Where should Anne Hathaway have a Cape May wedding? Three experts weigh in

In December, the New York Daily News reported that Anne Hatahway’s family wanted her to get married in Cape May.

This isn’t a huge stretch. Hathaway, who is from Millburn, N.J., grew up spending her summers in Cape May.

Her mother has appeared on stage at Cape May Stage, and Anne herself is seen around town (no, I won’t tell you when or where save one example below because it has already been reported in People magazine. She’s entitled to SOME privacy). 

Cape May’s wedding business is booming, too. Its become a popular destination wedding spot, and popular for couples who want to get married on the beach (yes, you can get married on the beach at sunset in Cape May). In 2010, 431 couples registered for marriage licenses in Cape May – a big jump from the 202 who did in 2001.

Will Hathaway be applying for her own Cape May wedding license? Who knows. Rumors are just that until I can nail down a confirmation.

Until then, I asked three Cape May experts what kind of wedding they’d suggest to the movie star.

Catherine J. Walton, Founder of Weddings by the Sea

Walton has been a Cape May wedding consultant since 1997, and she sees only one place for someone like Hathaway, who she assumes is not looking for a lot of media attention and would want to keep her ceremony and reception out of the eyes of the media: the Beach Club of Cape May.

“That’s the only place you can do a reception right on the beach because it’s private property,” says Walton. “You can create a whole city environment there,” including tented areas for the ceremony, cocktails, reception, and seating and dining areas right on the sand. It can be a spare no expense kind of place. One wedding she worked on that was held there cost $250,000 though, Walton stresses, she has also planned smaller, intimate affairs at the Beach Club.

Terry O’Brien of Terry O’ke, a karaoke night that rotates around Cape May County.

In 2008, Hathaway performed the “Don’t Stop Believin'” and “Suddenly I See” with O’Brien at a Terry O’ke night at Martini Beach. 

“Were I to have her ear for a moment I might suggest pre-ceremony cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at the Merion Inn while George Mesterhazy played some light, yet complicated, jazz,” he says.

For the ceremony, there’s only one option, according to O’Brien: the beach “I did it, and I’ve been married for 11 years now. The over/under was 7,” he jokes, adding that “there’s just something magical about the combination of the sand in your toes, the wind in your hair and the sun sinking into Cape May Point as you commit yourself to the one you love that sears itself into the hearts and minds of those who attend, and into the souls of those who say “I do.'”

For the reception? He’s shameless: Wherever Terry O’ke is playing that night.  

John Cooke, President of the Cape May Chamber of Commerce

He’d send her out to sea – literally. “If she was to get married in Cape May, she and her fiance should have Captain John Wilsey of the Yacht Club of Cape May whisk them off into the Atlantic for a sunset ceremony,” says Cooke.

For the reception, he says, he’d have them “come back for Convention Hall and have a reception for 400 of her closest friends,” adding that his caterer of choice for Hathaway would be the Washington Inn.

He chose the new Convention Hall because it’s one of the few places that could hold a wedding reception for that many guests, should she go the big wedding route. The building opens in May.