Every wedding, proposal, and engagement shoot tells a tale. Here are some of the newest.

Jan. 25, 2025

Here’s what’s unfair about being a Gen X wedding photographer in a Millennial/Gen Z wedding world: The kids get to have a lot more fun than I ever did. Younger people are getting married the way they want to, which means that modern American wedding is as likely to feature Luke Skywalker and Lego as much as it is Vera Wang and Williams Sonoma. This was on display at Meg and Vinnie’s wedding, which also happened to take place at last week’s venue, Grove at Briar Barn Inn, in Rowley, Mass. Meg carried a plastic lightsaber, which held a bouquet of crocheted flowers. Each table had some kind of sci-fi/fantasy centerpiece, complete with a Millennium Falcon sign-in book. As a wise man said back in my day, the kids are all right.

Jan. 18, 2025

SherMing and Marco (Rowley, Mass.)

In the summer of 2019, a young musician named Marco hired me to shoot his latest CD cover at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain. He brought along some friends—including a delightful young woman named SherMing—to help out. It was a fun shoot, and it was the only time that clients (before or since) had asked me out to beers afterward. Five years later, I heard from Marco again: He and SherMing were getting married in a few months, and they wanted to know if I would be their photographer. Easy answer! Saturday’s wedding started with a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and got even better from there. It was a great way to start the 2025 season. A highlight for me was the simultaneous father-daughter/mother-son dance. For being a musician, Marco didn’t appear to enjoy dancing a whole lot. Fortunately, Mom brought talent and steps to spare.

Dec. 22, 2024

Natalia and John (Wellesley, Mass.)

John met Natalia three years ago when, as a news cameraman, he was part of a team that interviewed her for a story about the war in her native Ukraine. Yesterday, they got married in Wellesley. I can’t think of a sweeter, more hopeful way to bring a a busy and “active” season to a close. The wedding was on the small side: Natalia’s two teenage sons and one of her friends. They held the ceremony at the Unitarian church (nice spot!) and then moved to a restaurant called Smith & Wollensky, which I had never heard of before but turned out to be a great restaurant.

The thing about small weddings and this photographer is that this photographer starts to feel about ten to twenty times bigger in proportion to the rest of the crowd than he’s comfortable being. I basically stood in the corner and shot as needed, keeping the shutter on silent and the flash to a minimum.

Anyway, yesterday’s wedding happened as a direct consequence of Vladimir Putin’s murderous, criminal, and fortunately incompetently run war in Ukraine. I take some delight in the fact that the war has revealed the bravery and resolve of the Ukranian people to stand up to aggression; on a smaller scale, on the other side of the ocean, it brought two people together at the altar.

I hope that if he knew about this specific story, Mr. Putin would be supremely annoyed.

Dec. 18, 2024

Jacob and Lauren (North Andover, Mass.)

Congratulations to Lauren and Jacob! I should mention that yesterday’s proposal shoot took on the air of a spy thriller.

Jacob was about to pop the Q at a park, and I was standing ready behind a tree trunk with my 100-400mm so his fiancee-to-be wouldn’t spot me. Just then, two friendly dogs run up to the couple, Then their friendly, elderly owner decided to amble over and stay awhile and chat the kids up. A snag! A complication! I could practically hear my imaginary “team” in my imaginary earpiece: “All units hold your fire! We’ve got dogs in Sector 3-0! Repeat: We’ve got dogs!”

Jacob and Lauren were friendly and polite to the dog guy, because they’re good people. Then, once he and his animals cleared out, Jacob was back in business. Down he went. I slipped out from behind the tree. Jacob proposed. Lauren said yes. All the while I was clicking away.

(No, I did not get photos of the dogs. What, and risk blowing my cover before he takes a knee and she gets tunnel vision and won’t notice me? What is this, amateur hour?)

Anyway, on this shoot, the photo of Jacob on one knee is nice. I do like it! But I like the fourth one best. I love photos of people at their absolute happiest.