The Dress Code Was “Beach Chic” For This Wedding in Harbour Island
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Two years before they actually started dating, Brendan Monaghan asked a mutual friend about now-husband Mark Herman. “He had our friend find out if I was single or not,” Mark remembers. “And, at the time, I was dating someone.”
They would see each other out at social events, but it wasn’t until Mark became single two years later when they reconnected via social media. “He asked me out on a date, we had dinner at the bar at Red Cat, and have been together ever since,” Mark says.
Three years after that first date, Brendan, who is the former publisher of Condé Nast Traveller, proposed on top of a mountain in Courmayeur, Italy, where a friend has a house. “There are just a few tiny homes, and the only way you can get to them, and the one restaurant, is by snowmobile,” Brendan explains. “The restaurant is only closed for about two hours between 5 and 7 p.m. It was Mark’s birthday weekend, and I knew he wouldn’t expect me to propose then, so I lured him out of the tiny house to ‘give him his birthday present.’ We walked over to a bonfire the restaurant had prepared. For Valentine’s Day, I had given him a book called The Book of Me—a do-it-yourself autobiography that’s very detailed about my life. And then, when I proposed I started the proposal by giving him The Book of Us, so we could write the story of our lives together.”
After Mark said yes, the two set out to plan their destination wedding at The Ocean View Club and The Other Side in Harbour Island—a place that’s always held a special spot in their hearts. “It’s where we took our first trip alone together,” Brendan says. “We love that it’s glamorous but unstuffy. We wanted our guests to feel completely comfortable and at-the-beach.”
Brendan had actually taken Mark, who heads up global brand partnerships for a collection at Marriott International, to the island for their one-year anniversary and his birthday, and they quickly fell in love with the place and the people. “Brendan has been going for years, but from the first time we went together, we knew that this would be our forever favorite little slice of heaven,” Mark explains. “Both properties have a chilled out, eclectic atmosphere.”
They wanted the wedding to play off of this, mixing island glam with a casual beach-chic vibe. To that end, they had the venues use only local foliage and materials that would complement the stunning natural backdrop. “Everything also came back to our theme, ‘bee and shark,’ which are our nicknames,” Brendan says. “This was incorporated into every aspect of our wedding, including a family crest we had created by Jenna Rainey and Brooke Dieda of Mon Voir.”
To get things started on the right note, the couple chose to make their welcome drinks and rehearsal dinner a glitzy affair by the ocean to kick off the weekend, asking guests to dress in “elegant cocktail attire.” “We suggested guests dress up in black, silver, gold, navy, or white,” Brendan explains.
For the wedding, the dress code actually called for “beach chic,” with guests encouraged to wear pastels. Brendan and Mark, meanwhile, both wore custom Suit Supply tuxedos, PINK Shirtmaker shirts, and Gucci loafers. “Our cufflinks were bees and sharks respectively, and we had hand-stamped messages to each other that we only saw on the day of our wedding inside our shirts,” Brendan says. “We also created color palettes for each night that guests could follow.”
As friends and family arrived by boat at The Other Side property for the ceremony, a tuxedo-clad violinist greeted all 88 guests on the dock playing Adele’s “Hello” on repeat (the lyrics, of course, go: Hello from the other side...). Brendan and Mark both walked down the aisle with their groomsmen and parents to the instrumental version of Coldplay’s “Us Against the World,” before their friend Dan officiated the service. “I felt nervous and so excited,” Brendan remembers. “I have never felt energy like that in my entire life: Our closest friends and family all sending love our way—the feeling is indescribable, and we were very emotional afterward.”
Mark had a hard time keeping it together. “I was on cloud nine, but a ball of nerves all at the same time,” he admits. “I am very emotional, so I was, of course, crying the majority of the ceremony; the love and energy from all was beyond overwhelming. My heart was beating out of my chest, and I couldn’t stop staring into Brendan’s electric green teary eyes. I have never been happier in my life.”
