A Wedding?

I love weddings! Drinks all around!

…but actually.

March 6:

Hi Anna,

I just started working at Vermont Life in January and was completely enthralled by your lilac photos (as was everyone who saw them, I believe)…I wanted to ask if you ever do photography for hire.  I am getting married in Brookfield (VT) [in] June, and have been searching for a photographer who might take a short set of photos for me…I know you are away at school but I thought I’d ask just in case you might be available.

Let me know what you think!
Thanks,
M

March 8 [two days in which Anna collected her jaw up from the floor and settled her spinning head]:

Hello M,

Wow! I’m so honored that you would ask me to do some of your wedding photography! Thank you so much!

First, not knowing what your expectations are, I have to be honest – I have never done any sort of wedding photography before, and I do still consider myself a bit of an amateur photographer. I don’t have much training, as I have taught myself a lot of what I know. I would be more than willing to work with you, however, if you are still interested.

…

Once again, I want to stress that I have never done this before. I would absolutely love the chance to work with you and help you capture your special day, but I want to make it clear that this would be my first wedding photography experience…If you would rather go with someone who has more experience, I understand! Just let me know what you are thinking.

Thank you so much for your interest! I am honored. =)

-Anna

March 8:

Hi Anna!

Thank you so much for writing back.  Actually, my fiance and I are honored that YOU might be available–we thought your photos are enchanting and we are really excited that you’ll consider trying out a different type of photo assignment for us :)  I would love to see more of your photos so we can get more specific about types of shots that I like, but if you’re available for the date and think this is something you’d like to do, then let’s talk price, etc. right away and get going! :)

…

One of the reasons your photos spoke to me is they really capture the beauty of flowers in Vermont the way I have seen them and experienced them…I’ve talked to a bunch of photographers that I knew weren’t right for capturing all the sensitive magic we’re trying to create in our little wedding…a lot of sort of jovial, bossy, red-faced men with camera packs who have been doing wedding after wedding for years.  I just didn’t feel like they got it.

So when I saw your photos I definitely was captured by them, and then when I read your interview I showed it to [my fiance] and told him I felt like you might really be a fit for the wedding photographer we’d been imagining: someone smart and creative and subtle who wouldn’t be grabbing us by our shoulders and lining us up in a row while the light was right.

We’re imagining our photographer sort of more catlike and clever, capturing the pretty details in natural light.
…

Thank you so much for reading all of this and I really look forward to your reply!!

Best,
M

…What. What. What is life.

She’s getting married in Brookfield. the town I grew up in. The town that I will always consider my realest home, and the town that contains all of my childhood. The wedding will be outside, on the edge of Sunset Lake, with its floating bridge. The lake I spent nearly every evening of every day of every summer playing and catching crawdads in for the first ten years of my life. The floating bridge I jumped off of countless thousands of times, trying to splash cars as they drove by. The wedding reception is going to be in Ariel’s Restaurant, right on the edge of the lake. My mom’s favorite restaurant, where she and Daddy used to go often, maybe even once a week, when we were little. The bride will be getting ready in the Green Trails Inn across the road, where Mommy used to work, and where we used to go listen to the clocks. I know that town like the back of my hand – or used to.

But…but…wedding…

I said I’d do it.

My new number one priority in life: Get a new camera asap, and practice like the dickens, and grab random people off the street and ask to take their picture, and GO TO WEDDINGS AND STARE AWKWARDLY AT THE PHOTOGRAPHERS, and DROP OUT OF COLLEGE AND TAKE SEVEN HUNDRED PHOTOS A DAY TO PRACTICE, and BECOME A HERMIT AND REMOVE MYSELF FROM THE WORLD AND ALL ITS WEDDING-Y STRESS!!!

What the heck, guys. WHY DID I SAY YES. Gosh I’m so excited. And I’m going to die. AND IF I MESS THIS UP I WILL NEVER FORGIVE MYSELF. And the bride prolly won’t forgive me either…heh. Excuse me while I go find a desk to hide under with my security blanket, where I can rock softly back and forth and whimper to myself…Honestly, I’m absolutely freaking terrified.

Heck. I’ve never even BEEN to a wedding in my LIFE.

Except that one time when I was ten and I was a flower girl.

But I really only remember that there was a hot tub and little bubble-blowing things afterwards, and if you licked your finger and ran it around the rim of a wine glass it made this epic noise that wasn’t very loud and yet managed to pierce to the furthest reaches of the tent and make everyone deaf/angry/hate you and it was most amusing…