There are times in life when you put your foot in your mouth and cringe. There are other times where you reaallllllly put your foot in your mouth and you want to crawl under a rock for a few months.

Last year, I was having the best time talking with Jennifer Nosal and Jimmy Garbak about their forthcoming wedding at Meadowlark Gardens. Jennifer's mom and dad were there and we were all laughing about everything. I'm the king of bad analogies when I'm talking to prospective wedding couples--talking about Mario Batali and bike racks and things that don't have anything to do with wedding photography.

Well, towards the end of our conversation with Jimmy and the Nosals, I started talking about group photos. They were asking if I had an approach to getting those done efficiently and I, of course, said yes. "Doing family photos should be easy. I try and make it a painless process--not like a trip to the dentist. 

There was a painful pause in the room. "Um, my dad's a dentist." And after the worst four seconds of my life, we all burst out laughing. I remember thinking to myself, right then and there, time to pack the dentist metaphor away for good.

The fun part of all of this is that Jimmy and Jennifer had a wedding that was so much fun, you don't need any comparisons to anything. Let's put it this way: you don't see too many weddings where at the end of the night the bridesmaids all don t-shirts advertising the groom's landscaping business. (It's cleverly called The Lawn Offices. 703-618-3900. Call for a free estimate now. Bet you weren't expecting a plug here, Jimmy.)

And you don't see too many weddings where the band leader comes back from a break dressed in a Superman costume. (That would be Tyrone Smith, aka Super T, whose amazing band performed at Jenna Bush's wedding reception.)

Jennifer and Jimmy's wedding was planned to be a fun affair and it kept its promise. Right from the start, actually. When I arrived at The Grooming Lounge in the Tysons Galleria, Jimmy was literally being covered with hot towels in preparation for his shave. He looked like he was about to be mummified and his relatives were having a lot of fun making fun. Jennifer was having fun of her own over at the Ritz Carlton, pretty much laughing all the time, which, avid readers of this blog will know, is Matt's key to a good wedding. (See Carly Berger, below.)

(It wasn't all fun and games. My assistant Cliff took what has to be one of my favorite pictures of the year, an image of a very pensive Jimmy fiddling with the wedding rings on his limo ride to the church. It's the kind of picture that literally jumps out at you during the editing process.)

But even at the church, from my vantage point hiding in a doorway near the altar, Jimmy and Jennifer were all smiles again. Sometimes a couple will be very serious during a service--which is fine, don't get me wrong--and sometimes a couple is just too excited to be anything but, well, really excited. And as they exited that church, Jimmy grabbed Jennifer's hand and kissed it. 

It was a sweet moment in a sweet wedding. And speaking of sweets, if you want to avoid a trip to the dentist....oh, forget it. 

TO SEE A GALLERY OF IMAGES FROM JIMMY AND JENNIFER'S WEDDING, CLICK HERE.

(AND FOR GREAT LAWN CARE, REMEMBER THE LAWN OFFICES!)

Take care,

Matt

p.s. On a logistical front, we're about three weddings behind here and things are getting crazy with holiday portraits. So I'm going to try and keep things on schedule as much as I can. (That means not writing Moby Dick each time I blog.) Stay tuned next week for a post about the wedding of Stephanie Lerman and Andrew Levinson. (Andrew hails from...Plainview!)

Ashley Lucas impressed me in the very first sentence of the very first email she ever wrote.

It was back in February, when we were being pummeled by one of the biggest blizzards of the century, that I got a note from her. "I got your name from the Newseum where you did Anne's wedding. In a complete coincidence, I was the nurse who took care of Anne while she was in the ICU, and recognized her. I remember her and her fiance being the most wonderful people, as well as her parents."

Like so many of my bride's, Ashley came to be through a referral, the Newseum, though I had no idea that she would have recognized one of my other brides on that site. That's the way things seem to go in my life. That she would have remembered Anne (I've changed her name here) and her then-fiance as "wonderful people," amidst the craziness of the Intensive Care Unit, was a good sign. That she remembered Anne's parents at all was extra credit. And not the least bit surprising.

Why? Because Ashley has a mom, Suzanne Lucas, who is larger than life. And the two of them together, with those damned Texas accents that make you grin from ear to ear, could probably make a case to be the 51st state.

I spoke to Suzanne not five minutes ago and as usual she had me laughing within seconds. "Suzanne," I said, "I'm about to put up the blog of your daughter's wedding and I should tell you that she looks amazingly beautiful."

"She got that from me, of course," came the response, accompanied by a wonderful Lone Star chuckle .

Ashley Lucas and Andy Lacy might have had one of the more spectacular weddings on one of the more spectacular days in September, but after being given the gift of laughter from your parents, it's all gravy anyway.

Since you'll ask, here are the details: A gorgeous ceremony at the St. Regis, just steps from the White House. A handsome groom. Add to the mix a classic Ulla-Maija dress, cocktails in the courtyard at dusk and a free ice cream bar from a street vendor stationed down the block and you've pretty much got all you need.

(Well, the photo-op with some Tea Party guy who happened to walk by was probably extra credit.)

I love couples who are as easy to work with as were the Lucas and Lacy families. Each time we have a conversation, it's always about something other than weddings. "I just downloaded your brother's book to my iPad," said Suzanne today; "How have you guys been??" said Ashley a few minutes later; "You were so great to work with," said Andy's sister, after we bumped into each other at the skating rink the other night. (Which of course led me to pull out all of my photos of Alexandra's hockey exploits.)

Great families produce great kids. And it usually begins with a great laugh.

TO SEE A MINI GALLERY OF PHOTOS FROM THE WEDDING OF ASHLEY AND ANDY, CLICK HERE.

I'm going to cut this short, as I'm rushing to get things done before I go to my 25th college reunion in upstate New York. I love getting old. :)

Matt

So I was made fun of last week.

I was shooting pictures of the wedding party of Diana Eng and Jimmy Wang outside Oheka Castle last weekend, when, in my excitement about the wind and the light and the gorgeous allée of trees unfolding in front of my eyes, I shouted out the first thing (well, maybe the second) that popped into my head: "Holy Camoly!!!"

Nothing, I've since learned, dates you faster than saying something like Holy Camoly. It falls into that category of ancient words and phrases like "aw, shucks," "egads," and "brouhaha." Like another of my favorites, the timeless "Geez Louise," using an archaic saying pegs you as someone older than, well, anyone who is within ten feet and laughing. But I'm sticking. My friend Connie Schultz at the Cleveland Plain Dealer once told me that "Geez Louise" is one of her favorite expressions. And Connie won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Call me Ned Flanders, but if it's good enough for her, they're good enough for me.

Truth be told, every single thing about Diana and Jimmy's wedding was worthy of a Holy Camoly. Especially the couple themselves, who staged one of the nicest weddings I've ever shot and still managed to stay completely relaxed. From something as seemingly simple as a soft boiled egg at their rehearsal dinner to the view of their wedding ceremony from the fourth floor balcony, every facet of the weekend, great and small, had me muttering in excitement. So let's go to the videotape.

Diana and Jimmy came to me twelve months ago. I had photographed the wedding of two of their closest friends, Lori and Matt McGill, almost four years ago, a wedding I'll always remember, and not just because Lori and Matt became good friends after the fact, but because the three of us--bride Lori, bridesmaid Diana, myself--almost all ended up in the Chesapeake Bay after the boat ferrying us to the reception hit some choppy water.

That wedding produced great things. For Lori and Matt, that would be two beautiful children, Dempsey and Calla. (To show how time flies, Calla was the flower girl this past weekend, carefully placing each petal into position, an excruciatingly hysterical process that had every guests in stitches. See the photo of her playing drums if you need more evidence of cuteness.) Speaking more selfishly, their wedding produced some of my favorite images of the last few years, one of which hangs at a 30" x 60" print in my studio. (And even sits atop the very blog you're now reading.) As you'll see in a few minutes, it's an image that requires a second look now.

Anyway, Diana and Jimmy told me they were going to have an elegant, fun and sophisticated wedding. I knew they were serious when we shot some engagement pictures earlier last year in New York City at one of their favorite little tapas bars, Bar Jamón. The Iberico ham was off-the-chart delicious, like no ham I'd ever tasted. It should have prepared me for the egg.

That egg came courtesy of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant set amidst a working farm on what once was the Rockefellers' Pocantico Hills estate. From the moment you park your car, something tells you that this will be a special meal. Maybe it's the lush, pastoral setting or maybe it's the grazing sheep and clucking chickens you walk right past to get to the restaurant. This, from Frank Bruni's review in the New York Times several years ago:

"This reality, which goes beyond mere novelty, is one compelling reason for people near and far to pay attention to the restaurant, an offshoot of Blue Hill in Greenwich Village, where Mr. Barber also supervises the kitchen. But there is another, better reason: most of the food here is terrific, and some of it is flat-out wonderful. The premium that the restaurant places on immediacy has a culinary purpose, a hedonistic payoff."

Hedonistic payoff, indeed. I'm certain that Cliff, my assistant, has never heard me go on and on about an egg before, but the soft-boiled egg coated in almond and panko, then flash fried, was without a doubt the best one I've ever eaten in my life. But it's just an egg, akin to saying "that was the best glass of water I've ever tasted," right? How good can an egg be? Well, at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, right at the moment the soft center of that egg plays against the panko crust, the answer is absurdly good.

The next morning, we left Westchester and headed out for Long Island, but not before a quick stop at nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to pay homage to Washington Irving. Everyone knows Irving as the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, but for me, Tales of the Alhambra is special one. While traveling in Spain at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Irving stayed in the 14th century Moorish palace known as the Alhambra. It was in disrepair, and Irving's subsequent 1832 story is credited with renewing interest and saving it for future generations, like me and my wife, who stayed at the Alhambra on our honeymoon in 1997.

Which brings me from one ancient castle to another, Long Island's very own Oheka Castle, located a scant five minute drive from where I grew up. Though I passed the entrance scores of times as a youngster on a bike, right there off of Jericho Turnpike, I never had any reason to go inside. Oh, what I was missing. Built by financier Otto Kahn, construction began on Oheka in 1917. According to its current owners, Oheka, with its 127 rooms, was and is still the second largest private home ever built in America. (And, more interesting to me, the English major, is that it at least partially served as the inspiration for Gatsby's estate in West Egg.)

Suffice to say Oheka is a fantasy, everything one could want in a wedding venue. That we had one of the most beautiful days of the year, only twenty-four hours removed from the threat of a hurricane, was just icing on the cake. Diana and Jimmy know their food and wine, as evidenced by their rehearsal dinner choice, and the wedding followed suit. It was just perfect.

My favorite part of the day came right after Diana got dressed. One of the staff at Oheka suggested that Diana and Jimmy see each other in a room inside the mansion. But it was so beautiful outside, it seemed like a crime to be indoors. It was the videographer, who, having shot at Oheka before, said, "A lot of photographers don't like this spot for some reason, but there's this beautiful pathway over there." Thank god for that one comment. (And just who are those silly photographers anyway?) It was such a great location. I worried that with the post-hurricane remnant winds still blowing, Diana might hesitate about coming outside. Silly me. Not only was she totally into it, but her laughter became part of all the pictures we made there. As the bridesmaids helped her across the lawn, all of them howling and blowing in the gusts, it felt like a scene from a fairy tale.

(I don't do a lot of product placing in this blog, as you faithful readers know. But JoAnn Gregoli, the event planner for this masterpiece whom I'd never met, was so easy to work with, so much fun, that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention her great efforts. I guess the sign of a great wedding, from the perspective of someone working the party, is that it doesn't feel like work.)

Right about now, Diana and Jimmy are staggering back to their hotel somewhere in Vietnam, the jet lag just starting to catch up with them. It's my hope, as they scroll through these pictures, that they're reminded of just how beautiful a day they had.

One last thing before I leave you guys today. I mentioned a picture of Lori and Matt, the couple who made this past week possible, dancing at their wedding a couple of years back. As I was going through the photos of Diana and Jimmy, I let out a little gasp and said, "Holy Camoly!"

To see a mini gallery (for a change, more like a maxi gallery) of photos from the wedding of Diana Eng and Jimmy Wang, click here. 

Have a great day, guys!

Matt

I'm kind of a mantra guy, though probably not in the traditional Hindu, transformative sense of the word. That would be too much wishful thinking for a guy from Long Island.

My mantras tend to be a little less of the calming sort and more on the functional side. "Never get off the boat," a line from Apocalypse Now, for instance, has always been a personal favorite, used in my newspapers days to remind myself that changing one's mind at the last minute--like leaving a secure media platform before the president arrives--is never a good idea. Once on, stay on. Another mantra I find myself repeating a lot is, "It's always easier to say I'm sorry than to ask permission." That one goes a long way when dealing with pesky church ladies. (Actually, church ladies only come in the pesky variety.) And then there's my seven-year-old daughter's personal favorite, one which she has now wisely adopted as her own: "Never have a shake when you can have a malt." It's a nuanced distinction, to be sure, but it's nuance that separates us from the hoi polloi, right?

But when it comes to weddings, there is only one mantra that matters to me. And believe me, when you've photographed 400 weddings in 11 years, you need a good mantra. Maybe even some prescription Tylenol. It's quite simple and it goes straight to the heart of what I try and do each weekend. Every Saturday morning, as I get ready to do it all again, I repeat this one phrase to myself:

Not last week's wedding.

"That's it?" you're thinking. Yup, that's it. Nice and easy. Because a couple can get married at the Four Seasons in Georgetown or a farm in Charlottesville, but if the only pictures you're shooting fit into some formulaic grocery list downloaded off of weddingphotography101.com, how can you tell the difference? If every photograph from the day involves permutations of family pictures in the rose garden, how do you know what the weekend was really about?

Meggan Crum and Scott Schneider were clearly thinking not last week's wedding when they chose a secluded, fog-encased beach in Tofino, British Columbia as the site of their nuptials. This place is so off the beaten path that it took almost seven hours to get there by car and ferry. And that's just from downtown Vancouver! Scott and Meggan fell in love with Tofino when they first visited there, and they knew that it was the place for them. It's easy to see why. More than simply asking friends and family to go to an out-of-the-way destination spot--Costa Rica, say--these guys wanted their loved ones to experience a place that actually has meaning to them, that actually represents who they are.

And how long did it take me to figure out that Tofino, this little, hippy surfing village on the Pacific Ocean represents who Meggan and Scott are? About ten seconds. I had just arrived from my journey to Tofino and met them at their cottage at the Long Beach Lodge Resort. They were on their way over to the Wickaninnish Inn, a Relais & Chateaux property where the wedding would take place, and I asked if I could jump in back and scope things out. We walked onto the beach and that was it. Meggan, who, back in New York, is the accessories editor for In Style magazine, looked immediately at home and, well, non-New York-ish in her big, comfy sweater and no shoes. It's the anti-New York, this place--quiet, undeveloped, pristine. Scott, meanwhile, was having a blast pretending the 8 ft. strands of seaweed that litter the beach were bullwhips left behind by Indiana Jones. 

I got it immediately. Tofino is a place without pretense. You can be Indiana Jones if you want, or you can be a kid listening for the ocean in a shell. This is not the Hamptons, where one goes to be seen, but rather a place one goes to be ignored. It's a place where the best fish tacos you'll ever eat come from the side of an old truck, where you can watch a mother bear and her cubs prowl the beach looking for crab, and where the salmon you're eating tastes so amazingly good simply because it was swimming in the ocean an hour earlier. "Simply" might be the best word of all here. Tofino is a wonderfully simple place.

A wedding is simple when you can roll out of bed, walk among towering trees to the cottage next to yours, and feast upon halibut and dungeness crab caught and cooked by the groom's brother. (There was so much fish from the deep water fishing trip the guys made that lodge guests not even affiliated with the wedding, not to mention housekeeping staff, were all being invited to take part. "Pssst. Wanna try some salmon?" could be heard along the beach.) A wedding is simple when guests who have never surfed before can roll out of bed, take a few minutes of lessons, and be up riding waves in no time. A wedding is simple when all the girls can go for a walk on the beach together in the mist, scarves and sweats and fleece, combing the tide pools for all sorts of little creatures. (Don't laugh, but I'd never seen living starfish before, only the dried and dead kind you buy at Wings on the Outer Banks.) And a wedding is definitely simple when the chairs for the ceremony are actually pieces of deadwood and the chairs for the dinner that follows are actually logs.

Throw in a good bit of sophistication and fashion and it all worked together beautifully. The elegance of Meggan's Oscar de la Renta dress and Christian Louboutin shoes against the softly crashing waves. Scott's great linen suit against the sand. The incredible interiors of the Wickaninnish set off by the sea. (In the winter, the resort pipes in the sound of the furious storms going on outside.) The simplicity of the chuppa against the shoreline. The beautiful Coach bag Meggan and Scott left for each of their guests, bags filled with decidedly non-Coach-y things like beef jerky and Maple Leaf Frisbees.

In all honesty, I jumped at the chance to shoot this event, an opportunity that arose after I shot the wedding of their friends, Meg and Geoff, this past January in Washington. Meggan's  request came right as I was watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics each night and I thought, who wouldn't want to go there?!? I worked for a long time in the newspaper business, and a lot of that time was spent photographing celebrities. Nine intensely pressure-filled minutes with Nicole Kidman in a hotel room. Still, I can only imagine the pace of Meggan's job at In Style. (Her friend Taylor Tomasi Hill is the accessories editor at Marie Claire.) So I can certainly see why she would fall in love with a place like Tofino. It's the ultimate in alter ego, a continent's remove from the hustle of midtown Manhattan. Now, having returned, I'm thrilled I was able to have this little Canadian adventure. Like Scott and Meggan, I'm sure I'll return.

Good choice, guys. :)

To see a little mini-gallery of pictures from Scott and Meggan's wedding, click here.

See ya.

Matt

I thankfully have no first-hand knowledge to back this up, but I'm told there are some brides out there to whom a spot of rain on their wedding day would be cause a bit of consternation. You know, worrying about guests and dresses and I've-been-dreaming-about-this-day-for-so-long kind of stuff.

That would not be Carly Berger.

In fact, nothing short of constant laughter would be Carly Berger. And so when the heavens opened up a bit on her wedding day, the only thing Carly seemed to be concerned about was that there were enough umbrellas on hand for her adorable nephew to play with. The little guy was having a field day playing amidst the pile of parasols in Carly's hotel room, and that seemed to be a perfect way to approach the whole rain thing in the first place.

So rather than write "Carly Berger and George Loranger were married on a bit of a rainy day in Annapolis a couple of weekends ago," let's keep things real. Carly Berger and George Loranger were married on an absolutely perfect day in Annapolis a couple of weekends ago, with the sounds of boat horns, mariachi bands and canons to help celebrate their wedding. And a lucky spot of rain ended up providing the couple with some great photo opportunities to boot.

I don't write these things, by the way, to make couples feel happy. From the moment I entered Carly's room at the Westin Annapolis, I didn't hear a single worry about the weather. Not one. Between that adorable child in diapers running around the room and the great soundtrack in the background (Mark Knopfler's "Romeo and Juliet" and Simon and Garfunkel's "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her," two of my own favorites), there wasn't much time for weather discussions anyway.

Next door, George was just a tad nervous, and I did my level best to keep his eyes on the prize. As I've told hundreds of brides and/or grooms over the years--this was nuptials #399 for me--there are two kinds of nervous: taking an LSAT nervous and wedding nervous. The former is a gut-wrenching feeling, with college acceptances and all that stuff hanging in the balance, while the latter is pretty much all good, as you get to marry the person you love. 

After watching the bride laugh with her mom and dad (they don't seem to do serious very well), we headed off to the ceremony. George and Carly wedding's took place in the gorgeous chapel of the United States Naval Academy, where, if you really want to see something cool, you can go down below to the crypt and see the sarcophagus of America's first great naval hero, John Paul Jones, he of "I have not yet begun to fight" fame. (And not of Led Zeppelin bassist fame.) It's a place of monumental beauty, the chapel is, and George and Carly will, decades from now, look back and feel fortunate to have been married in such a place.

Of course, with Naval Academy chapel comes Naval Academy graduates, and George and his buddies looked dashing in their dress uniforms. (Perhaps someone can explain the significance of the armadillo that kept popping up all day. I think it's the mascot of an Annapolis bar by the same name, though I could be wrong.) George's dad looked particularly proud, smoking on a huge cigar outside the Annapolis Yacht Club with some of his son's friends. Oysters, crab and shrimp were in abundance, a mariachi band was playing, and sailboats came and went from the downtown harbor. 

In fact, if I were to distill 399 weddings into a list of practical advice, like the LSAT example, item #7 might be: When in doubt, get a mariachi band. I have a couple of years to the next big milestone in my life, my 50th birthday, but I've always thought that a backyard party with mariachi band would be the way to go. The musicians and the music are always pure joy.

Once inside for dinner, guests dined on crabcakes, got an impromptu and impressive drum recital from the father of the bride, and watched Carly be surrounded by a bunch of officers singing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," right out of a scene from a movie whose name I don't even need to mention.

All in all, a perfect wedding.

To see a mini gallery of pictures from the wedding of George and Carly, click here.  

Me, I'm going to see if I can enjoy a few minutes of the first sub-100 degree day in Washington in the last month.

See ya,

Matt