Kristen & Charlie

The groomsmen arrived like a movie opening, piled into a black vintage convertible on a gravel road with a white lighthouse standing over the dune grass behind them. Inside, the bridesmaids were still in pastel robes on the bed. Kristen, in a sleek one-shoulder gown, sat for a moment on a leather bench under a gilded eagle, then walked down a staircase with a navy runner and out into the day.

The ceremony filled a small wooden church, and the black and white of the recessional suits it: Kristen grinning, Charlie walking her out past the pews. On the chapel's green porch they stopped for one quiet frame together. Then Charlie took the wheel of the convertible himself, and the bridesmaids followed in a golf cart with the flower girls and a cocker spaniel in a bow tie.

Portraits wandered the neighborhood. He carried her across the sand while the bridesmaids in floral and blush gowns laughed on the beach path, and they walked a concrete pier straight out toward the Sound. Guests met them on the drive of a white-columned house, the convertible parked right in the middle of it all. After sunset the field went pink, the tent filled with paper lanterns, and the toasts had glasses raised to the ceiling.