Debbie Berger met Nick Fox at a wedding in Israel in 2004, and by the end of the week’s festivities, she had invited her new best friend to visit her on Martha’s Vineyard.

“It was around two o’clock in the morning,” recalls the wry, handsome Brit. “I think she invited everybody.” Two years later, the two public relations professionals chose to have their own wedding at the site of their Vineyard rendezvous – idyllic Pepperbush Farm in Chilmark.

After five years of summer vacation rentals, former White House National Security Advisor Samuel (Sandy) Berger and family all but think of Pepperbush Farm as home. “The house is very un-Vineyard,” says Debbie, a lively native Washingtonian who’s been visiting the Island since age twelve. “It’s kind of like a Japanese restaurant with shingles. But the grounds are amazing.”

Described on its website as “Zen-like,” the twenty-two-acre property embraces a rolling meadow, exotic garden, Japanese Koi pond with its own frog, and an azure pool where someone had recently floated two rubber duckies in wedding attire. Stone walls and wooded walking trails rim the property. The closest neighbors are deer, including a Berger family favorite dubbed Bambi. Pepperbush Farm accounts for Nick’s first impression of the Vineyard, back in 2004, as a strangely deserted place. Even in August.

The Berger-Fox nuptial events of Columbus Day weekend 2006 owed their smooth orchestration to two wedding coordinators, a well-oiled cadre of Vineyard vendors, and a clear client vision of an elegant affair in the countryside.

Two wedding coordinators?

Last March, in a moment worthy of Holly-wood, Nick pressed a ring into Debbie’s hand one snowy eve on a bridge over the Danube in Budapest. In short order, Debbie’s mother Susan got hold of Ellen Dubin, her Washington event coordinator. Alas, Ellen had a conflict for the chosen wedding date. She advised Susan to find an Island-based coordinator instead.

Enter Julie Hatt of Vineyard Weddings. Then Ellen’s conflicting event was postponed, so voilá : two coordinators. By all accounts, the teamwork worked. Ellen knew the Bergers, their tastes, and their operating styles; Julie knew the Island, its resources, and its idiosyncrasies.

Gift bags for the 250 guests – hailing from the United Kingdom, Hungary, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, and the United States – featured local and regional goodies such as Chilmark Chocolates, Chilmark Spring Water, and Cape Cod Potato Chips. Not so regional was the white toothbrush imprinted with “Debbie & Nick, October 7, 2006,” compliments of Debbie’s uncle the dentist. A guest’s guide to wedding events and Island resources sported illustrations of a fox and a hamburger on the cover. (Get it?) And the wedding party and other members of the inner circle got T-shirts with a profile of a fox in silhouette on the front and the words “Pepperbush Farm Martha’s Vineyard 2006” on the back. Any resemblance to a certain iconic canine Vineyard T-shirt was surely coincidental.

Cool as quahaugs, Debbie and Nick arrived on-Island early in the week of the wedding to recover from their travels from their London home – and perhaps from recent bachelor weekends in Ibiza (his) and London (hers), and finally a co-ed party in Washington.

Picking out ties That’s not to say they were idle once they got here. On Tuesday, they picked up their marriage license at West Tisbury Town Hall, shopped for Vineyard Vines ties for the male members of the wedding party, and dined with their families at the Outermost Inn. On Thursday, the twosome hung out all evening at Offshore Ale Company with their newly arrived pals, while Nick’s parents, John and Sonja Fox, hosted members of their own generation for cocktails at the Harbor View Hotel. Friday’s agenda included tee times at Farm Neck Golf Club, a wedding rehearsal, and a takeover of Lola’s restaurant for dinner with all the guests. Two days later, all would gather again at Farm Neck Golf Club Café for a “morning-after brunch” hosted by family friends. But for the main event . . .

Late Saturday afternoon, friends and relations arrived at Pepperbush Farm from their down-Island hotels and B&Bs. A few minor clouds hung high in the air, and the temperature, in the mid-50s, was kinder than it might have been. Ladies in sheer attire were nonetheless happy to find Susan’s welcome basket of Pashmina stoles and the heated cocktail tent, where they indulged in small “Debbie burgers,” freshly shucked littleneck clams from Sengekontacket Pond, and briny Tomahawk oysters from Aquinnah. “The rabbi looked the other way,” says Dee Geiger of Tea Lane Caterers.

Rabbi Fred Reiner of Washington was, in fact, in the courtyard of the house, overseeing the signing of the ketubah, the traditional Jewish wedding contract, for the bride and groom. Official witnesses to the signing were Nick’s childhood friend Johnny Cantor, and Chilmark resident Phyllis Segal, a long-time friend of the Berger family. It was Phyllis and her late husband Eli, another aide to the Clinton White House, who introduced the Bergers to the Vineyard twenty-some years ago.

Debbie had hoped to exchange vows with Nick under the open sky. In a rare veto, Susan nixed the idea as too chilly. The stunning compromise was a clear-top tent that welcomed the last rays of sunset as the wedding procession made its way down the path from the house. The women of the wedding party (“I’m too old for bridesmaids,” says the thirty-three-year-old bride) wore elegant black dresses of their own choosing. The men wore navy suits. The bridal gown was a strapless satin design with a shirred midriff from Rizik’s of Washington. “My mother said it was the first dress I tried on that I smiled in,” says Debbie.

In a spacious reception tent richly appointed in blue and silver, guests found their tables not by numbers but by relevant geographic names – Chilmark’s “Beetlebung Corner” and London’s “Knightsbridge,” for example. They dined on rack of lamb, stuffed filet of sole, potato latkes, and North Tabor House greens that were handpicked that morning. “The Bergers simply told me they wanted ‘the best,’” says Dee. The Black Dog Bakery created the wedding cake; Gossamer florists crowned it with blue hydrangeas.

Dinner was accompanied by the classic American songbook stylings of Jerry Bennett and the Sultans of Swing, featuring Sinatra-style crooner Mike Mahar. After dinner, soul artists Byrd and Felicia Taylor kicked things up a notch, forcing some of the ladies out of their stilettos and into silk Chinese slippers provided by the hosts. “The band knocked people’s socks off,” says Debbie. Since the packed floor didn’t quit until midnight, the liveliest revelers were probably delighted to find the late-night snacks: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Even Bambi might have been tempted.

Shelley Christiansen is the author of The Wedding Guide for the Grownup Bride (Berkley Books, 2000).

TENT CITY

Aaahhh, the peace and tranquility of Pepperbush Farm: Hammers banging at seven a.m. Floodlights ablaze past midnight. For nearly a week, nine workers put in seventy hours each, erecting “tent city” for the Berger-Fox wedding. Fourteen thousand square feet included a cocktail/dessert tent, ceremony tent, dinner/dancing tent, bar tent, band tent, a six-stove cook tent, and a very chic porta-potty tent.

“We re-created the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in the backyard,” says Sandy Lippens of Tilton Tents and Party Rentals. “It was the largest footprint we’ve ever done for a wedding and the most wood flooring we’ve ever laid, period.” The only obstacle was a boulder that would have made a lump in the dance floor. Three hours with a jackhammer took care of it.

The mother of all tents was the 40-by-140-foot dining and dancing venue, a peaked edifice with no center poles to obstruct views or inside ropes to trip feet. Billowing liners on the ceilings and cushy furnishings in the lounge evoked the Sheik of Araby, who probably never made his moves under thousands of twinkle lights to boot. Only the clear-top ceremony tent vied for distinction, with its wraparound views of nature, grass underfoot, rose petals down the aisle, and the bride’s dream chuppah, the Jewish wedding canopy. “She has simple yet elegant taste,” says Sandy.

Behind the scenes, a battalion of propane heaters, tanks, and power generators did their work under the watch of two crewpersons, in case of issues. “The equipment knows if no one is there,” quips Sandy. After nightfall, low floodlights on the trees, twinkle lights along the fences, and large “moon lights” scattered across the meadow guided merrymakers from tent to tent. Only the real moon, one day past full, outshone the pretenders.

CHAIR POSE

Chair Pose

First, it was a large photograph of a chair, on display at the Chilmark home of Phyllis and Eli Segal. Later, it was the haystack series at the Artisans Festival. For years, the art photographs of L.A. Brown have captivated Susan Berger and her daughters.

“Every year at the festival, Susan would sweetly ask Debbie and her sister Sarah to pick something out,” says L.A., a.k.a. Lisa. The customer relationship quickly blossomed into friendship.

So when Debbie and Nick were engaged, the Bergers asked their friend if she did weddings. Little did they know that L.A. Brown is a wedding specialist who brings her artisan’s eye to twelve to twenty nuptials a year, on-Island and off.

Since the wedding would be after dark, Lisa also took some photos of the bride and groom in daylight, on the beach and in the woods. “Can you bring the chair?” Debbie had asked. The surprised photographer was happy to oblige.

The chair is a pet subject in Lisa’s portfolio. Dating perhaps from the 1920s, the unassuming, black, wooden kitchen chair belonged to Lisa’s former landlord and friend Mary Coles. After Mary died, Lisa began shooting the memento in various settings and “poses.” Even for Lisa, capturing the rustic chair with a couple in wedding finery was a novel twist.

Chair Pose