Waiting_Bride_at_the_New_Orleans_Museum_of_Art

Everyone has one of those stories: the kind of strange, true-life events you tell at a party that people find hard to believe.  This is mine.

Though I confess some of the specific details over the years have escaped me, I assure you the story itself is real.

Back in the 90’s I worked as a freelance cameraman for a company that videotaped weddings.  One weekend my fellow freelancer David and I set out for what we thought would be a typical day of: capture the bride and groom individually getting ready, front and back camera setup for the ceremony, tape the photography session without getting in the still photographers’ way (or on their nerves because you’re taking away from their business), capture the bride and groom entering the reception, first dance, cutting the cake, interviews with sometimes obnoxiously drunk people congratulating the bride and groom, and get the final moments of people pelting them with rice or bird seed and watching them drive off.

In and out…boom…we’re done.  I hate to admit it, but what was often a very special day for some was pretty formulaic for us.

But this day was different. Continue reading