Ever since she was a little, blogger Mackenzie Horan of Design Darling knew she wanted to get married at the ‘Sconset Chapel in Nantucket. “My parents were married in the same chapel 31 years before we were,” she explains of her wedding to financial analyst Will Beuttenmuller. “I was so happy when Will first visited the island and fell in love with it as well.”
The couple’s September wedding on the island was the definition of an effortless summer event. Instead of a heavy tulle ball gown, Mackenzie chose a breezy, yet sophisticated Sarah Seven Sullivan dress and paired it with a Marisol Aparicio veil and Christian Louboutin Douce du Desert pumps.
For help organizing an event set to take place at the very end of Nantucket’s season, which can be a challenging time period for those trying to reach and book vendors, the bride enlisted Caroline from Milly & Grace Weddings, whom she calls “a godsend.” As for flowers, Mackenzie wanted to keep things super simple, and therefore hired a family friend to do arrangements and bouquets. “My bridesmaids’ hydrangea bouquets and the hydrangea centerpieces turned out exactly as I’d hoped, but we had trouble finding the lush pink garden roses I’d been envisioning for my bouquet, and it arrived looking more like a tiny bodega arrangement than something a bride might carry,” she laughs. “We agreed it wasn’t quite right and quickly grabbed an arrangement of blue and white hydrangeas we had on our coffee table from our welcome party, tied a ribbon around them, and off we went! How could you get married on Nantucket and not carry hydrangeas?”
The couple was married in a Catholic ceremony performed by a priest from Will’s high school in Dallas. Once they were declared husband and wife, the newlyweds and their guests walked through the streets of ‘Sconset all the way to the Summer House for their reception, where there was a cocktail hour followed by dinner and dancing under a Sperry tent overlooking the Atlantic. “People hardly wanted to get off the dance floor to eat dinner or wedding cake,” Mackenzie remembers. “The Sultans of Swing kept it full all night long!”
Mackenzie also ended up borrowing a few details from her parents wedding all those years ago. “We took our group photos at Sankaty Lighthouse and had our rehearsal dinner at The Chanticleer,” she says. “We had our reception at the Summer House Beachside Bistro (a spot where my mom worked as a teenager) and continued the party in their piano bar upstairs after our sparkler exit.”
As for one of her favorite parts from her wedding, the first look was definitely a highlight. “Seeing Will for the first time that day is a moment I’ll never forget,” Mackenzie shares. “My bridesmaids were looking on from a bedroom upstairs and started cheering when I turned around. It was a moment I totally hadn’t planned on, but that made for the perfect start of our wedding video!”
Now that her wedding is almost a year behind her, we asked Mackenzie if she has any wise words of advice for future brides? “Wear something that makes you feel like the best version of yourself,” she says. “My wedding dress was essentially a silk t-shirt with an open back and it felt just right for a beach wedding in Nantucket.” Also, sometimes the best bridal accessories are easily found online. “I wore absurdly high heels, because I’m 5’1” and used to torturing myself in the the name of a few extra inches, but a pair of $10 heel protectors from Amazon made it possible to keep them on all night long—save for a particularly rowdy numbers of the dance floor!”
