Last month I trekked to White Salmon, WA to shoot the wedding of Maddie and Wyndham, a beautiful couple in one of the most beautiful places on this little globe. I first met Maddie about 17 years ago in Colorado Springs when I was working for her mom, Kathy, at the local alt weekly. It was my first real design job. Maddie was just a kid in grade school and I was 23 or 24, unbelievably several years younger than Maddie is today. She and I collaborated on several shoots together as she grew up, our last in 2017 and I hadn’t seen her since…until her wedding (which is also when I got to meet Wyndham). All of that to say, it was incredibly special that I was asked to do this and so absolutely crazy that I have known her for as long as I have. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t take this opportunity to comment on the speed in which life is passing me by; seriously though: what is happening. WHAT. IS. HAPPENING.
I have included some highlights—some of my favorites—from the wedding in this post. It was a small, intimate gathering of family and friends on a glorious and scenic mountaintop that I was very fortunate to be a part of. It truly felt like I was in a painting.
White Salmon, WA
The Rehearsal
“ Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”
Getting ready
“When you were a wandering desire in the mist, I too was there, a wandering desire. Then we sought one another, and out of our eagerness dreams were born. And dreams were time limitless, and dreams were space without measure. And when you were a silent word upon Life’s quivering lips, I too was there, another silent word. Then Life uttered us and we came down the years throbbing with memories of yesterday and with longing for tomorrow, for yesterday was death conquered and tomorrow was birth pursued.”
First look
“You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer of myself in marriage, you could draw me to any good–every good–with equal force.”
Group portraits/pre-ceremony
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
The ceremony
“ If I breathe you in and you breathe me out, I swear we can breathe forever. I swear I’ll find summer in your winter and spring in your autumn and always, hands at the ends of your fingers, arms at the ends of your shoulders and I swear, when we run out of forever, when we run out of air, your name will be the last word that my lungs make air for.”
“If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweler’s felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn’t exist, and I have tried everything that does.”
Portraits of the newlyweds
“I’ve been closer to the sun than anybody who ever lived. Your laugh is a space shuttle. Your morning smiles are like waking up next to the sunrise. I open up next to you and give you everything to incinerate.”
“I’m saying your name in the grocery store, I’m saying your name on the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal covered with frost, your name like a music that’s been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud, a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails in wind and the slap of waves on the hull…”
“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?”
“We were a galaxy exploding into a million pieces, creating a whole new world, as we crashed against each other on the soft surface of his mattress, a cloud in the darkness, our bodies finally falling together like rain.”
Thank you, Maddie
…for so graciously getting in front of my lens and letting me capture you so many times throughout the years, and for trusting me to document such an important day in your life. I hope it’s everything you hoped for and more. What a ride that I sincerely hope doesn’t end here. All my love to you and Wyndham and this next big chapter.
