And Then They Were Wed

Weddings mean so many different things to different people, and that's why I enjoy photographing them so much. For several hours I get to experience how others experience the joining together of two people in matrimony. The photo below is from a wedding a photographed a couple of days ago. It's a bride, who is also one of my friends, surrounded by her son and her nieces and nephews. This was a wedding that celebrated the joyful melding together of two families. What a wonderful wedding day memory and what a great beginning for this happy couple:)

Spider Man at the Wedding

He came, he saw, he flung his web and stole our hearts. No, I'm not talking about the actual Spider Man, I mean, he is, after all, a fictional character. But, at a wedding I photographed last week, one adorable ring bearer showed that his love for the bride and groom was only surpassed by his love for Spidey.

It's a Union Station Wedding for Cathy and Kim!

They weathered cross-country travel, torrential rains, and four dogs in the backseat of the car, oh, and one heck of a heatwave, to say, "I do". Cathy and Kim tied the knot today at Union Station and what a joy it was to photograph them. Happy wedding day and may you live happily ever after:)

Looking for the "One": A Photographer's Search for Wedding Calm in an Extroverts' World

We're just a few days into the New Year, and, almost reflexively, my mind goes to weddings. It's understandable given that I'm a photographer and weddings are a part of my portfolio and most engagements take place over the holidays. January is the start of the bridal show season which will see of thousands of brides and grooms-to-be and thousands of wedding vendors meeting up in drafty convention centers and hotel ballrooms doing the equivalent of speed-dating as they try to plan the wedding of their dreams. 

Over the years, I've been one of those vendors, jockeying for the attention of the women and men on their way to the altar, but this January, I'm stepping away and am taking stock. I'm on a search for the wedding of my dreams.

The anatomy of a traditional bridal show is efficiency on a large scale. There are aisles laid out in the form of a maze through which brides and grooms and their retinue travel, and, on both sides of these aisles, there are vendor booths. There is usually a runway with seating for the bridal fashion shows that are held at intervals throughout the show day, and you can always grab a delicious crab cake or some other yummy, hot single-serving from the caterers working the show. The florists do their thing with riotous bouquets adorning their booths and the DJs and wedding bands strut their stuff with large flat-screen monitors in their booths playing their highlight reels. It's a carnival of bridal delights, but for an introvert like me, it's sensory overload.

Wedding 101: A Crash Course
When my husband and I got engaged, we were at something of a disadvantage. We had both missed out on that outbreak of wedding-mania that happens immediately after undergrad, so that by the time we were planning our wedding, most of our friends were in the parenting phase and just trying to catch up on sleep! So not only were we not attending that whirlwind of weddings where we could get ideas for our own wedding, we didn't have people to commiserate/counsel/console us during the process.

So there we were, adrift and trying to figure out how the heck do we plan a wedding! Thankfully, The Knot had just started their online website and I don't know what we would've done without it. When it came to finding our vendors, though, we didn't go to a wedding show, instead, we went with word-of-mouth: our photographer had photographed our friends' wedding years before; the florist was on our church's approved vendor list; our reception venue was a place I used to brunch at with my church friends; and the band was found through a work colleague. But, it was an overwhelming process and I frequently felt lost, rushed, and confused. 

Finding the "One"
Hindsight is a mixture of time and distance, and as I've made the transition from bride to wife, I can make sense out of the frenzy that is wedding planning. At the core of the issue is an outsized desire for the wedding day to communicate who you are, as individuals and as a couple in a way that's under-budget and on-schedule. 

I've been so fortunate to have photographed the weddings of couples who know who they are and have found a way to share that vision. They are quirky, thoughtful, motorcycle mamas, single dads, composers, cartoonists, actors, lawyers, lobbyists, karaoke superstars, Dr. Whovians, pastry chefs, office managers, the tattooed, the pierced, and everything in between and they bring me joy. And while I've met some of them at big bridal shows, most of them came to me through word-of-mouth from other introverted friends and clients, or through smaller presentations at private wedding venues. Like me, these couples were more comfortable in quieter settings. So here's to finding the "one" once again:) 

Let Them Eat Cake: Not Even A Wedding Cake Catastrophe Could Slow Down This Couple

When Kelly and Yves were planning their wedding day, I'm sure that the one thing they didn't anticipate was a wedding cake disaster, but that's exactly what happened when
the wedding cake they ordered never showed up at their reception. Luckily, the couple's reception venue, the Belle Haven Country Club in Alexandria, VA, was on the case. Their kitchen flew into action, whipping up a multi-tier cake on the day of the wedding - no small task! 

Let Them Eat Cake: When Wedding Cake Becomes Child's Play

My Mom always told me not to play with my food, but who could follow that advice when you see such a quirky, kicky fun wedding cake grouping? Joanna and Sean's wedding cakes were a delight, with their bright colors and their Fisher Price-inspired doppelganger cake toppers! DIYva Designs, thanks for the sweet inspiration, and for more great ideas for wedding day and beyond, read DIYva's Sugar and Art Blog:)

Let Them Eat Cake: The Stare Down, Starring Bride Jennifer and Groom Paul

On your typical wedding day, brides and grooms have an enormous mental checklist running through their heads. With all of the stress and planning, it's only natural to want to blow off a little steam, and that's what makes the wedding cake cutting ritual such a high-risk undertaking. Will they or won't they do a full-on cake-smash?? For Jennifer and Paul, they'd make it to the end of the cake cutting, tenderly feeding each other delicate fork fulls of sugary wedding cake. But, then, somehow, it went to a scary place when Paul, with a glimmer in his eye and frosting on his ring finger tip, took aim at our fair bride. Jennifer, though, successfully stared down the frosting-laden digit and a wedding cake tragedy was avoided:)

The Mother-of-the-bride

The Mother-of-the-bride, photographed by Shannon Finney, Alexandria, VA, January 2013

 

The pathway from newly engaged to walking down the aisle can be fraught -

packed with binders over-stuffed with details, and hours of planning. And

while good friends are there to assist, there is one member of the

wedding party who often takes on the Herculean task of project manager and

that's the mother-of-the-bride. She is catering manager, transportation

coordinator, and dresser. I snapped this photograph during a wedding

shoot and I love it because within it is the essence of the bond between mother

and daughter - the constancy of care no matter when and no matter what. 



Oh, Deer - Or, How a Wedding Shoot Became a Wild Adventure

Oh, Deer!, Photo by Shannon Finney

While wedding crashers may not be common, far less common are

wedding crashers galloping top-speed through a wedding reception,

but that's exactly what happened at a recent wedding shoot. Bambi

appeared at the edge of a nature preserve that backs up to the reception site,

and when the poor dear (or deer) noticed the hundred or so guests

dining inside of the tent, he or she sped off, running towards the

two trees where the wedding ceremony had taken place earlier. Looking

on were two of the wedding guests - a mother and her son who were

mere feet away from our galloping gate crasher.

A Quiet Wedding Day Moment by Little Seneca Creek

The Bride and Groom catch their breath creek side at
The Lodge at Little Seneca Creek (Boyds, Maryland)

At the end of a week that saw near-daily thunderstorms, and a national tragedy that

has gripped this country, it was refreshing to witness two people declare their love

and commitment to each other on a field of green surrounded by their families and friends.

On Sunday afternoon, as Holly began her walk down the aisle in the dress she

made herself, an ominous dark cloud approached overhead. The seated guests

all began to plan their exits should the rains come, but, the rains didn't come.

Instead, the sun began to pierce its way through the veil of clouds, and

Holly and Craig said their I do's under skies that were dry. After the ceremony,

we hiked down to the Little Seneca Creek, and in the quiet and the calm,

standing under the canopy of trees, a little patch of sunlight pushed its way through,

like a scene from an Impressionist painting.



Hot, but not Bothered: How One Couple Didn't Fret Over a Heat Wave

The Bride and Groom share a moment in the cool of the shade, photographed June 30, 2012 at Chantilly National Golf and Country Club, Centreville, Virginia


Long before there's a wedding day, there's the planning for the wedding day, and no matter how many hours have been spent selecting the perfect caterer, and finding the most meaningful first dance song, nothing can prepare a couple for those Acts of God which push temperatures into the 100-degree territory or cut off the electricity to the ceremony site on your wedding day - both of which happened to the bride and groom above. Brittney and Todd couldn't have been any happier, and so, as a tribute to their ability to not let a lil ole heat wave get them hot under the collar, or the veil, here are a few fond memories from a wedding day they will never forget!


Let them eat cake!

In case you ever wondered what the ring bearers do AFTER the wedding!



Brittney and shares a special moment with her grandmother

An end of the night party favor in the wedding's theme color

The first dance of many dances to come...