Nantucket Wedding at the White Elephant Hotel

Abby Capalbo
June 25, 2014
Categories: Real Weddings, The Blog, Traditional Elegance

Nantucket weddings are always ridiculously pretty, but when they are hosted at the White Elephant Hotel with floral design by Soiree Floral, invitations by Ceci New York and sparkles and champagne sprinkled in wherever possible? Well, that’s a whole new level of pretty. And when Christian Oth Studio is behind the lens snapping up every perfect detail – we know we’ve struck wedding gold. See it all here.

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From The Bride…Jack and I met in 2009 at a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in NYC through mutual friends. At the end of the day Jack asked for my phone number and I said no! However, over the next few months we kept running into each other and eventually I gave in and we started “hanging out.” We dated casually for about a year before we decided to give our relationship a real try. From there we had the best two years together, testing out different restaurants in NYC for date night, going on vacations together, and after a year, moving in together.

Jack proposed in September 2012 during a trip to Napa. We were flying in to San Francisco and planned to spend one night there before heading out to wine country. Jack had the ring in his pocket the entire flight from New York to San Francisco and was trying to figure out when and where to pop the question. But ultimately he couldn’t wait – right when we arrived to our hotel room, there was a knock on the door and in came a bottle of champagne. Before I knew it, Jack had gotten down on his knee with the most gorgeous ring and asked me to marry him. We then spent the rest of our time in Napa celebrating – enjoying the delicious food and wine and discussing how we envisioned our wedding.

We both immediately thought of Nantucket. We had vacationed there together several times during our relationship and it was a place that was special to the both of us that we wanted to share with our family and friends. We wanted everyone to fall in love with the island like we had – and they did! With a fall wedding, it felt like we had the island to ourselves.

Both of our families and all of our friends really enjoy a good time, so we wanted to make sure to accommodate. We kicked off the wedding weekend with an amazing rehearsal dinner at Cisco Brewery (one of our favorite spots to go after the beach) hosted by Jack’s family. The dinner was complete with lobster, barbeque chicken, the Brewery’s signature drinks and live music.

The day of the wedding started off a little rainy, which had me nervous, but as the ceremony got closer, the clouds parted and the sun started to come out…just in time! The traditional ceremony was held at First Congregational Church, officiated by Reverend Gary Klingsporn and as we left the church, our friends and family tossed glitter (instead of petals) our way. We then had a bagpiper lead the crowd as we all walked from the church down to The White Elephant Hotel for the cocktail hour and reception. The cocktail hour was hosted on the lawn overlooking the harbor and featured passed appetizers and a raw bar. Though I wanted to keep the color palette fairly subtle since the island is so gorgeous on its own, Dawn Kelly from Soiree Floral and I tried to work in my love for sparkles and champagne iwherever we could! We covered the cocktail tables with white and gold sequin chevron linens and tied escort cards to mini champagne bottles to show guests to their seats.

Following cocktail hour, guests were led into a stunning tent for the reception as Jack and I had our first dance as husband and wife to The Lumineers’ “Ho Hey.” From that point on the dance floor was the place to be. As the night came to a close (for some), guests lit wish lanterns for us and let them float up into the night sky. It was truly a picture perfect wedding.