EHP Resort Wedding: A Photographer’s Guide

Heritage House photographed hamptonBRIDE’s A Toast to Summer on the property, an evening with roughly a hundred and fifty people moving through it. So this guide separates what the resort publishes from what we saw with our own eyes, and says which is which.

Where EHP Resort Is

EHP Resort and Marina is at 295 Three Mile Harbor Hog Creek Road in East Hampton, New York, out on the East End. The property runs to about nine acres.

That puts it in East Hampton without putting it on the ocean side, which matters more than it sounds. Three Mile Harbor faces west across the water. It is also a working harbor rather than a stretch of beach, so the property has boats in it, which is part of its character.

The Case for the Whole Weekend

Here is the thing we would tell a couple first. It is the reason to look at EHP over a venue that only handles the reception.

There are rooms on the property. The resort publishes thirteen private guest cottages plus the Magari Harbor House, which holds one, two and three bedroom suites.

Read that carefully, because it is the whole planning question in one number. Thirteen cottages and a house of suites will not hold a two hundred person guest list. What it will hold is your parents, your wedding party, and the people who traveled furthest, and the multi bedroom suites mean a family can be put together rather than scattered. That is usually the group whose logistics cause the most trouble, and solving it on site solves most of the problem.

EHP publishes that the property can host the welcome party, cocktail hour, rehearsal dinner, ceremony, reception, and farewell brunch. That is their list, not our inference, and it is unusual. Accommodations, restaurants, and event spaces all sit on the same nine acres.

What makes it interesting is the chance to extend the celebration beyond the wedding itself without moving people around to do it.

If you have been to a wedding weekend where everyone stayed together, you already know what that does to the feel of it. People are not arriving and leaving. They are there. The wedding stops being an event on a schedule and turns into a few days with the people you like most.

Accommodations are one of the real logistical questions in a Hamptons wedding. That goes double for a couple bringing guests out from the city, or in from further away.

The Spaces, by Name

EHP publishes three ceremony locations:

• Waterfront Mezzanine, at the Sí Sí restaurant.
• Harbor View, also at the Sí Sí restaurant.
• The Great Lawn, at Shagwong Boat Club and Marina.

Sí Sí and Sunset Harbor are the two restaurants on the property, and the catering draws on both. Use these names when you call. A venue conversation moves faster when you are asking about a specific space rather than about the property in general.

The resort does not publish a capacity per space, and describes itself as working from an intimate micro-wedding up to a large celebration of 200 or more. What a given space holds will depend on your floor plan, whether you want a dance floor, and how you plan to use cocktail hour, so get those numbers from the events team for your date and your guest count.

The Great Lawn and Shagwong Boat Club

The event we photographed used the Great Lawn and Shagwong Boat Club, out by the water. hamptonBRIDE called it the boathouse, and that is what it feels like.

It is a different proposition from the resort’s better known restaurant spaces. It is relaxed and it is right on the water, and hamptonBRIDE described it as offering something entirely different from the rest of the property. That is fair. It does not feel like a room you have been put in. It feels like somewhere you would end up.

The Great Lawn is the open space beside it, and it is where most of the evening lived.

What We Noticed Photographing There

The thing that struck us first was texture.

That is a photographer’s word for it, so here is what it means in practice. The property does not give you one look repeated. There is water, there are boats, there is the Great Lawn, there is Shagwong Boat Club, there is the built architecture of the resort itself. Different surfaces, different scale, different feel, all within a short walk.

For coverage that means range without travel. Formal portraits and loose lifestyle work can happen in the same hour without getting in a car or repeating a background. That is unusual, and on nine acres it is the whole reason the property photographs well.

The sun sets behind the water. We will leave it at that. A venue is not worth choosing for its golden hour alone, and a good photographer works with whatever an evening gives them.

How the property handles a crowd

There were roughly a hundred and fifty people on the Great Lawn that evening, and it did not feel full. It could hold more. That is the kind of thing no published number tells you, because a capacity figure says what fits and not what it feels like at that number. We were also able to move freely the entire night without cutting through anyone. That matters more than it sounds. A photographer squeezing past guests all evening is a photographer the guests end up noticing.

What happens once the sun is down

The band played, and the light got genuinely challenging.

That is not a mark against the property. It is a thing to plan for. A waterfront venue after dark asks considerably more of a photographer than a ballroom with fixed lighting does. Reception coverage here will depend on someone who brings their own light and knows what to do with it, rather than someone hoping the room will carry the evening for them.

It is the single most useful thing we learned standing there, and it is not something a tour in the afternoon would ever tell you.

Ceremony Options

Three published ceremony locations is genuinely useful rather than a hedge.

A venue with one ceremony spot makes the decision for you. EHP does not. The Great Lawn at Shagwong Boat Club is the outdoor option on the water. The Waterfront Mezzanine and Harbor View are both at Sí Sí, which gives you a different scale and a different feel without leaving the property. That hands real latitude to your planner. A good planner can design almost any space here, and the property is built to be shaped rather than to dictate.

Which spot works best depends on your guest count, the time of year, and what your planner wants to build. The resort’s events team has seen more configurations on that property than anyone, so start there and bring your planner into the conversation early.

What to Ask the Resort

This guide covers the part a brochure will not give you, which is what the property is actually like to stand on. The specifics change, so get those from the events team directly.

Worth pinning down early in that conversation:

Room availability for your date

This is the one that shapes everything else. Thirteen cottages plus the suites at Magari Harbor House is a fixed ceiling, so ask how many can actually be held for you, how far out, and what the block looks like. The weekend only works if the right people can stay.

Capacity for the specific space you want

Ask about the Great Lawn, the Waterfront Mezzanine and Harbor View separately, and ask for the number with a dance floor rather than the theoretical maximum.

What a full weekend costs to run

A welcome party, a rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and a farewell brunch are separate conversations. Ask about them together rather than one at a time, since the answer may be different as a package.

Which restaurant handles which piece

Sí Sí and Sunset Harbor are not interchangeable, and the catering draws on both.

Weather contingency

A waterfront property in a working harbor needs a plan, and the events team will know theirs.

If you are still comparing properties, EHP sits alongside the rest of our list of Long Island wedding venues we have photographed.

How We Know the Property

Heritage House photographed hamptonBRIDE’s A Toast to Summer at EHP. It was a cocktail party for the East End wedding community, with roughly a hundred and fifty industry professionals on the property.

hamptonBRIDE published the feature with our images. That evening is where every first-hand observation in this guide comes from.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is EHP Resort and Marina?

EHP Resort and Marina is at 295 Three Mile Harbor Hog Creek Road in East Hampton, New York, on the East End of Long Island. The property is about nine acres. It sits on Three Mile Harbor, which faces west across the water, and includes a working marina.

How many guests can EHP Resort hold for a wedding?

The resort describes itself as hosting everything from an intimate micro-wedding up to a large celebration of 200 or more, and does not publish a fixed number per space. Ask the events team for the capacity of the specific space you want, and ask for the figure that includes a dance floor rather than the theoretical maximum.

What are the ceremony locations at EHP Resort?

EHP publishes three: the Waterfront Mezzanine and Harbor View, both at the Sí Sí restaurant, and the Great Lawn at Shagwong Boat Club and Marina. Having three rather than one gives a planner real latitude to design around your guest count and the season.

Can guests stay at EHP Resort for a wedding?

Yes. The resort publishes thirteen private guest cottages plus the Magari Harbor House, which holds one, two and three bedroom suites. That is the main reason to consider EHP over a venue that only hosts the reception. It will not house a full guest list, but it will house the group whose travel is hardest to arrange, and the multi bedroom suites let a family stay together. Ask the events team about room blocks and availability for your date.

Can you have a rehearsal dinner and a brunch at EHP Resort?

Yes. EHP publishes that the property can host the welcome party, cocktail hour, rehearsal dinner, ceremony, reception, and farewell brunch. Confirm the configurations and capacities for your date, since what works depends on the season and your group size.

Is EHP Resort good for wedding photos?

From what we have seen photographing on the property, yes, and the reason is range rather than any single view. Water, boats, the Great Lawn, Shagwong Boat Club, and the resort architecture all sit within a short walk of each other on nine acres. That allows both formal portraits and looser lifestyle coverage without travel between locations or a gallery that repeats itself. The one thing to plan for is the reception after dark, since a waterfront property gives a photographer very little light for free.

About the Photographer

Stephen Mayo is the founder and lead photographer of Heritage House, a boutique wedding photography studio. We serve Long Island, New York City, Westchester, New Jersey, and the East End. Stephen is a member of Fearless Photographers, and his work has been featured in Sophisticated Weddings and hamptonBRIDE.

Heritage House plans the photography around the shape of a wedding well before the day arrives. At a property like EHP, a celebration can run across a weekend rather than an afternoon. So the planning starts earlier and covers more than one day’s timeline.

Planning an EHP Resort Wedding?

If you are considering EHP, or you have already booked it, the question worth settling early is how much of the weekend you want photographed. A property that can hold a welcome party, a rehearsal dinner, a wedding, and a farewell brunch changes what coverage means. Those decisions are worth making months ahead rather than in the final weeks.

We would like to hear what you are planning out there. Contact Heritage House to start the conversation.

Venue Contact

EHP Resort and Marina 295 Three Mile Harbor Hog Creek Road, East Hampton, NY ehpresort.com