Always a Photographer, Never a Bride

Tonight I photographed a wedding for the 6th week in a row at the hotel. I can't believe that I've been doing it for 6 weeks. You could think of the place as a "wedding factory" because all they do are weddings. There's a bit of a routine to the whole thing with little variations each week. I like to think of it as a sort of "Fantasy Island" series where everyone has their role and each week is a different story.

The first week was the nervous bride and the estranged father. Next was the gay groom. Then came the Midwest Christians with a father of the bride no man could please. Then came the bride who's parents had both died. Last week was a difficult to photograph bride who's boyfriend of 10 years was finally marrying her. Tonight was a relatively large Jewish wedding (the first I'd been to) complete with smashing the glass, and the chair dance.

I ended up talking to the bride and asking her how she met her husband. It was such a sweet story of knowing each other since they were five, going out in the 5th grade, being dumped for Jenny Ho, going through middle school and high school together but not being in the same circle, meeting up again at a reunion, and dating from there. Apparently at the reunion he made a bad impression by making a comment about her breasts, and telling her he was jobless and homeless. She was less than impressed, but somehow they managed to get together for a date. But from that point on, she got to know him and fell in love. She's very attractive and he's a bit schlubby, but it's so obvious how much they love each other.




You'd think I might become jaded after seeing so many weddings. But I'm actually still touched by the whole thing. I still feel like I want to meet a man who loves me so much that he'll go through the whole process of planning a wedding, and get up there in front of all of our friends and family and vow to love me forever. I want to dress up in that pretty white gown and have photos of us together that capture him looking at me with love in his eyes.

I chatted to an uncle of the bride for awhile and he's been happily married to his wife since 1973 (they met in 1969 while still in high school). I told him he gives me hope that love can survive.

The bride said something I thought was pretty cool. She said she almost didn't go to her reunion, but then she figured "you regret the things you don't do more than the things you do". I think this is a good philosophy to live by.