A belated happy new year to you all.

This might be the last post on the blog, a journal we dubbed The Dark Slide many years ago in a nod to a long lost piece (and much maligned) of photographic equipment. (A tiny piece of metal that prevents light from hitting film, the dark slide now sits somewhere between typewriters and cassette tapes in the long line of obsolete objects.) Through hundreds of weddings and portraits we've continued to post updates here for your viewing enjoyment. And through scores of emails over those years you all have sent the nicest notes expressing appreciation for those images.

Well, hopefully by the beginning of February we will have a new home for Matt Mendelsohn Photography, a site that combines our blog and long-ignored web site into one cohesive unit. I'll keep you posted but we're hopeful we can get the new site up and running by the end of this month.

I'm happy that we can end on a beautiful note today. Last month I returned to one of my favorite venues, Keswick Hall in Charlottesville, for the wedding of Meredith Beaton and Ben Didier. Between the unbelievable (and unseasonably warm) weather, Meredith and Ben's adorably floppy dog, the always-spectacular down home country cooking by the folks at Keswick (it's hard to make baked beans into a work of art but they manage to succeed), the wedding was fantastic.

Favorite moments? Ben and Meredith held their rehearsal dinner at the nearby Keswick Hunt Club and hired a great bluegrass band to provide the music. It was a totally laid back affair that completely matched the surroundings. Keswick loves to place its country cooking in the appropriate worn, cast iron pots and skillets. If you ever want to see a buffet that makes your mouth water, give them a call sometime!

I also loved riding over to the church in a vintage car with Meredith and her mom and dad. The ride was great but it was the sunset that provided the beauty. As we drove the couple of miles through the Virginia countryside, the sun literally descended through the back window of the car, bathing everyone in orange light. That was neat.

Speaking of cars, Meredith and Ben rode away from the church in style, trading the 1930's for a red 1960's MG convertible, a nod to Ben's dad. Over the years I've become a big fan of couples that can drive themselves away from their own wedding. It just looks great and it conjures everything from The Graduate (well, they were on a bus but there was an red Alfa Romeo) to An Officer and a Gentleman. Definitely a cool move.

To see a mini gallery of pictures from Ben and Meredith's wedding, click here!

And we'll see you next month with a new look. Promise!!

Matt

Alan Wirth loves to fly. Meg Fromuth spends a lot of time at 37,000 feet on business trips to Africa. If you only read this far you'd probably conclude these guys were made for each other, which is true. But you'd be missing so much more, including the way they finish each other's thoughts, their silly jokes that start to resemble Monty Python sketches, and perhaps most of all, a three-inch rubber lizard that embodies the deep love they have for each other.

For twelve years I've been telling brides and grooms that I am most definitely not an insert-photographer-here kind of wedding shooter. I like to think I have a bit of a distinct personality, one that comes along to every one of the 450-plus weddings I've shot. Well, I'm happy to report that Alan and Meg are not an insert-bride-and-groom-here type of couple either. They are wonderfully different, hysterically funny, and often seem to speak a language whose Rosetta Stone is known only to them.

Meg and Alan came to me, by the way, through one of my former students, Nikki Novotny Davis. Nikki is a talented young photographer (everyone's young compared to me) and I really appreciate her making this connection. It's always great seeing a familiar face at a wedding.

A month or so before their big day, Alan, Meg and I wandered the streets of Maryland's capital, joking that we needed a picture that "said Annapolis." I wasn't sure what that was exactly -- the dock? the Naval Academy? the Bay? -- but we did our best. After two hours of fun pictures, I was ready to get into my car when I looked across the street at a bunch of newspaper boxes. The faded brick wall behind those boxes had an old advertisement painted on it and I asked Meg and Alan to go over and find a spot to sit. And as they stuck their tongues out at each other underneath a huge banner that read "Boston Shoe Repair," I was pretty sure we didn't have a picture that "said" Annapolis. But I knew we had a picture that said Meg and Alan.

I really like these guys a lot, if you couldn't already tell. (And I swear it has nothing to do with the fact that Meg's mom remembered my love of Mallomars and gave me a box of them when I arrived at the hotel. But that helped.) It's more in the fact that Alan and Meg have this tradition of exchanging this three-inch rubber lizard, the kind of thing one gets in the gum ball machine, whenever they're apart. Meg might be packing for a trip to Africa and behold, there's the lizard in her suitcase, left for her by Alan. The lizard, it seems, pops up in all sorts of places, a constant and fun reminder of their love.

What's in your suitcase?

To see a mini-gallery of pictures from the wedding of Alan and Meg, CLICK HERE.

Happy Holidays!!

Matt

This is the week of the year that I love. And dread.

I've always been a Thanksgiving kind of guy. When I was a kid growing up on Long Island, we seemed to have lots of holidays that featured whitefish, smoked salmon and bagels. Not exactly my cup of tea. But Thanksgiving was the one day off from school when I knew I could eat all the stuffing I wanted, have leftover turkey sandwiches for a week, and challenge one of my siblings to snap the wishbone.

Decades later nothing has changed. Sausage and chestnut stuffing is still a must, though I admit that I'm now convinced brussels sprouts are the missing link of the Thanksgiving feast. Like yams, they play a vital role in color and texture.

I also dread this week a bit each year. We may be known for our wedding photography but our Septembers and Octobers are filled to the brim with family portraits, everyone trying to take advantage the spectacular Fall color. And what gets shot in September and October gets processed in November. This is our busiest month of the year by far now, and this is our busiest week. We scramble to get as much done before we head out for the holiday. (This year the whole extended Mendelsohn clan is meeting up in a house in Sonoma, where we all bicker nonstop about who has the best recipe for, say, squash soup. Just leave me my brussels sprouts with maple syrup.)

A wedding is a bit of a thanksgiving event, too. A bride and groom give thanks for their mutual love, families gather to give thanks that the couple has found each other, and couples who have been married for 60 years get to give thanks for their lives together via a dance to Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek."

Kelsey Fritz married Joe Colandro on a beautiful October day and it was just such a day of giving thanks. The bride and groom were married at the Centreville United Methodist Church, followed by a lovely reception at Westfields Marriott in Chantilly. The change in colors had really just begun in earnest that Saturday and they provided a perfect backdrop for such a happy event. Kelsey was calm as she played with her dog at home. Joe meanwhile was figuring out to adhere the letters "VT" to the bottom of his shoes lest anyone not not know his alma mater during prayer. And Kelsey's dad was enjoying himself as he showed off some of his dance moves in the limo en route the church.

Silly moments at weddings are always great but I'll always have a soft spot for those special photographs, the ones that truly show off what a wedding is. Pictures like Kelsey getting ready to leave her house for the church. I've taken hundreds of photos of brides in mirrors and I have to admit I didn't even notice Kelsey's grandmother looking on in the reflection until long after their wedding was over. I love that photograph. Or Kelsey's face as she dances with her husband for the first time. 

Talk about Thanksgiving.

To see a mini gallery of pictures from the wedding of Kelsey and Joe, CLICK HERE.

Have a great holiday!!!

Matt

For almost twelve years I've been writing about weddings. 455 weddings to be precise. Big weddings, small weddings, weddings seven houses down the hill from where I live (true story) as well as those requiring six-hour flights with another six-hour drive thrown in on top just for good measure (Tofino, Vancouver Island). I've seen joy, I've seen the bittersweet. And sure, I've seen a few clunkers (wait for the book). I've been doing this long before there were any silly wedding blogs to care only about what kind of silverware the bride chose (as if that really matters) and whose shoes she wore. I'm proud to say that we've pretty much bucked that trend for more than a decade now.

Despite their scale, despite the venue, despite just about everything you can throw at it, a wedding will always be about one thing: two people who love each other deeply. For an industry that's gotten as unwieldy as ours has, it's as simple a truth as there is.

And if one were to try and find some measure of a wedding's success, some Richter scale of bliss, I'd say you need look no further than Lauren Cohn's dimpled smile. It's that good. In fact, Lauren, who married Jeremy Mandell at the National Museum of Women in the Arts last month, instantly catapults into the Matt Mendelsohn Photography Hall of Fame with the Longest Continuous Smile Without Pausing award. With the exception of a tear here and there, the dimple was ever-present.

It's hard to miss when you've got a bride and groom so excited about marrying one another. I get to hear a lot of things in limo rides over the years--who was late to the salon, who doesn't get along with whom, who left the shirt at the dry cleaner--but with Lauren and Jeremy all I got was total excitement about their wedding day. You all think I say this about everyone but the truth is that I can't remember a single thing that didn't go perfectly on this particular October afternoon. The weather was amazing, Lauren and Jeremy's families were a pleasure, the artwork around the museum dazzled as always. (Some venues have the kind of junky art you see at your local coffee house; the NMWA has Frida Kahlo and Mary Cassatt.)

As we begin to get buried in fall portrait craziness, taking a brief respite to look at these pictures was a true pleasure. And now that Lauren and Jeremy are back from their Down Under adventure, where they got one of the last flights out before a Quantas work stoppage, I'm happy to share these pictures with them. Congrats, guys and thanks!

To see a mini-gallery of pictures from the wedding of Jeremy Mandell and Lauren Cohn, CLICK HERE.

Matt

p.s. I'd be remiss if I didn't tell this story. Last year, right before Christmas, Lauren and Jeremy came up from New York to do some engagament pictures. We met near the Mall and walked around a bit. As fate would have it, as we were doing some pictures near the Smithsonian Castle we spied in the distance what looked like a Christams parade. Well, being Jewish, getting Santa Claus in the shot was not a top priority but we started walking towards this massive group of Santas and elves just for kicks and giggles. Well, the closer we got the faster we realized this wasn't just any parade of Santas. No, this was the parade of drunk Santas, of misfit elves and a host of other folks I can't even mention in a family blog. Just as I focused on Jeremy and Lauren with this oddball march behind them, one of the Santas looked at me and gave me -- no, not what I wanted for Christmas -- the biggest finger you can ever imagine. Santa Claus!!! All I can say is this: if that's not good luck on your wedding, I don't know what is. I'll let Lauren decide if I should post the pic.

Update: jeremy says go for it, so here it is, the oddest engagement picture I've ever taken in my life.

This past summer, when so many folks were anxiously waiting for the release of The Hangover Part II, a little, unheralded movie came along and pretty much stomped it into the ground. Let's face it--Bridesmaids was funnier, more disgusting (if that's a good thing), and touchingly bittersweet. But the best part of it all was the scene stealing performance of Melissa McCarthy, who became an overnight sensation in the wake of the film's success. I got to see a little scene stealing of my own in Easton, Maryland recently.

Now, Amanda Anderson, who married Matt McNally on an absolutely beautiful day last month on the Eastern Shore, didn't actually have any bridesmaids, so you might think it odd for me to even bring this up. These guys weren't into first dances and cake cuttings and all of the "normal" trappings of weddings that can get a bit formulaic. They wanted a relaxed Chesapeake wedding and that's what they got. The bay was spectacular, the sunset was amazing and the lemonade was perfect.

But luckily Amanda's friends possess a wicked sense of humor, a characteristic that is rarely, if ever, mentioned around weddings. Weddings are serious, formal events, right? Well, try telling that to this group of women, who in the midst of Amanda's make-up session paraded themselves into the room wearing some of the most--well, let's just say lovely--bridesmaids dresses they could find. At Goodwill.

Now, I'll admit to tearing up at a few weddings over the years but I can't remember laughing as hard as I did right then. The scene in Bridesmaids with the bad Mexican food? This was funnier and more unexpected. Though it may seem like a silly gag, it was a breath of fresh air.

Wouldn't it be great if all weddings loosened up just a bit? Amanda and Matt's wedding at Kirkland Manor didn't feel like it was on a railroad timetable, as some affairs I photograph do. It didn't feel like there was any pressure hovering in the air, as some weddings I photograph do. And in a wedding that featured the father of the bride singing a funny song to the couple during their ceremony and a Cuban woman rolling cigars from scratch, who could really complain about anything?

Weddings have gotten far more complex than they need to be, and I extend my thanks to all of Amanda's girlfriends for proving that a little humor can go a long way.

To see a mini-gallery of images from the wedding of Amanda Anderson and Matt McNally, CLICK HERE.

Take care,

Matt