View the slideshow of this wedding!
This wedding couldn’t have come at a better time. I recently got back from a seminar where I heard the great Australian portrait photographer David Williams talk about the importance of families, and of photos in our own personal histories. At the end of the day, what we wedding and portrait photographers do isn’t about equipment or Photoshop actions or textures … it’s about documenting the stories of friends and families, and shaping memories. And I felt that so keenly at the wedding of Alexandra and David.
You see, once upon a time, there was a bride named Marisa. New Yorker through-and-through, as you can see below:
I shot her wedding in May 2007, and had an absolute blast. Marisa had a sister, Natalia, who was getting married in November. “I LOVED your photographer,” Natalia said, “but I want to get married in Miami. Where can I find someone like him down there?”
Marisa said, “you know … I don’t think Ryan would mind leaving New York for Miami in November.” And so I shot Natalia’s wedding:
It was an especially great compliment to be flown down because, as of the last census, South Florida has 156 wedding photographers per square foot. It felt like a personal reunion as much as a wedding, and I left with a glow, loving life and my job.
You can probably see where this is going. There was a third sister, and her name was Alexandra. With the help in particular of her amazing mother, she was able to plan her wedding all the way from Singapore, where she and David live. It helped, of course, that she saw what had worked and what didn’t for her other sisters … and hiring me was a foregone conclusion. Our first client meeting basically boiled down to … “So, do you book the flight or do we?”
It has been such an honor to shape so much of a family’s history, to walk into a home during bridal preparations and see prints of my work hanging on a wall. It’s times like these that even a 14-hour day doesn’t feel anything like work. (Of course, it didn’t hurt that the wedding was at the fantastic Red Fish Grill in Miami, not a bad place to be in December).
I’m only sad that I’ve run out of sisters.
by Ryan Brenizer
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