Hedges, Bamboo and a Tent in the Trees: LongHouse Reserve Wedding Field Notes
The first weekend of October is our favorite time to be out east. The summer traffic has thinned, the garden beds are full of late flowers, and the whole East End seems to take a breath. If we could spend that weekend anywhere, LongHouse Reserve would be near the top of the list. You arrive along an entrance drive lined with cryptomeria, and the house at the end of it looks like nothing else on Hands Creek Road. Jack Lenor Larsen, the textile designer, built it in 1986 and modeled it on the Shinto shrine at Ise in Japan, on land he had bought eleven years earlier.
We have photographed several weddings at LongHouse, and Sunny and Evan's, in October 2021, is the one we think of first. Our own note after that day was simple: "absolutely perfection, filled with so much love and joy." These are our field notes for couples who are close to booking it: where the ceremony and the tent go, the garden walk we take for portraits, what to plan around in the fall, and the questions we would put to the venue before signing.
A GARDEN THAT Reveals Itself SLOWLY
LongHouse is a public garden first. It covers sixteen acres in East Hampton, with established lawns, ornamental borders, plant collections and long, low berms that divide the property into separate rooms. More than sixty outdoor works sit in the gardens, Yoko Ono and Willem de Kooning among them, and part of the collection changes each season as artists lend new pieces. For a wedding, that means your guests spend cocktail hour a few steps from work most people pay admission to see.
The grounds feel quiet and a little formal. The hedges are tall and clipped hard, and the paths turn corners, so you come on each space one at a time: a stand of bamboo, a pond with a willow leaning over it, a path lined with ferns, a long corridor of columnar hedges. The garden's own map names some of these rooms, among them the Red Garden, the Hornbeam Allée, the Reflecting Pool, the Amphitheater and the Rose Arbor. That sense of discovery is what we love most about working there. Ask what will be on loan the month you marry, since the sculpture near your ceremony may be different from the one you saw on your site visit.
The garden also keeps its own calendar. LongHouse opens to visitors from April through December, Wednesday to Sunday from 12:30 to 5, and it closes to the public for private events, sometimes for a whole weekend. Ask early how your day fits around that.
A CEREMONY AMONG THE Hedges AT LONGHOUSE RESERVE
Sunny and Evan's ceremony was on a lawn with trees close in around it, guests in rows on the grass and musicians playing as she arrived. Her father walked her in along a path between tall hedges, with an attendant carrying the end of her cathedral veil. At the front, Rosandich Studios built an arch of blush roses, dahlias, hydrangea and pampas grass, with more pampas grass along the aisle and stone urns of flowers on either side. It felt like the garden had simply grown a little fuller for the day. When Sunny reached the arch she turned to hug her father, laughing, while Evan wiped his eyes.
Leslie Mastin Events planned the day, and the planning, in our words, "was impeccable." Every space was used for what it does best. Escort cards went on a wooden table set against a clipped hedge, tucked into moss and wildflowers, with a stone urn of yellow and coral dahlias at one end. Cocktail hour spread rattan sofas and lanterns between the tall hedges, so guests could settle in instead of standing around.
Dinner was in a clear tent from Stamford Tent, set down among the trees. From above it looks like a glass box dropped into the woods. Greenery-wrapped chandeliers hung inside, Luminous Designs handled the lighting, and the tables were set with gold flatware, candles and dahlias. Wedding listings put LongHouse at up to about 250 guests. Confirm that number with the venue, along with where the tent can go.
LongHouse does have space for getting ready, but we recommend getting ready at home or at a hotel nearby, and making your portraits there before you arrive. Sunny got ready at her mother's home in East Hampton, which has a pool and a covered porch. She had her hair done in her robe with avocado toast in hand, and Evan's father fixed his bow tie out on the porch. That pool gave us one of our favorite bridal party portraits: her friends in mismatched pink and coral dresses, all of them reflected in the water. If you are choosing a house for the morning, look for a pool or a big lawn with room for everyone.
Light AND TIMING FOR PHOTOS
Trees ring the ceremony lawn, so the sun leaves it well before it leaves the sky.
After Sunny and Evan's ceremony we did family photos at the arch, then couple portraits there with the candles lit. From the arch we walked them through the bamboo, along the fern path, down to the pond and through the hedge allée. We shot most of that walk on film, and a good part of it in black and white, because the hedges and the bamboo are all strong vertical lines and they read beautifully without color.
The gardens are spread out, and each space looks different from the last, so the walking is where portrait time goes. Give it at least 30 minutes after family photos and ask your planner to protect it.
Ask for a few minutes alone in the tent before the doors open. Sunny and Evan had a private first dance in the empty tent with the tables already set, and those are some of the quietest frames of the night. Later, seen from above with our own drone, the clear tent glows in the trees. LongHouse allowed it, but ask before you plan on it.
SEASONS AT LongHouse Reserve
Early October is our pick, and Sunny and Evan's day shows why. Their florals came straight out of the season: coral and yellow dahlias, pampas grass, white asters and ornamental grasses echoing what was growing in the borders.
Summer weekends book early, and a Friday on the Long Island Expressway in July can take twice as long as the map says. Build that into your getting-ready timeline. Spring at LongHouse starts with daffodils, close to a million of them by the garden's count, then tulips, dogwoods, cherries, azaleas and rhododendron. By June, clematis and roses are climbing the Rose Arbor.
The public season ends in December, so ask the venue which months it books private events.
GETTING THERE AND Where Guests Stay
LongHouse is at 133 Hands Creek Road in East Hampton, about two to two and a half hours from Manhattan by car, and three or more on a summer Friday. There's parking on site. For guests, the Jitney or the LIRR plus a short car ride makes the weekend easier than driving out.
The questions we would ask the venue before signing:
What hours can a private event run, and when does the music have to stop
Where the tent can go, and how many guests it holds
Where the ceremony moves if it rains
Which garden spaces are open for portraits, and which sculptures guests and the wedding party should stay clear of
Whether drones are allowed
OUR WEDDING AT LONGHOUSE RESERVE: Sunny and Evan
Sunny and Evan married here on the first weekend of October 2021, with Leslie Mastin Events planning and Rosandich Studios on the florals. There was a toast from a maid of honor in coral silk, and by the end of the night both of them had been carried over the dance floor by their friends. Read the full story in Sunny and Evan's LongHouse Reserve wedding photos, or see the full LongHouse Reserve gallery.
Tressa and Graham married at LongHouse too [CONFIRM: month and year], and it rained. The garden held up beautifully. Wet stone and dark, glossy hedges photograph better than most people expect, and the color in the borders gets richer under a grey sky.
For the rest of the East End, from the Maidstone Club out to Montauk, see our Hamptons wedding venues guide.
THE FEELING OF A DAY AT LongHouse
What we remember about LongHouse is how calm it makes everyone. The hedges hide the next space until you are in it, so the day unfolds in small reveals: the hedge path, the arch, the pond, the tent lit up in the woods. Couples and guests slow down to match the garden. On a clear weekend in early October, with the right people and a team that knows how to use the place, it is about as good as a wedding out east gets.
PLANNING A LongHouse Reserve WEDDING
We're Trent and Dara, and we've been photographing weddings out east since 2010, on 35mm and medium format film alongside digital. BRIDES named us one of the 50 best wedding photographers in the world, and our work has been featured in Vogue and Over the Moon. More on how we work in the Hamptons is on our Hamptons wedding photographer page.
If LongHouse is on your list, we are happy to share what we know about it before you sign anything. Tell us about your plans on our inquiry page, write to inquire@trentbailey.com.