On the water
Waterfront wedding venues on Long Island.
We're an island. Getting married on the water isn't a stretch out here, half the time it's just the default. The only real question is which water.
We're an island. Getting married on the water isn't a stretch out here, half the time it's just the default. The only real question is which water.
Sound, bay or ocean — they are three different weddings. Which one is on every card. Owners: claim your listing.
Private Sound beach in Bayville, ceremony on the sand and cocktail hour up the steps.
Prime's event room on Huntington Harbor, boats going by all night.
Port Jefferson hotel on the harbor, wedding and room block under one roof.
Massapequa mansion with the bay at the back door.
Patchogue room on the Great South Bay from the same Lombardi family.
Ballroom with the Great South Bay running past the windows.
Ronkonkoma hall with the lake out the windows, big on quinceañeras too.
A working paddlewheeler that boards in Bay Shore and does the reception afloat.
County golf-course mansion in Great River looking over the water.
Eagle's Nest, the Vanderbilt estate over Northport Bay, booked through approved caterers.
Oceanfront rooms, a spa, and a ballroom over the dunes.
Harbor-side resort on Star Island with docks in the photos.
The North Shore puts you on the Long Island Sound. Calm water, harbor towns, and the light coming off the Sound at golden hour that photographers build the whole timeline around. The Crescent Beach Club in Bayville sits right on it, and the Harbor Club at Prime puts you on Huntington Harbor. The South Shore trades that for the Great South Bay: boats, barrier islands, a straight breeze off the Atlantic, and bayfront rooms like the Piermont in Babylon. Head further out and the water changes again to Peconic Bay and Gardiners Bay, quieter and cooler and next door to the vineyards. At the very tip, off Montauk and the Hamptons, it opens up to ocean.
Pick your water and the rest of the day settles around it. A Sound sunset in Bayville and a bay breeze in Sayville are two different weddings, and either one beats a room with no windows.
On the water, the sunset hour sets your timeline before you do. In late June it sets around 8:30, so dinner gets the show through the windows. By late October it's gone before six, which means an evening ceremony happens in the dark unless you move everything up. Ask which way the room faces before you ask anything else, because a west-facing room on the Sound delivers the photo everyone came for, and an east-facing room delivers a lovely view of dusk. Your photographer will build the whole day backward from that hour, so know it before you print the invitations.
Every waterfront venue has a gorgeous ceremony spot outside and a plan for when the weather turns. Make them show you the plan. Ask who makes the call to move the dock ceremony inside and by what time, because you don't want to be the one deciding at 4:40 with your hair done. The pictures worth seeing are of a wedding they ran in bad weather, not the brochure day. A room that looks good with rain on the glass is a keeper, and the Sound in a storm is its own kind of show.