Twelve people, one set of steps and about ninety seconds between the ceremony and the reception. Group photographs do not have to be stiff, and this one was not.

The whole wedding party pulling faces under the gold canopy of a Mount Vernon landmark.

The Belvedere

An elopement is two people, a set of vows and whatever the weather decides to do. Standing back and letting the coastline hold the frame said more here than moving in close would have.

Two brides reading their vows on the cliff edge, the beach curving away below them.

Black Sand

The light through this stand of trees lasts about ten minutes. We walked out during dinner, used all of it, and were back before dessert.

Newlyweds facing each other in the pines as the last of the sun came through the trunks.

Seneca Creek

It snowed the whole time we were at the water. Destination weddings tend to hand you something you could not have planned for, which is most of the reason to travel for them.

A kiss in falling snow at the edge of the lake, the Ten Peaks half lost in cloud.

Moraine Lake

Engagement sessions are mostly a rehearsal. An hour spent getting used to being photographed together is why nobody looks stiff on the wedding day.

Laughing into his shoulder in waist-high autumn grass, ring hand up.

Broomsedge

The recessional is the loudest thirty seconds of the day and the only part nobody rehearses. Standing at the end of the aisle and staying out of the way is usually enough.

The walk back up the aisle, string lights and a painted forest behind them.

Masonic Temple

Shot on a scouting walk with no couple and no schedule. Time spent photographing places is what keeps the eye working on wedding days.

The sun dropping behind the stack, the whole beach turned to mirror.

Haystack Rock

Every timeline gets one window like this. Protecting it is the single most useful thing a photographer can ask for when the schedule is being written.

Foreheads together in the dry grass, ten minutes before the light went.

Last Light

A courthouse morning, no guests and a building that does the work for you. Small weddings are not smaller days, they are just quieter ones.

Just the two of them on the great staircase, the whole rotunda to themselves.

City Hall

Cold weather is good for photographs and hard on everybody in them. One blanket and a short walk back to the car solves most of it.

Wrapped in one tartan blanket at an overlook, cold enough to mean it.

Blanket Weather

Two days of driving between an elopement and a flight home. The getting there is usually where the quieter frames come from.

Empty road, one camper on the rise, the light doing the rest.

Ring Road

No posing to speak of. Ask people a real question, then wait for the second reaction rather than the first.

Sat in the grass by the water with the sun going down behind the trees.

Riverbank

A pre-dawn climb for one frame at the top. Couples who want to hike, fly or scramble to their ceremony will not get an argument from me.

Arms out at the top of the ridge, the lake a long way down.