A Tale of a Few Cities

This weekend I had the pleasure of shooting two completely different weddings--one, a large event on a family farm, the other, an intimate gathering at a small inn--but both infused with a great sense of family, informality, and dogs. Both events reaffirmed my belief that great weddings are always the product of great spirit, not tablecloths or favors or shrimp.

First up was the wedding of Marina McClelland and Wesley Neal at the McClelland family farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Many moons ago--I think it might be five years now--I photographed Marina's sister Jennie's wedding. It's always nice to see familiar faces, and seeing Jennie and Paul helping to set things up in the pouring rain made me smile.

Did I say rain? Well, things were looking pretty iffy a few hours before the ceremony as heavy downpours arrived every few minutes. And I mean heavy! But one thing I've learned after 400 weddings is that fronts can move quickly. That ugly rain cloud hanging over you one minute is unlikely to hang around for three solid hours. So my advice for the day is don't make any rash decisions when it comes to moving a ceremony aside. In the case of Marina and Wesley, the rains stopped and the weather for the ceremony was absolutely gorgeous.

Of course, no one would have cared had it been raining. Guests don't come to weddings to complain about weather. They come to celebrate a couple's marriage, rain or shine. In the end, what made Wesley and Marina's wedding so nice had little, actually, to do with the weather. What made it special, in my humble opinion, was the sense of place and the sense of family.

There's something special about a wedding at one's home, a real feeling of warmth and comfort. Kids running by the pond, dogs sleeping on the porch, corn fritters smelling up the kitchen, and peacocks mooching for bread.

Yes, I said peacocks. The farm is home to two dozen or so peacocks. I was skeptical at first--when I go on a whale watching cruise I never see anything--but sure enough, right around dusk, the peacocks descended from the trees. Marina obliged with some Wonder Bread--their favorite, she says-- and fed the beautiful birds. Needless to say, this was the first time I've ever photographed a bride feeding a peacock on the roof.

(Wesley and Marina also had some sofas set up in their tent so guests could watch a slideshow of their trip, earlier this year, to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. If you'll been read my previous post, you'll know how bizarre this is. Like I said, this stuff happens to me all the time!)

On Sunday morning I drove, with 20,000 of my closest biker friends-- on the way home from Bike Week in Ocean City--back to Arlington. Crossing the Bay Bridge is one of my least favorite things to do--I hate heights, what can I say--so doing it whilst completely surrounded by Harleys was an extra special treat. I had just enough time for lunch with my wife, Maya, and daughter, Alexandra. "Can we go to the chips and salsa place?" is a common refrain at our house these days, as Alexandra loves Mexican food. After lunch, it was on to Charlottesville, Virginia for the wedding of Chunae Zoh and Nicola Smith.

Nicola and Chunae had chosen the Clifton Inn for their wedding, a Relais and Chateaux property not far from the university. Their wedding was an intimate gathering, with 20 or their closest friends and family, divided between a traditional Korean ceremony on Sunday night and a traditional wedding Monday morning.

The Korean ceremony was, if this can be possible, both beautiful and hysterical. Nicola, who is Scottish, looked radiant as she was helped into the traditional hanbok by Chunae's mom. (Chunae looked great, too, but he couldn't wait to get back into his regular clothes!) The humor came as Chunae, as custom requires, had to carry first his bride, then his mother, on his back around the room several times. I'll let the picture stand on it's own.

The ceremony on Monday was emotional, yet completely relaxed. Like Marina and Wesley, Chunae and Nicola chose to include their favorite four-legged companion, Dudley, in the ceremony. I love when dogs are included in weddings, though if I ever brought Cooper along there'd be no food left for any of the guests. Dudley was decked out in a special floral collar for the occasion. After the ceremony everyone sat down at one long table and enjoyed tea and cake. While it's not common, you have to love it when the entire wedding party can fit at one single table. After lunch we all headed back to DC for some pictures around town.

Without sounding like a Hallmark card, weddings are always best when the focus remains firmly rooted in the basics. Creating the kind of intimate weddings that Wesley and Marina and Chunae and Nicola had is not actually that difficult. Both couples concentrated on what was most important to them--family, home, comfort. What is difficult is resisting the siren call to turn a wedding into a huge production number, where party favors become more important than the party and strict timelines make sitting on the porch for a while impossible.

I'll take the porch.

Matt