Let me preface that I was second shooting as an affiliate with Glasser Images (since dissolved). All images below were taken and edited by me.
~ 10 minute read ~
8/20/2021
Friday afternoon. Bags packed. Rushing off to the airport after a 40 hour work week. Vali is staying with a friend. This is my first time flying out of state to shoot a wedding and I’m so excited. This would turn out to be one of the most beautiful weddings I have had the privilege of shooting.
As with most travel trips, this one wasn’t without hiccups. My flight was set to depart from Denver at 10:30pm. The flight was delayed about an hour and finding the rental car desk once in Minneapolis was a nightmare because the terminal I landed was under construction so they moved the desks to another terminal but the ones they told us to go were closed and blah blah blah. Fortunately my hotel was close to the airport but I didn’t get there till almost 2am!
The next morning I was up at 8. After double checking that all of my batteries were charged, lenses were cleaned, and SD cards were formatted, I left for the venue for scouting. I was a little nervous that morning for the gloomy weather was far from the forecasted 70 and sunny. And from the hourly projections, I wasn’t confident it would change. I wasn’t familiar with the venue and feared the worst.
To help ease my nerves on the way to the venue, I stopped at one of my favorite places: Chik-fil-a. Little did I know that I would be stopping for more than chicken biscuits. Shortly after sitting down with my meal at a window seat (because I love looking out and daydreaming), a gentleman about the age of 50 pulled up in a minivan in the handicap spot. He took time to unload the passenger into their wheelchair and they proceeded to come in and, after ordering, sat down at the table in front of me. The person in the wheel chair, presumably his daughter, was about 18. It was quickly apparent that the girl was both severely physically and mentally handicapped; she had little to no muscle control and could only speak in grunts and moans. When their food was served, the gentleman was again, in calmness and patience that seemed to stop time, put a bib on her and began to feed her pieces of a chicken biscuit one bite at a time with sips of chocolate milk in between. Though she was not capable of enunciating words, you could tell she enjoyed every bite. As I sat their eating my chicken biscuit too, I caught a glimpse of the man starring at his daughter with the warmest, happiest, most genuine eyes I’ve ever seen. He loved her. It was the most beautiful moment I have ever witnessed in my entire life and I cried. For 18 years, this man has taken care of this girl to a magnitude beyond what I can possibly imagine, and still, to this day, you could tell from his eyes that he would not trade those years for the world. Unable to control my emotions, I wrapped up my biscuit, went to my rental car, and wept.
In my writings over the years, I have often asked myself why I act so selfishly and why my actions do not reflect my values. It is in moments like these that I seriously reflect on what it is I’m doing and why. So this begs the question: If everything in the world was secondary, what would you do?
So I’m back on the road. A little bit of a rocky start for me but I’m excited for I get to do something today that I love doing: photographing weddings. Upon arrival, I was taken back by the beauty of the venue. The land sitting neatly between two fields, the house overlooking a pristine pond, and the barn rustic yet modern. Although the weather was still gloomy and cold, I walked the site for a bit, met the groom, and eventually got ready to start shooting with the main photographer.
Just as we got ready for the first look, the winds calmed, the clouds broke, and picture perfect daylight shined through. It was a blessed day because the weather would remain beautiful for the rest of the day. Everything that day went well. The venue allowed us to capture some magnificent couples pictures in the fields, magical pictures at the alter, and dynamite images during the reception and dance. I was solely responsible for capturing pictures of the groomsmen and I totally crushed it (*hair flip*). I could go on and on about the day but I feel the pictures do more justice.
Sometimes I don’t always know exactly what I’m going to write about until I start writing. This was a story about traveling to Minnesota to capture a special day for a special couple with my camera. But I think the real story here is that life is precious, love is limitless, and to always leave a door to your heart open because you never know when a moment may take a piece of it.
