Windows on the Water at Surfrider Beach Club Wedding

Last weekend, I photographed Katie and Earl’s Windows on the Water at Surfrider Beach Club Wedding in Sea Bright, New Jersey. These two had the perfect Spring day with portraits at Deep Cut Gardens, followed by a highly personal beach ceremony and then a lively dance floor at their Windows on the Water reception – Earl had some of the best dance moves out of any of my groom’s ever! Their day was filled with special touches, the first being that Sea Bright is Katie’s favorite place in the world. Although my favorite detail of the day was that Katie wore her grandmother’s headpiece that she wore for her wedding in 1940. Her mother also wore it for her wedding in 1991 and now, Katie wore it for her wedding in 2022.

Katie and Earl met during the beginning of their first year of law school, if you consider meeting Katie glaring across the classroom every time Earl raised his hand. Which was a lot. Eventually the glaring turned into a friendship – one that included Earl considering Katie’s requests for what to put on Netflix during class (normally How I Met Your Mother). Their mutual friend, Donette, finally talked some sense into Earl and shortly thereafter, their love story began. They started dating just in time for graduation, and then were thrust into bar prep. If you can survive ten hours of studying with the same person for six days a week for nearly three months, you can probably survive anything together. All those hours of studying & Scandal reruns paid off when they both passed the bar, celebrating by each other’s sides and realizing that maybe the hours they had spent together studying weren’t just studying after all.

Earl proposed at the end of their covid-cation in Asbury Park, which was originally meant to be a trip to Orlando. After a week of Katie’s cousins sending not so subtle texts asking for status updates, they had packed up and were heading home when they stopped in Sea Bright to grab lunch at one of their favorite restaurants. They stopped on Katie’s favorite beach to soak up a beautiful October day before the restaurant opened and ultimately ended up taking a walk along the water. A walk that ended with Earl down on one knee as Katie yelled the word he definitely wasn’t planning on hearing – “NO!” To say he had surprised her was an understatement, and she was thinking more along the “no way this is happening!,” but she quickly recovered and said the much more appropriate “YES!” – all before he could even say any of what he had planned. It was hysterical, and perfect, and all done in matching Batman t-shirts in her favorite place in the world.

Katie and Earl are currently honeymooning in Hawaii. Thank you for choosing me to photograph your Windows on the Water at Surfrider Beach Club Wedding!