Kaitlin & Matthew

Kaitlin got ready in a bright room with blinds half drawn, her dark hair loose down her back while a friend helped with the gown. Later she sat on a red sofa under a long lace-edged veil, and another friend fussed over the lace until it fell right. Outside a shingled house, the groomsmen in white dinner jackets and black ties strolled the lawn in sunglasses like they owned the place.

The ceremony was in a grey stone Episcopal church, organ pipes stacked above the choir, and Kaitlin came down the aisle on the arm of an older man in a tux. Out on the steps afterward it turned into a receiving line of hugs, a bridesmaid in pale pink waving her bouquet overhead. Matthew then drove them off himself in a white vintage car, the church crowd still lined up on the sidewalk behind them.

Back at the house, the property ran straight down to a wooden dock over the bay, with an American and an Italian flag snapping on the pole. The wedding party lined the boardwalk, the bridesmaids sat along the dock with their feet dangling, and the couple found a bench in the tall grass beside a tiki torch. I stayed back and let the sunset do the work. After dark the sailcloth peaks lit up peach against a deep blue sky.