William Morgan: Matrimony in Mattapoisett
Photos and text by William Morgan, a Providence-based architectural historian and critic and a photographer.
John Quincy Adams, the only president to return to Congress after his term in the Oval Office, was instrumental in establishing the Ned’s Point Lighthouse, in Mattapoisett, Mass., in 1838. Automated in 1923, the beacon is now the center of a park in the boating community on Buzzards Bay–a perfect summer place to throw frisbee or fly a kite. The lighthouse is also the focus of formal wedding pictures.
After hot dogs and ice cream in Mattapoisett, my wife, Carolyn, and I often go to Ned’s Point to look over the harbor and across the bay to the western shore of Cape Cod and south to the Elizabeth Islands. On a recent Saturday, our reverie was broken by the arrival of a black van that disgorged three photographers, dressed in black and looking like a SWAT team, their many cameras hanging in holsters; one of the crew launched a drone camera. Then a black bus, with blacked-out windows–the kind that rock stars and country music singers travel in–emptied out a bride and groom and their 14 attendants. The uber-professional documenters herded their flock into various tableaux.
One can only imagine what this one element of a larger matrimonial production cost. Weddings have gotten bigger, fancier and more expensive. Strapless gowns with billowing skirts (to hide America’s ever-increasing avoirdupois?), along with ubiquitous disfiguring tattoos. As is typical of most weddings of the last decade, the men wear too-tight suits with short tails and medium brown shoes.
A week later, a similar photo-assault scenario was repeated. But this time, it was just the bride and groom. It was also a Friday, so perhaps it was a preview photo shoot (the flowers were provided by the picture takers) or a much smaller wedding. (Carolyn and I have a theory that the larger the wedding, the less likely the marriage is to survive. We were married at a courthouse 45 years ago.) Whatever the circumstances, the wedding pair were almost refreshingly old-fashioned: he with black shoes and a dinner jacket; she in a simple, although somewhat risqué, diaphanous sheath.
