PROSPECT – When Damon Holmes, 43, climbed the last stair of the Penobscot Narrows Observatory on Saturday, his face grew red and beads of sweat started to form under his glasses.

After cracking a few jokes, such as “Jeez, it’s looking a little foggy over in Castine,” Holmes attempted to shake off his anxiety and focus on the reason he and more than 20 friends and relatives crammed into the bridge’s observation deck – his soon-to-be bride.

“It wasn’t the height,” said Holmes, explaining his unease. “It was the getting-married part.”

Holmes, a Bucksport native, and Ann Drinkwater, 36, originally of Searsmont, became the first couple in the observatory’s history to exchange vows 420 feet above the Penobscot River. Drinkwater, who works at the Bucksport town office, had her friend and colleague Jackie Hunt, the town’s deputy clerk, preside over the ceremony.

Holmes said he wanted to get married in the boat on a lake, but Drinkwater wanted to have a dress and pictures taken to remember the occasion. So the couple agreed on the observatory, and Drinkwater began making arrangements as soon as it opened in May.

The extraordinary nuptials did not take place without some sacrifice from the bride and groom’s family.

“Only for you,” Donita Drinkwater, mother of the bride, told her daughter. “Only for you will I get up there.”

Donna Holmes, the groom’s mother, is not fond of heights either. Her husband helped her up the stairs, reminding her to “breathe deep,” and “look straight ahead, not down.”

Before the ceremony began, Ann Drinkwater made sure to check on her mother, asking, “You OK, Mama?”

“Mama’s OK,” Donita Drinkwater replied with a chuckle.

The bride and groom decided on a simple ceremony, no flower girls dropping rose petals or ushers to prevent the groom from making a last-minute getaway. The untraditional wedding also didn’t feature the father of the bride, Harlan Drinkwater, walking his only daughter down the aisle.

“It didn’t bother me at all,” he said. “As long as they are happy I don’t care a bit.”

Since the couple and their guests bought tickets for the 1 p.m. observatory tour, the ceremony lasted less than five minutes, and the group pegged to ascend the tower at 1:15 was on the heels of the wedding party.

Wedding-goers did not purchase all of the tickets for the 1 p.m. time slot. A New Hampshire man was shocked when he realized he would witness the union of two complete strangers.

“I just feel bad I intruded on such a special occasion,” said Eric Peterson, 55, of Portsmouth, N.H. “It seems to me that people look for all kinds of unique settings to get married nowadays. And what photos they must have!”

Peterson’s presence didn’t bother the couple at all; in fact, they expected uninvited guests. Leon Seymour, executive director of Friends of Fort Knox, told the couple they could not reserve the observatory during operational hours.

“This is the maiden voyage,” Seymour said. “Nobody else has [contacted me] about a tower wedding yet, but I think this will spur it.”

While no other couples have booked an observatory wedding with fort officials, Ann Drinkwater received a phone call at the town office about a month ago that made her nervous.

“She was asking about getting married in the observatory,” the bride said. “When she said her date was in August I was like, ‘oh, OK,’ and then gave her the number. I guess in some way I did want to be the first.”