Beach weddings are one of the many variations for a New York wedding on long island. There are mansion weddings in historic landmark buildings of the golden era, tent weddings on amazing estates (like one wedding I photographed where we were right next door to Christie Brinkley, and no, they didn’t invite her, and yes, much to my dismay) and of course vineyard weddings.

So when it comes to the wedding ceremony, the options are just as intriguing. Like this one. The ceremony was held at the Jones Beach lighthouse in long island, New York. We also got to climb inside and create a few wedding photographs in the lighthouse’s interior.

Every wedding has unique photo opportunities to it. Sometimes I get a formula question like, “have you ever photographed a wedding at my venue?” where the bride and groom think this means you’re well acquainted with the place and presumably know the best spots to take a photo.

The truth is, the ability to know where best to take photos doesn’t have anything to do with how acquainted anyone is with a wedding site. A quick scout of the location tells you all you need to know. I’d rather photograph where the light’s the best to get the best looking photos, and light doesn’t play favorites with what spots it wishes to smile on.

There’s a drawback to being familiar with wedding venues the bride and groom need to keep in mind, and that is, that photographer’s tendency to take the same photos again he or she took at the last wedding because they know they came out satisfactory, but of course that tends to become a cookie-cutter routine to the next bride and groom. And a wedding picture taking routine snapping away dozens of pre-conceived set up photos within a few minutes always ends up as cookie-cutter photos.

Anyhow, I could swear this first wedding photo from this Jones Beach wedding reminds me of a movie poster for a summer beach wedding…