Lantern Field

Sixty guests on open sand meant there was no wall to lean the evening against, so we built the boundary ourselves — four hundred lanterns staked into the dunes in a wide ring around the fire pit and the dinner tables. The ring did the work a tent usually does: it told everyone where the party ended without blocking a single sightline to the sky.

We waited to light the ring until the sun was fully down, one match run in a loop by two of us walking in opposite directions. It took eleven minutes. Guests stopped talking to watch the loop close, and the band held the first song until it did.