Rory and Linden's 'Summer Equinox' Micro Wedding in New York by Hawthorn Poto

Today I am tacking you to Port Henry in New York for the super chilled and extremely personal wedding of Rory and Linden who were married on 22nd September 2025. These two beautiful brides looked radiant and kept their looks similar but unique at the same time, creating a beautiful contrast between each others style. They wanted to make sure the day reflected them as a couple, so kept all elements either hand made or filled with intention and love. The intimate number of 20 guests made it possible for every element to be carried out with thought and care. This wedding is not only a reminder of how relaxed as wedding day can be, but how beautiful it is when two beautiful souls really put their own stamp on their day. Big thanks to Hawthorn Poto for the lovely images.

Twenty people, one lake shore, and a wedding that ran on gratitude, old ritual, and whoever lost at musical chairs.

Sarah the photographer tells us more about the day

Rory and Linde met in the Peace Corps, which tells you most of what you need to know about them before you even get to the wedding day. People who sign up to serve somewhere unfamiliar, far from comfort, tend to know what they’re looking for and skip the parts that don’t matter. So when it came time to marry, twenty people on a lake shore was the whole plan. No wedding party. No first look. No script beyond gathering the people who raised them and trusting the day to unfold the way their partnership always had, improvised and sure-footed at once.

The morning started in separate bedrooms of the same rented house, getting ready down the hall from each other. Barefoot, they carried their own wild, dried-flower bouquets down to the water, where the ceremony arch stood waiting: driftwood lashed together by hand and hung with a garland of dried blood orange slices and eucalyptus, an old rowboat pulled up on the sand beside it, a lone sailboat anchored out past the shallows. One bride in ivory lace, the other in a silk slip the color of champagne with a long, sheer cape. They stood on the New York shore of Lake Champlain and said their vows facing east, Vermont’s Green Mountains across the water, the kind of wide, quiet backdrop that makes twenty people feel like enough.

The ceremony ran on ritual instead of tradition, each piece chosen on purpose. Sage burned to clear the space. Ten minutes of silence in the style of a Quaker meeting, the whole group sitting with nothing but the sound of water while the couple let the moment settle before saying anything at all. Rings exchanged as necklaces instead of on fingers, worn close instead of shown off.

Then came the twist nobody but the couple knew was coming. Instead of naming a witness ahead of time, Rory and Linden surprised the entire group with a round of musical chairs on the lawn, elbows out, dresses hiked up, fully competitive, grandparents and toddlers and everyone between diving for the same chair. Whoever was left standing earned the job of signing the license. The guests carried their own chairs to the lunch table afterward, cocktails already in hand, while the newlyweds slipped away for ten minutes alone, a bottle of champagne cracked open between them at the tree line, laughing too hard to pour it straight, before rejoining everyone. The reception had the same unscripted, everybody-pitches-in spirit as the ceremony. Lunch came from Farmstead Catering at Echo Farms, dessert from enuf chocolates, and the couple handled their own florals and playlist, no planner or coordinator beyond each other, the same way they’d planned everything else since the Peace Corps.