It's December 21, one day before I inch ever closer to that dreaded half-century mark (two years to go), and I am typing my last blog entry of the year. A year that unceremoniously began with me breaking my shoulder as I sledded down the hill in front of my house in a blizzard is now coming to a close after the busiest holiday season I can remember. And there's a possibility of some snow later this week, so we've come full circle indeed.

But there's one last piece of business to take care of, a promise I made to Andrea Engel and Kent Haines, who were married in a spectacular wedding in Birmingham, Alabama back in late October. These guys have been so patient I feel like they should win some kind of award. Andrea knew we were knee-high in holiday orders and never once bugged me to see her photos. Not once. And she had the right to, believe me.

Maybe it has something to do with her Southern upbringing. I met Andrea a few years ago at the wedding of her Aunt Ilene, where she was a bridesmaid. (As I wrote back then, that event is one I'll always remember and cherish. That's Andrea, btw, in the lead photo, hugging her grandfather.) So it wasn't a surprise that her wedding to Kent, someone she's known for most of her life, should be any less memorable.

There were lots of firsts attached to this wedding: My first trip to Birmingham. (Heck, my first trip to Alabama!) The first time I've seen fried green tomatoes served at a wedding. (Delicious!) The first time I've seen a pair of tag-team brothers (Kent's) turn a rehearsal dinner into an open-mike night at a comedy club. The first time I've seen a groom turn a gift acceptance from his bride-to-be into an hysterical photo op. (The guys were in a suite lined with flags and Kent accepted Andrea's gift as if he were Hillary Clinton shaking hands with a head of state in Foggy Bottom.) 

More? How about the first time I can remember a rehearsal dinner being staged in a cool, funky gallery where you actually wanted to buy the art on the walls. Or the first time a couple gave out bags of their favorite imported coffee as favors. (I was worried the TSA would think I was smuggling drugs.) 

Kent and Andrea's wedding had all this and more. And, just like the wedding of Amy and Alex below, their event was marked not by cool doodads but by the incredible love they have for each other. A love that was beautifully chronicled in a journal that Kent and Andrea have exchanged for some time now. 

I guess I should probably mention at some point that Kent, in his spare time, is a pretty funny stand-up comic. He's appeared on Comedy Central's Live at Gotham and never seems to be at a loss for a good quip. When I traveled to Philadelphia earlier this year to shoot some engagement photos, we talked about our mutual love of the early Woody Allen stand-up routines . But when I stole a peek at just a single page of the journal he shares with Andrea, I immediately knew there was one thing he's quite serious about.

As always, the best weddings are the ones where the simplest human emotion of them all rules the day.

Before I go, I want to make a special mention. Andrea's parents, Alan and Lisa Engel, were so gracious in their hospitality and I really can't thank them enough. As I said, this was my first trip to Birmingham and I look forward to returning. (The Convention and Visitors Bureau has a cool campaign. Check it out here.) I saw the Vulcan guy, ate at Dreamland BBQ, and enjoyed the perfect weather. If you're going to start your travels in the deep South somewhere, why not Birmingham?

***To see a mini gallery of images form the wedding of Kent and Andrea, click here. ***

I'm outta here, off to Savanna, speaking of the South, for the holidays. If you have any photo needs, complaints about anything, comments about my slow blogging, save them for next year!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Matt

Let's get something straight: Amy Born and Alex Pascal might have had the best smelling wedding of all time.

They were married on a gorgeous fall day (yeah, yeah, I know, it's the winter solstice already, but we've been a tad busy) at Strathmore Music Center in Rockville, a place generally known more for its Shostakovich Fifth than its culinary prowess. Nevertheless, as Amy and Alex stood under a chuppa on the patio on a late afternoon, listening to beautiful readings and tributes from friends and family, their caterer was busy grilling just about anything you'd ever want to eat grilled. Like, fifty feet away. And the incredible aroma of all of those vegetables and all of that chicken and meat slowly wafted down the patio, teasing everyone trying to stay focused on the marriage at hand.

Amy and Alex probably planned it that way. They wanted their wedding to be one big mingle, so to speak, a time for the most important people in their lives to come, drink, eat and dance. And all without any of the silly pretense that has taken over much of the wedding industrial complex. In fact, much of the mingling came before the ceremony, a time when many brides and grooms might be nervously tucked away in an undisclosed bunker. Not these guys. Amy and Alex specifically wanted to enjoy the company of their guests prior to their vows.

They also wanted their ceremony to be a bit more interactive than the norm. The ceremony was staged in-the -round, but any fear anyone might have had of being obscured from the action was put to rest instantly. As various speakers approached the chuppa to speak, Amy and Alex changed position, like moons orbiting the sun. Everyone had a front row seat at some point or another.

Guests were greeted with a hot pretzel, a bag of freshly popped popcorn and staggeringly beautiful weather. Hamburger sliders were passed. The couple played an hysterical version of The Newlywed Game. And due to a certain father of the bride having a certain something to do with a marshmallow treat we all know and love, let's just say there were more sweets than at your average wedding. (My seven-year-old daughter is a Peep-aholic and was over the moon when I told her that she had been personally invited to tour the factory in Pennsylvania next year!)

Between the pretzels, the chocolates and a brush made out of scallions being used to marinate all of that grilled food, there was something very homey about this wedding. And if you've been around Amy for more than three seconds and have heard her laugh, then it all makes perfect sense.

***To see a mini gallery of images from the wedding of Alex Pascal and Amy Born, click here. ***

A few months ago, my dear friend Leah Fried Sedwick asked me to take some pictures for the Olde Towne Pet Resort, the area's largest and most elaborate pet care facility. When the facility opened many years ago, I had put up a bunch of favorite dog photos--beautiful signed and framed prints. They were photographs of people I knew--neighbors, family, colleagues. But they didn't have any real connection to the Pet Resort other than the fact that they were pictures of dogs.

Well, we finally decided to rectify that situation. Time gets the best of us and Leah and I decided that it would be fun to update the walls a bit, this time using real Olde Towne Pet Resort clients with their canine (and feline) friends. 

And so DogDay was born. On one very hot day this past summer, I set up a backdrop outside the resort's Springfield headquarters and photographed people and their dogs. Some were scheduled, some just happened to show up. I used digital cameras and I used ancient view cameras. And we had a blast.

Leah hosted a wine and cheese exhibit at the Pet Resort last month and all the photos were displayed as gorgeous fiber gallery prints, all signed and dated.

TO SEE A GALLERY OF IMAGES FROM DOGDAY, CLICK HERE.

For information on print pricing for the Olde Towne Pet Resort DogDay exhibition, contact Matt.

We're a little crazed here at Matt Mendelsohn Photography World Headquarters, this of course being the time of year that we love, because we're working non-stop, as well the time we simply hope to get through with our sanity intact. But as holiday portrait season becomes all-consuming, there are some brides and grooms out there who have been very, very patient. And I want to hug them for that.

"Thank you for calling to let me know about the delay, my mother has slowly backed away from the refresh button, and admittedly, so have I. :-)," wrote Emily Stallman, who married Doug Holland last month on a fabulously sunny day in Leesburg, Virginia. I had written Emily to tell her that our goal of getting pictures on the blog within two weeks was quickly morphing into one month. She's been a good sport and I'm happy that mom can finally hit "refresh" with some success.

And as long as I'm quoting emails from Emily, here's a little snippet from the nicest note I received last week. It's worth noting not because of the compliment to me, but because Emily seems to have the perfect grasp on the whole wedding experience. The memories, photographic and mental, last long after the tent has been collapsed and the flowers carted away.

"Doug and I returned from our honeymoon a couple days ago and are now becoming reacquainted with the "real world" once again. We've been on this high from our wedding weekend all the way through the honeymoon and it has been the happiest, most incredible month of our lives. The wedding was nothing short of amazing and filled with such an outpouring of love and support that I wish we could bottle it up and keep it with us forever."

She continues, "The whole evening flew by and as we relive it now in our memories and through our friends' photos, we are so happy that you were there to capture it all.  We're just now hearing all of the back stories that we missed and we can't wait to see how the whole evening unfolded. You are an amazing photographer and have such a way with people that it made everyone feel at ease. Your passion for your work was contagious and I can't tell you how fired up my bridesmaids were watching you work while talking about the "killer light!" They just loved you. Thank you for taking charge and calling the dispatcher when our transportation hadn't arrived but more importantly, thank you for capturing the most wonderful day of our lives."

Well, who wouldn't want to get a note like that?!? It's a wonderful endorsement of what I try to do every weekend of my life, beginning some 407 weddings ago in 1998. Can it be that many? That Emily mentioned my excitement over "killer light" makes me smile the most, because it's a sign that I haven't yet fallen into the dreaded trap of formula. A few weeks ago, Diana Eng and her bridesmaids kept making fun of me for screaming "Holy Camoly!!" when the light was perfect. Killer light, holy camoly, it's all good. When I stop screaming, take my cameras away.

Of course, the light was killer the day Doug and Emily got married. The venue was pretty killer, too, a beautiful 1770 Georgian colonial named Merriweather Manor. Sitting atop a hill overlooking some 400 acres of farmland, Merriweather Manor is the perfect place to hold a fall wedding. Whenever I drive past farms, I always look at those hay bales dotting the landscape and think they would be a great backdrop for photos. I finally had my chance at Merriweather, and Emily was a trooper for wading into the fields in a wedding dress. The photo of Doug carrying his bride wasn't staged; he literally had to get her out of that tall grass intact!

Anyway, I'm going to format some pictures right now rather than droning on, the quicker to allow Doug and Emily to see that image. And a couple more. :)

**TO SEE A MINI GALLERY OF PHOTOS FROM THE WEDDING OF DOUG HOLLAND AND EMILY STALLMAN, CLICK HERE.**

As for me, I have to run out and shoot some more holiday portraits. If I don't respond to emails within the next month, call 911. 

Matt

Andrew Levinson and Stephanie Lerman were married under the towering columns and regal views of the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, without a doubt one of Washington's most majestic venues for a wedding.

But as I photographed their beautiful ceremony and reception, my mind kept wandering. Not to a place with stunning views of the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol, but to a little classroom hundreds of miles away, one where the only view is the Shop Rite supermarket on Woodbury Road.

You see, a few hours earlier, when Stephanie was getting ready at the Hotel Dupont, Andrew's sister came up to me and said, "Your mom was my kindergarten teacher."

Yikes! Two weddings in a year where the groom has hailed from my hometown of Plainview, New York. (Technically, I'm from Old Bethpage, but the two are always lumped together.) But unlike the first one, where the groom was too young to have had any connection to my family, this time there was a thread of a memory.

"She'll definitely remember me," Andrew's sister Jenny told me. "I definitely remember her." I laughed. These things always seem to happen to me. In 1990, while standing in the desert of Saudi Arabia waiting for a C-130 to refuel, a guy came up to me and said, "Did you go to SUNY-Binghamton?" And years later, while pulling up to a long-forgotten cemetery in a long-forgotten town in Ukraine, trying to see if we could possibly locate a family headstone, I literally saw our ancestor's name from the moving car.

Paging Rod Serling.

So rather than leave a fun coincidence at that, I immediately pulled out my cell phone and dialed up mom, still living in the same house I grew up in. I handed Jenny the phone and the two chatted for a few minutes. But when they hung up, I sensed that Jenny thought my mom would remember more. I said, "Well, my mom is getting older (you are, mom) and maybe she doesn't remember every kid. In fact, I only remember the name of one student my mom ever had, a girl from the early 1990's who had some very special needs."

"She was my best friend in kindergarten," Jenny said.

I got out the phone again and called Old Bethpage. "Mom--Jenny was best friends with Sarah." (I've changed her name here.) And with that, my mom said, "Of course I remember her!" Once again, I handed the phone over to Jenny and this time the two of them had a real conversation, one with actual and specific memories attached. I smiled.

That's my motto: Connecting People Since 1985.

(From the Dep't of Timeliness, my sister just wrote a brilliant piece yesterday about my mom and her band of teacher buddies. You can read it here. I can say proudly that it ends with a photo of my daughter.)

I love being at weddings and meeting people from all over the world, people like Andrew's grandfather, a wonderful man who laughed off my awe surrounding his World War II service. "Wow--you were in the Battle of the Bulge? That's amazing!!" I said, only to have grandpa shrug and smile. "I'm no hero," he joked to me, but that's exactly what he is. Each time we saw each other that night, grandpa would wink. What a guy.

I've met almost every justice of the Supreme Court at various weddings, actors and celebrities. Just this past Sunday, the father of the bride happened to be the CEO of the company that makes Peeps, those marshmallow things we all eat too many of in the spring. He invited my daughter to take a tour of the factory in Bethlehem and I smiled all the way home. My daughter smiled more when i told her the next morning.

Was it fun chatting with Justice Kennedy at a reception? It sure was. But I'll take Andrew's grandfather's war stories or Jenny's your-mom-was-my-kindergarten-teacher story any day of the week.

It's the best part of my job.

TO SEE A MINI GALLERY OF PHOTOS FROM THE WEDDING OF STEPHANIE LERMAN AND ANDREW LEVINSON, CLICK HERE.

Take care,

Matt

p.s. Off to Birmingham, AL to shoot a wedding this week. Never been there before. Should be fun.