Yesterday I had planned to import all my old blog posts and get this blog up and running for today, my planned go-live date.  Instead I was at doctor’s offices and then the ER all day, hoping and praying that the pain that doubled my wife over was nothing serious.  When they chose to admit her for further care, I was faced with the true reality of love and marriage.  I love her.  She is everything to me.  The prospect of losing her is too much to bear.

That is what marriage is about.  Combining our lives, combining our families.  Standing up together and saying “This is US!” to the world.

When I photograph weddings, I bring that perspective.  It’s not ‘just’ a wedding to me.  Ever.  It’s the beginning of something great, something completely unpredictable and something that two people will build together that is different from all the other things other couples have built together.  The inside jokes, the references to shared experiences, the tender moments, the joy of childbirth, the pain and desperation of serious illness and even death.  It all is born of that one act we call a wedding.

And I love it. And I love documenting it. Interpreting it. Remembering it.

While I was reviewing photos from past weddings to share on this site, I remembered fondly every couple, every mother of the bride, every shy flower girl and ring bearer, every photo that I took.  Several times I was moved to the brink of tears by the emotion in the photos.  Some forced me to laugh out loud. Still others just brought me back to the reverence that I feel for the beauty and emotion of two people committing to each other.  Committing their lives together.

So I want to thank you. All of you.  Those who have brought me into your lives, whether we’ve met yet or not.  I am grateful to do what I do for the people I do it for.

So maybe tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that I will be able to get some more pictures posted and bring in old blog posts.  Maybe next week I will get my photographer learning articles up.  Maybe I’ll clean up everything so that it’s more polished in a few days.

In the meantime, I will be with my wife.