Sarah and Graham wanted their guests to feel the ocean before they saw a single flower, and the atmosphere that made that possible came from Griffin & Griffin. The Scarborough studio handled lighting and draping across a three-house oceanfront estate, color washing the tent ceilings, layering hanging fixtures over the dance floor, and tuning the glow so it shifted from bright afternoon celebration to warm late-night dancing without ever announcing itself. Work like that is easy to overlook precisely because it is doing its job, holding a colorful, casual Maine weekend inside one continuous mood.
Location: Maine, USA
Style: Colorful, Сoastal, Сasual
Time of planning: 15 months
Number of guests: 150
Setting: Oceanfront Estate
Season: Summer
Sarah is from New Jersey and Graham is from Maine, and they met during the COVID-19 lockdowns on a dating app in New York City. Their first date happened in Central Park, which is also where Graham later proposed, choosing a private rooftop that looked out over the same park. That instinct to return to a meaningful place rather than manufacture a new one carried straight into how they built the wedding.
They chose an estate with 28 rooms across three houses specifically so their family and closest friends could stay on the property for the entire weekend. The couple describe the vision as the intersection of a vacation, a summer camp, and a wedding, with guests swimming, playing games, and riding bikes between houses. Graham grew up in Maine and both of them gravitate toward the water, so the location did double duty as a homecoming and a shared love of the coast. They pushed the whole event toward something more vibrant and personal, leaning on local sourcing for the food and in-season New England blooms for the florals.
Bride's Morning & Fashion
Sarah wore the Suki gown by Mira Zwillinger, Tel Aviv couture house led by mother and daughter Mira and Lihi Zwillinger, known for made-to-measure construction and handcrafted floral appliqué and embroidery, which places Sarah’s choice firmly in the current bridal appetite for texture and dimension over flat minimalism. She paired the gown with Jimmy Choo shoes and carried her mother’s purse, borrowed from her own wedding day, the kind of inherited object that does more emotional work than any new accessory could.
Her wedding band from Ashley Zhang is an art deco inspired piece with hand carved flowers and diamond baguettes, a period reference that rewards close looking rather than shouting from across the room. Sarah carried a bouquet of simple white dahlias, a restrained counterpoint to the saturated color everywhere else, and she chose a Parfums de Marly scent specifically for the day so that it could later function as memory storage, worn only on special occasions. Hair came from Hair that Moves and makeup from Bar Harbor Beauty.
Groom’s Fashion
Graham wore a custom midnight navy tuxedo from Wazin Custom Tailor, choosing the deep blue because it read more like him than a traditional black tuxedo would. His ring came from Gurhan, a house recognized for hand hammered gold and an artisanal finish, which keeps the metal reading as craft rather than catalog. The couple decided against a traditional bridal party, so instead of a matched lineup the emphasis stayed on the friends who occupied the houses all weekend.
Ceremony
The ceremony took place directly in front of the water because Sarah and Graham wanted to actually hear the ocean during the vows, using the sound as a grounding element through a significant moment. STONEBLOSSOM framed the space in hydrangeas arranged as a dramatic gradient from pink to green, a bloom that reads as unmistakably coastal New England and a color story anchored in pink, Sarah’s favorite.
They asked a close friend to officiate and kept the ceremony content a deliberate surprise, hearing none of it in advance, which is a growing move among couples who want to experience their own wedding as guests rather than as producers. A few Jewish traditions were woven in to honor Sarah’s faith, including the hora later in the evening, and the overall register stayed joyful and laughter driven rather than solemn.
Moments Together
Between the ceremony and the reception the couple leaned into the satellite bar concept that has taken over cocktail hours lately, running an Aperol spritz cart alongside their two signature drinks. Those cocktails carried real narrative weight, a blueberry mojito as a shared favorite and a spicy Paloma as a callback to the first drink they had together on their first date.
Catering from Trillium Caterers pulled heavily from local ingredients, and the coastal theme showed up in the small details the couple love most, from shell shaped butter at dinner to custom menus printed with fish on a line as a nod to their shared fishing habit.
An ice sculpture with fresh flowers frozen inside sat within the spread, a technique that has resurfaced in current entertaining as a way to make a functional object into a floral moment.
The photography across these unstructured stretches came from Kate Thompson, whose frames of the couple do the heavy lifting on intimacy while the color images capture the saturated palette running through the food, the florals, and the guests.
Reception
The reception brief was elevated in look but casual in energy, and the decor delivered that split. Patterned tablecloths went on every table, layered with custom linen napkins the couple commissioned specifically so they could keep them afterward, and Sarah’s mother now uses them for family holidays.
The linen program itself came from two sources, Theoni Collection and BBJ La Tavola, which is how the tables hold that mix of pattern and softness, while rentals from Peak Event Services and Wallace Events and custom fabrication from AFA Rentals gave the tented spaces their structure. STONEBLOSSOM filled the arrangements with poppies, dahlias, hydrangeas, ranunculus, garden roses, and zinnias, a deliberately unfussy seasonal mix that matches the local sourcing running through the rest of the weekend.
Energy was the whole point of the room, so the couple went with a live band from East Coast Soul, betting correctly that a band would pull people onto the floor and keep them there. The cake was lemon and blueberry, a pairing that reads as summer and quietly echoes the blueberry running through their signature cocktail. Toasts came from both fathers, Graham’s best man, and Sarah’s sister as maid of honor, and in keeping with the couple’s running decision to be surprised by their own wedding, none of them were heard in advance.
The couple’s own throughline was the set of tiny, private details they hid across the weekend, the kind you have to look closely to catch. Their invitations and napkins from Tulaloo featured illustrations of a second line band made up of native Maine animals, a crossover nod to Sarah’s college years in New Orleans that reappeared at the after party as a piano bar serving Hurricanes, run by The Flying Ivories.
Dessert included key lime bars as a nod to the Florida Keys, and the after party favors were custom Maine themed sweatshirts and t-shirts from Seabird Studio, deliberately printed without names or a date so guests would actually wear them afterward. Sarah’s advice to other couples lands on exactly that logic, which is to build the day around what you genuinely love and to hand your vendors inspiration rather than instructions so they have room to create.
By the time the sun dropped and the party moved fully under canvas, the setting did something the daytime images only hint at. The tent ceilings glow, the scalloped pink draping reads warm rather than bright, and the light over the long tables and the dance floor softens into the kind of ambiance that makes 150 people feel like one room. That shift is the clearest argument for Griffin & Griffin, whose lighting and draping quietly carried the whole weekend from an oceanfront afternoon to a late-night celebration without ever breaking the mood.
Advice from the couple:
• Add a lot of personal touches that feel like you. Don’t worry about what other people or what’s trendy; if it’s what you love, your wedding will be timeless. It’s easy to want to copy other things you see, but you’ll get the best work out of your vendors if you provide inspiration and let them get creative!
LIGHTING & DRAPING Griffin & Griffin | PHOTOGRAPHER Kate Thompson | VIDEOGRAPHY The Libbys Photo and Films | PLANNING & DESIGN Nicole Mower Events | VENUE French’s Point | FLORALS STONEBLOSSOM | STATIONERY Tulaloo | HAIR Hair that Moves | MAKEUP Bar Harbor Beauty | DRESS Mira Zwillinger | SHOES Jimmy Choo | WEDDING BAND Ashley Zhang | PERFUME Parfums de Marly | GROOM’S TUXEDO Wazin Custom Tailor | GROOM’S RING Gurhan | CATERING Trillium Caterers | RENTALS Peak Event Services | RENTALS Wallace Events | LINENS Theoni Collection | LINENS BBJ La Tavola | CUSTOM BUILD AFA Rentals | TRANSPORTATION VIP Charter Coaches | AFTER PARTY MUSICIANS The Flying Ivories | SWEATSHIRTS Seabird Studio | ENTERTAINMENT East Coast Soul
