Loralee Ryan and Michael Brown were married on Oct. 20 at Bill Miller’s Castle in Branford, Conn. The bride’s sister, Robin Ryan, officiated.
The bride is a daughter of Dianne and Gordon Ryan of Amagansett and grew up at Lazy Point. The groom’s parents are Barbara and Kevin Brown of Nelson, New Zealand.
The couple, who will both change their last names to West, live in Jersey City.
The couple’s parents stood with them at the altar. “The ceremony was secular, and bespoke,” the bride wrote, explaining that the couple wanted it to be “community centered. The idea was that if we are not beholden to a god, and marriage is not legally binding, who enforces it? The answer is the community — we gathered everyone who we love the most and who loves us the most and made promises before them, but also directly to them.”
The bride wore a Demetrios dress with a dark green wrap she sewed herself. The fabric was also used to cover her shoes and for a clutch that she made. She wore bracelets belonging to her late grandmother and carried a bouquet by Amberworks Floral Design.
The bride’s sister, who lives in Naples, Fla., was both officiant and a bridesmaid, along with Arielle Eitzen-Smith of New York City and Ellie Niederhoffer, 12, of Manchester, N.Y. Delaney Peterson, 4, was the “flower sprite” and carried the ring box. Charlotte Hendrickson of Brooklyn was the maid of honor.
The bride’s sister wore a wrap sewn by the bride. The older attendants’ dresses were by Kennedy Blue, and Delaney wore a dress sewn by her grandmother.
Jason Lee of Auckland, New Zealand, was the best man, and Madhuri Popuri of New York was the “groomsmaid.”
The groom wore cufflinks made of New Zealand greenstone.
The bride, a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy Reserve, cut the cake with her sword.
A 2007 East Hampton High School graduate, she earned her B.A. in biology from Bard College and her master’s degree in data science from the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences this year. She works in finance.
The groom is a software developer in finance. He graduated from Rangitoto College, a secondary school in Auckland, and went on to the University of Auckland, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in math and computer science and a graduate diploma in science, focusing on physics. He completed his Master of Philosophy in physics at Australian National University.
The couple spent their honeymoon in Patagonia.