The Grooms Wore White for This Wedding in a Watermill Apple Orchard
Fashion photographer Dean Isidro and Nicholas Holder, a sales director at a cybercrime and fraud protection company, were both technically “off the market” when they met, so they got to know each other as friends first. “A couple years later, life brought us back together,” Nicholas remembers. This time around, there was a puppy—Nicholas’s Great Pyrenees/Spanish Mastiff mix—to add to the equation. “Dean was the first person who watched Luca while I was on a work trip to California, and within a few seconds of meeting her for the first time, she crawled up into his arms and fell asleep on his chest,” Nicholas says. “I knew it was a done deal after that!”
“Luca Belle really brought us together in a way that has bonded us ever since,” Dean adds.
Because they were able to get to know one another platonically before officially dating, the proposal happened fairly quickly. “We had been officially dating for just over a year when Dean asked me to marry him on the last day of 2019,” Nicholas remembers.
“I was certain early on that it was just a matter of time before I would propose to Nicholas,” Dean admits. “He fit so perfectly and stepped right in with my New York family in a way that was so nonchalant and effortless.”
Nicholas had just gotten home from visiting his family in Wisconsin over Christmas break. “It was one of those super-mild December days, and we decided to take the dog to our favorite beach—the Cut in Bridgehampton,” Nicholas recalls. “Dean wanted to take a photo of me as the sun was going down. I had my back to him, and when I turned around, I noticed Luca had on an indigo collar on with beautiful bows and a box. She ran up to me and as I started to open the box a handmade bracelet fell out with beads spelling, ‘Will u marry me?’ Once I got past the shock and noticed the ring, I immediately started crying and hugging him…I think I forgot to say yes.”
Before the pandemic, the plan was always to get married where Dean’s best friend, LoveShackFancy founder Rebecca Hessel Cohen, got married 10 years before—at her mom and dad’s in Watermill, New York, surrounded by an apple orchard and centered in a field of wild grasses. “The natural beauty of Rebecca’s mom Nancy’s property can only be summed up by two words, romantically enchanting,” Nicholas says. “When COVID happened, it threw everything into uncertainty. The only thing that was certain come early May was that we had canceled whatever plans had been made and accommodations had been booked for family and friends. We spent the summer really in limbo and just trying to be present. We only saw our quarantine pod—a.k.a. Rebecca and her family—getting together every once in a while for a socially distanced dinner or drink. Summer came and almost went and it was during one of those dinners in early August that Rebecca really encouraged us to stick to our plan. ‘Love wins,’ she said, and boy did we need a reason for some love! So we decided to scale back and bring our pod and our closest friends together for an intimate dinner celebration and official ceremony.”
Once the decision had been made to move forward, they had exactly 10 days to plan the wedding. Because it was essential to make sure their guests were comfortable and that they bring people together in the safest way possible, an all outdoor environment was critical. “So much so that four days out when the weather called for rain, we had to make the decision to push the date back one day to August 30, 2020,” Nicholas explains. “Maybe not so surprisingly, everyone was still able to make it—including the over 75+ guests joining the celebration virtually.”
