Tiffany and Blaine are a very cool, down to the earth couple. We photographed their Long Beach Island engagement session at Barnegat Lighthouse. Tiffany and Blaine are very into jet skiing (they even have their own), so they stayed in LBI before their session and made a nice weekend out of it. When we got there, the skies and the weather were both gorgeous. We photographed their most of their session down by the lighthouse. Just before sunset, we went over to the area with commercial fishing boats and I talked with a couple of the fishermen who let us onto the docks. We finished their session off with the sunset right behind the lighthouse and it was stunning. We created beautiful save the dates cards, a Getting to Know You album, and they actually invested in five wall art pieces from this session. I can’t wait to share their summer wedding at The Lake House Inn in Perkasie, PA.
Long Beach Island is an 18-mile barrier island in Ocean County, New Jersey, connected to the mainland by a single causeway at Ship Bottom. Barnegat Lighthouse, at the northern tip in Barnegat Light Borough, was built between 1857 and 1859 and stands 172 feet above the beach at the meeting point of Barnegat Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. “Old Barney,” as locals call it, is one of the most recognizable structures on the Jersey Shore. The area around the lighthouse includes jetty rocks, wide sandy beach, and on the bay side, the working docks where commercial fishing boats come in, each of which creates a completely different backdrop inside the same 10-minute walk.
LBI runs quieter than other shore towns, which works well for engagement sessions. You get access to wide beaches without the summer crowd pressure of places like Ocean City or Wildwood, and the lighthouse itself provides a landmark that reads in photographs even without knowing the location. The commercial fishing docks on the bay side of Barnegat Light are one of those bonus locations that most couples don’t know about until they’re there, and they add an entirely different texture to the gallery. Planning around late-afternoon arrival and shooting into the sunset behind the lighthouse, the way we did with Tiffany and Blaine, is the approach that consistently delivers the strongest frames.
See our full list of the best Jersey Shore wedding venues for more session and wedding location ideas along the coast.
