Our Wedding Day in Acadia National Park
photo by Bridget Stephenson Photography
As soon as we got engaged, we knew we would be doing something non-traditional for our wedding day, but the question was - what? I had always imagined eloping, getting married on top of a mountain just me and my person, and my very-extroverted husband couldn’t imagine not celebrating our wedding with friends and family. So, we came up to a compromise - we’d do it all! Choosing the “where” was easy; we’d vacationed in Acadia several times and had been trying to get our families to join us on those vacations, so this was the perfect opportunity to make that happen. Acadia is an incredibly accessible national park, meaning our family members who had some mobility challenges could enjoy the beauty of the park as well - no hiking required for them! Next, we decided on our accommodations - a huge old mansion that would accommodate us and our immediate families for a week long vacation/wedding celebration. Bonus - it had an incredible yard that we were able to hold a “reception” in a few days after we actually got married. Once those details were set, we got to the fun part of planning our wedding day and hiring our incredible photography team - Bridget and Ryan of Bridget Stephenson Photography! Thanks to them for all the amazing photos of our day that I’m sharing in this blog!
Doug and I looooove hiking and we’re outside every chance we get, so we knew that would be a big part of our day. We decided to split our day into two chunks of time - sunrise for just the two of us (and our photographers, of course!) and sunset for our ceremony with our family present. So we started our day with a sunrise hike up Beehive (in my wedding dress). It was absolutely perfect - the weather was gorgeous and the sun rose over the horizon just as we were getting to the cliffs, so we got to take a pause and take in the beautiful start to our wedding day. We were the first to summit Beehive that day and enjoyed chai and snacks at the summit before heading down and going to Sand Beach for a few pictures. Next, we headed over to Jordan Pond and did a little hiking around before saying goodbye to Bridget and Ryan and heading back to our Airbnb. We had a huge chunk of downtime between our sunrise session and our evening ceremony, so we got to relax at our Airbnb, we swam in the ocean at the nearby cove, and just hung out with family.
Around 4:30pm Bridget and Ryan met us back at our Airbnb and we got some photos around there and with family before we headed down to the Ocean Path. We hiked along Ocean Path, meeting up with family along the way to get more family photos (including our families was very important to us!). We made our way slowly to our ceremony spot on Otter Cliffs, getting there just in time for sunset. Doug and I exchanged the vows we’d written to each other in front of our family, and some of our family members shared stories and poems to make our ceremony that much more special. It is truly one of my most special memories.
After our ceremony, we headed back to our Airbnb to have dinner prepared by a local chef. It was the best day - even better than I imagined. Then we had a couple days just hanging with family, hiking, swimming, exploring before our friends and extended family arrived to town for our weekend celebration. Friday evening we hosted a party for everyone at our Airbnb, complete with dancing and cake-cutting! The next day we organized hikes for the whole group and had a great time taking 30+ people on the Jordan Pond Loop hike before we all headed up to Cadillac Mountain for the sunset. We brought our wedding cake up there and shared cake with all our family and friends while the sun set over Acadia. The last day of our wedding weekend started with sunrise hikes along the Ocean Path and up Beehive. We loved getting to share those moments and some of our favorite spots with the people closest to us. It was an incredibly special weekend and I’m so glad that Doug insisted on including everyone in our celebration!
To see our photographer’s write-up of our Acadia intimate wedding, click here. Bridget also shares lots more of our photos and a sweet video of our day.
