Although I am based in New York City, I am always excited when I get to go back to my hometown of Portland to shoot a Southern Maine wedding. Since I come back so often – and love an excuse to visit the Old Port – I don’t charge any travel fees for wedding packages booked back in the 207. I am even planning my own wedding in Southern Maine soon, happening just off the coast!
Nicole and her husband Bobby made returning to where I started shooting weddings all the sweeter with their amazingly elegant and fun nuptials. Rain couldn’t get them down, and Spring Point Lighthouse and Willard Beach looked almost as good in a coat of fog as the happy couple did.
The girls all wanted to have a little debaucherous fun, at least in a photo or two.
Nicole’s father sadly passed a few years ago just off the coast of Southern Maine where the wedding ceremony was set to take place. Her mother made his wedding band into a necklace for Nicole to wear on the day and sewed in a sweet message to remind her that he was always by her side.
Nicole’s amazingly talented sister Tori pulled double duty, both as a maid of honor and also singing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” as Nicole walked down the aisle.
After a sweet ceremony officiated by family, we headed to Willard Beach for some family portraits and fun with the wedding party.
Nicole and Bobby’s super adventurous wedding party took “Can you stand by the rocks?” to mean “Be total badasses and climb them!” I can’t complain, because these are too cool.
When fog started rolling in, which is sadly common for a Southern Maine wedding in June, we ran back to Spring Point for a few last photos and to have some fun at the cocktail hour.
Nicole’s sisters surprised the happy couple and all their guests after faking that they ‘forgot their speech and were going to wing it’ with an expert mashup of pop songs rewritten to toast the happy couple!
I don’t know if it’s a Southern Maine wedding tradition, but I’ll take splitting-the-lobster to cutting-the-cake any day! Truly what is a Maine wedding without lobster?
When cutting the cake failed, Nicole and Bobby chose a more practical solution of just chomping down on each end of it. Then Nicole was taken by the urge smash the whole thing in her new husband’s face! To her credit, she helped clean him up and ate as much of the cake as possible – even after it fell in the grass.
At the very end of the night, we braved the rain for my favorite shot to do at any wedding: a little off camera-flash uplighting an umbrella, just this time the umbrella was really necessary!
