My last wedding...

I haven't been completely honest with you guys... I said I don't do weddings. Well, that was partially true. I was winding down, but wasn't completely done, per se. That is until today. Today I shot my last wedding for a while. I won't say that it will be my last wedding ever, but with our business being incredibly busy with children, families, and seniors, I wanted to create a definite place for us to focus. Weddings won't be a focus for us, but if we find the right circumstances, we might shoot another one. (We are suckers for touching stories...!)

Anyway, about the wedding today... I have been excited to tell you guys about this wedding from the moment I heard about it.

A couple months ago, my friend Jill approached me and was talking about her friend that was getting married. Her friend Karen was looking for a wedding photographer. Karen's husband has passed unexpectedly a couple of years before. She was left with three young children, the youngest of which was barely a year old. His passing was heart breaking.

This afternoon I asked Jill how they met and my jaw dropped when I heard the response... They had been introduced by Maryann Gilliam who in 2006 had assistance from the Armada Community and the ABC television show Extreme Home Makeover. Maryann Gilliam’s husband, David, was a firefighter and paramedic who died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve 2005. Maryann, 32, was left with six children (ages eight months to 12 years old) in a small farmhouse David was renovating. The family’s story reached the ABC TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” and the rest is history.

It was at this new house, that the children would meet their new dad. I love the irony... A house built for the purpose of helping a family cope with their own tragedy helped another family move forward with their life.

I will let the pictures do the talking as I like to do most of the time. I will have you pay special attention to the top left photograph though. Tears were streaming down my face as I took this photo. When this photo was taken there was a very moving slideshow that everyone was watching with photos of their family... and this new dad took time out to comfort this little boy during the duration of the slideshow. From the moment where these three young men walked their mom out to get married, it was incredibly moving, and I was truly honored to be a part of it...

Here are a few of my favorites from today... Enjoy!

Beth