love is a top-down thing on your wedding day, and that is even more true for the rest of your life! 

vendors

Photography | Apollo Fields
Venue | Water’s Edge | Centerport, NY
Band | Silver Arrow Band
Cake | Dortoni Bakery
Floral | Verbena Designs
Rings | Catbird | Brooklyn, NY
Dress | BHLDN
Suit | Men’s Wearhouse
Invitations | Minted / The Printery (Oyster Bay, NY)
Transportation | Mark of Elegance