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Kristen Leigh Conklin

1.1.13

Jordy & Julia

Ceremony: Witch of Endor

On a sunny August afternoon, Jordy Kane and Julia Gutierrez were sailing aboard the Witch of Endor out of Vineyard Haven harbor and listening to Captain Pascal tell stories about Martha’s Vineyard when photographer Kristen Leigh Conklin asked the couple an important question: “Do you want to get married now?” she said.

“We were like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is it!’” Julia says. The couple had come to the Island to elope. They had been planning a traditional wedding for April 2013, but there came a moment when having a big wedding no longer seemed to fit their vision. “We both asked each other the question: Would we rather spend that money on a vacation and just plan the wedding just the two of us?” Jordy says.

So the couple shared their new plan with their families. “They took it much better than I was expecting,” says Jordy, whose parents also eloped. Since the couple already had scheduled a summer trip from their home in Maryland to Boston, they decided to get married on the Vineyard.

Once they saw the forty-one-foot ketch Witch of Endor, Jordy says, “It planted the seed of...how great would it be to get married on a sailboat?”

Jordy and Julia booked a room at the Jonathan Munroe House in Edgartown. The groom wore a very Vineyard Kenneth Cole seersucker suit and the bride – well, the bride’s dress was “almost a bit of a debacle,” she says. Neither of the two dresses she had brought with her felt quite right. Then she discovered a navy nautical-themed Lilly Pulitzer dress while shopping at In the Pink in Edgartown. “I just fell in love with it,” she says.

After their ceremony, the newlyweds enjoyed poached lobster, duck, and upside-down peach cobbler at l’étoile restaurant in Edgartown. An older couple sitting nearby treated them to a celebratory bottle of wine and shared that it was their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

“That was a very sweet and special thing,” Julia says. “It was kind of like a good omen.”
The next day, the couple headed to Boston to start their honeymoon – the highlight being a Bruce Springsteen concert.

Having spent six months planning a traditional wedding that didn’t come to pass, Julia and Jordy say they have no regrets about eloping. Julia says, “You have to trust your instinct, because it is a special day that you hopefully only get to do once.”

Details

Photographer: Kristen Leigh Conklin
Celebrant: Justice of the Peace Deborah deBettencourt Ratcliff
Dinner: l’étoile
Transportation: Stagecoach Taxi
Dress: In the Pink
Spa Services: Sea Spa Salon