Last week I had the honor of documenting a wedding at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. In attendance there were the bride and groom, their respective parents, the groom's brother and significant other, the officiant, the photographer (me), many beautiful trees, and countless raindrops. Luckily, the rain let up a bit for the ceremony, but other than that it poured down on us. This wedding was about as striped down as you can get, but the beauty of it wasn't lacking. It was a simple ceremony amongst the trees and amid weather that added to the naturalistic feel of the event. Having had a modest wedding myself, I certainly could appreciate its simplicity.
Before the event, for many days, I was practically glued to weather.com, checking the forecast just about every 15 minutes. Each time I looked the outlook looked bleak and more often than not bleaker than the time before. The idea of a wet wedding frightened me, especially since there was no rainy weather plan or even any possibility of one. The setting was an arboretum, therefore trees were the only cover. My photographer's anxiety (such a thing exists) was at an all time high. I imaged myself drenched finding out that the weather-sealing on my equipment was just a hoax driving up its price... luckily that wasn't the case. The weather resistance of my gear was valiantly resistant and I was able to shoot for a good hour and a half with wet camera bodies and lenses without issue.
The pictures themselves portrayed a simple story. Rain was certainly a main character and much of the tale involved a journey trudging along soaked paths as we hiked from one part of the arboretum to the other. The ceremony was short and sweet. It contained some useful information about the origin of some element or other (I really try to listen to what is being said, but most of my focus (pun intended) is on taking pictures), the history of the site itself, as well as the simplest crossword puzzle known to man. Here are some of the images that tell this tale:
