Five Years Later: The Wedding Photos That Still Matter

On September 19, 2021, I had the privilege of photographing the beginning of Austin and Deirdra's marriage.

But technically, that wasn't the first beginning of theirs I photographed.

Years before there was a wedding, before they were even officially boyfriend and girlfriend, Austin invited the woman he had started dating to come hang out at the pool and meet his friends.

Hi. I'm the friends.

Somewhere during that day, I picked up my camera and took a photo of the two of them together. It ended up being one of the first photographs someone else had taken of them as a couple.

I didn't think much of it at the time.

Today, that photograph is framed in their home.

And a few years after I took it, I would be standing behind a camera again, this time watching those same two people get married.

Funny how that happens.

A Friendship I Never Could Have Predicted

I met Austin in 2017 after a random fellow artist reached out to me on Facebook Messenger to talk about art and photography.

There was absolutely no way I could have known that one message would lead to some of the friendships I would treasure most nearly a decade later.

Not long after meeting Austin, I met Deirdra.

By the time their wedding came around, Dee and I had become incredibly close. When she lived in San Diego, we'd work out together multiple times a week. The three of us spent plenty of time playing board games and video games, taking trips to Universal Studios, and generally doing life together.

Even after Austin and Dee moved to Arizona, the friendship didn't disappear with the distance.

Visits back to San Diego have meant beach days, concerts, and even getting tattoos together.

Maybe it's the fact that Dee and I are both Virgos. Maybe it's simply that we've known each other long enough to understand one another on a very specific level.

Fellow skeptical Virgos will understand.

Either way, I'd already been lucky enough to watch a good portion of their relationship unfold.

Then I got to photograph their wedding.

An Intimate Wedding in Prescott, Arizona

Getting married in 2021 meant navigating a world that still looked quite a bit different.

Austin and Dee chose to keep their wedding in Prescott, Arizona intimate, surrounded by close family and friends.

And honestly? It was perfectly them.

A little chaotic. Full of love. And created with the help of the people who cared about them.

Everyone came together to help arrange the details and décor. A friend made their wedding cake. One of my other best friends traveled from Phoenix to do Dee's hair and makeup.

It wasn't simply a room full of people watching Austin and Dee get married.

Their people had a hand in making the day happen.

And then, of course, it rained.

And Then Came the Rain

Thankfully, the weather held off long enough for Austin and Dee to have their ceremony, sign their marriage license, and give me enough time to sneak in some portraits.

Then, during portraits, the rain started.

Everyone made their way under cover or headed inside.

But the celebration?

That didn't go anywhere.

There are photographs of Dee dancing while the rain came down. There are photographs of the guys coming in from the weather with scotch in hand. People laughed, talked, drank, danced, and kept right on celebrating.

The rain changed the plans a little.

It didn't change the reason everyone was there.

And you know what they say about rain on your wedding day.

Five years later, I'd say they're doing just fine.

The Things You Notice When Nobody Is Looking

At that point in my photography career, I primarily specialized in boudoir and lifestyle portraits.

My eye had already been trained to look for things.

Expressions. Details. Body language. Those tiny moments someone else might not think twice about.

Photographing a wedding meant bringing that same instinct into a much bigger setting.

More people to observe.

More details to notice.

More moments to catch.

Austin and Dee's wedding ended up being much more documentary than heavily posed, partially because of the rain and partially because everyone was much more interested in enjoying the celebration than standing around waiting for photographs.

Which was perfectly fine with me.

I'm the photographer who says, "Just one more!"

And then finds six more.

Looking through their wedding photographs now, there's one thing I keep noticing over and over again.

Austin looking at Dee.

Sometimes they're looking directly at each other with enormous smiles.

But some of my favorites are the photographs where Dee isn't looking at him at all.

She'll be talking to somebody.

Or I'll have her looking toward me and smiling for a photograph.

And there's Austin beside her, completely ignoring my camera and looking at her instead.

I can't tell you exactly what he was thinking in those moments.

But five years later, I can tell you what I see.

A man looking at the woman he just got to call his wife.

And Then There's Dee

I've seen a lot of sides of this woman over the years.

I've seen her strength. I've seen her resilience. I've seen the tougher exterior that I think those of us who know her well understand.

But there was something different about Dee that day.

Even through the chaos of pulling together final details, she had this buzz about her before the ceremony.

You could feel it as they walked down the aisle.

You could feel it while they exchanged their vows.

And then, after they were married and came walking back down the aisle hand in hand, there was this calmness about her.

And a little bit of that cheeky Dee came back too.

The walls were down.

Her smile was huge, bright, and completely infectious.

She was radiant.

Not because everything had gone perfectly.

It hadn't.

She was just happy.

The Polaroids

Because apparently bringing my regular camera equipment wasn't enough, I also brought Polaroid cameras.

I originally set up a little station where guests could pick one up and take photographs throughout the celebration.

Eventually, everyone became much more interested in actually celebrating than remembering to take pictures.

Naturally, I ended up with the cameras again.

Just one more, remember?

I'm so glad I did.

Those little imperfect Polaroids are part of the story too.

There's something about a Polaroid that asks you to accept a moment exactly as it happened. There's no perfecting it afterward. You press the button, the photograph comes out, and that's it.

A tiny physical piece of that exact moment.

Five Years Changes a Photograph

I am an incredibly sentimental person.

I love being able to visually see how people, relationships, and lives change over time.

Looking at Austin and Dee's wedding photographs five years later means looking at two people standing at the very beginning of their marriage while knowing at least some of what came afterward.

Five years of being husband and wife.

Trips they hadn't taken yet.

Memories they hadn't made yet.

Experiences they hadn't gone through yet.

Versions of themselves they hadn't become yet.

But there's another side to looking backward.

Sometimes the people and animals who shared those moments with us aren't here anymore.

And that's when an ordinary photograph can become something entirely different.

There's a photograph I remember taking of Austin and Dee's dog, Landi.

I got down on the ground to photograph her. Behind her, you can see friends casually talking to one another.

At the time, I just thought it was a cute photograph of Landi.

There's another photograph where she wandered into my frame.

I remember thinking something along the lines of, "Oh darn, Landi got in the shot."

Five years later, she has passed away.

And now?

I'm so glad she got in the shot.

Because she wasn't something that got in the way of the photograph.

She was part of their family.

And what I accidentally captured was a moment with all of them together.

That's the strange thing about photographs.

The photograph itself doesn't change.

We do.

The people in it do. Our lives do. Relationships grow. Families change. Time moves forward.

And suddenly, a photograph you barely thought twice about when it was taken can become one you're incredibly grateful exists.

Maybe that's part of why I'm always asking for just one more.

We don't always know which photograph is going to matter later.

To Austin & Dee, Five Years Later

No way did I think a random fellow artist reaching out to me on Facebook Messenger to talk about art and photography would lead to some of the most treasured friendships I'd have nearly a decade later.

Austin, thank you for being outgoing enough to hit send.

Because one random message changed a whole lot more than either of us could have known.

Dee, thank you for giving me the chance to earn your friendship.

I know that doesn't come lightly.

As a fellow skeptical Virgo, I get it. ♡

And to both of you, thank you for trusting me with the opportunity to photograph the beginning of your marriage.

There's something surreal and incredibly beautiful about knowing I photographed one of the earliest moments of your relationship, before there was even an official relationship to photograph, and years later I got to photograph another beginning.

I love you guys so much.

Happy five years, Austin + Dee.

And just so we're clear...

I'm expecting a call about that ten year vow renewal.

TTYL,