Family matters
Every couple is different, every family is. Sometimes witnessing and capturing people's love for each other and their families growing bigger through marriage is pretty amazing: Even as an outsider, which naturally I am on such an occasion, you can feel a strong love and you can feel a sense of belonging together.
I wanted to share this one with you today because I feel that it fits the time of year. It says something about family and I've come to believe that Christmas is essentially a family matter.
Kat & Paul got married in Vienna this summer, their families coming from different places and with them both living in New York, they had friends from all kinds of directions joining for their celebration. They decided to have a small and family-only civil ceremony the day before the big wedding. It was a lovely afternoon really and everyone was in such a jolly mood! I do realise that "jolly" is a word you'd use to describe Santa Claus, but well here I am wrapping presents and writing Christmas cards, so this might be a Freudian slip that stuck!
Anyways, back to a sunny day last July: The intimate ceremony started and when it came to exchanging the rings, Paul started searching his pockets until he looked at Kat and whispered: "I must have forgotten them in the hotel room!"
Lucky for him - Kat giggled. They both started laughing and it didn't take long until everyone else joined in. It was already the funniest ceremony I'd ever witnessed and my assistant Melanie and I stood, still tears in our eyes from laughter too, until we all realised - how would they get married without the rings?
All of a sudden one family member pulled their ring of their finger and said: You can take mine! And the others quickly followed. A few moments later Kat & Paul had about 6 or 7 rings to choose from and could officially get married.
What touched me so much about it this little story is the symbolism of the gesture: That’s what families do. They pull together, they make it work, they are there when you stumble or fall. At least the kind of families we should strive for. Lucky they are, Kat & Paul’s families are of those kind and I feel very blessed that they trusted me to take their wedding pictures. I hope what I witnessed & felt that day shines through in my photographs. I really do. Sometimes a photo is enough, but often I feel it isn’t. These one’s needed a story and I hope you are happy to have stuck with me and read so far.
There’s nothing in the world like the love of a family and I wish I didn’t have to think “lucky are those” who get to experience it, because everyone should. Every single person on this earth should experience what it is like to be loved - unconditionally. I might be naiv, but that’s what I wish for this Christmas, because I believe that families can make the world a much better place.
Yours,
Pia
