Putting the Camera Down:
Being a Bridesmaid at a Best Friend's Wedding
For the past year, I've had a camera in my hands for so many of the moments leading up to Kait and Riley's wedding.
I secretly photographed their proposal at Seton Hill. I brought my point-and-shoot along for Kait's bachelorette trip to the Delaware coast. At her bridal shower, I moved back and forth between being a bridesmaid and being the photographer friend, capturing the details and moments while also helping put everything together.
Photography has become one of the ways I show the people I love that I care about them. When something matters to someone I love, my instinct is usually to document it. I want them to have the photographs afterward. I want there to be something tangible that says, this happened, and it mattered. But when the biggest moment finally arrived, I wasn't behind the camera, I was standing beside her!
One Last Night Before the Wedding
Wedding weekend officially started Friday when I arrived at the venue and got to spend time celebrating with both sides of the wedding party before everything really began.
That night, all of the girls stayed together in the house on the venue property. There was something fun about having one last sleepover before the wedding, especially knowing how different the next morning would feel. We were no longer talking about a wedding that was months or weeks away. It was literally happening the next day.
At some point late that night, we snuck a peek at the barn where the wedding would take place. Seeing it when everything was quiet, before the guests arrived and before the celebration filled the space, felt like getting a preview of what we'd all been waiting for. Then we went back to the house knowing the alarms would be going off very early the next morning.
Wedding Morning
Saturday started early with hair, makeup, and all of the controlled chaos that comes with getting an entire bridal party ready.
One of my favorite parts of the morning was exchanging gifts. As bridesmaids, we each chose a charm for a Pandora charm bracelet for Kait and wrote a note explaining why we picked it and what it represented. I loved that the gift was something we could all contribute to individually while creating something she could keep as a reminder of the people who stood beside her that day. It was one of those small moments that probably won't be the first thing anyone thinks about when remembering the wedding, but those are often the parts I end up holding onto.
There is so much anticipation in the hours before a wedding. You're getting ready, checking the time, helping one another, laughing, taking pictures, making sure everyone has what they need, and occasionally remembering that this thing you've all been talking about for months is actually happening. And then suddenly, it's time.
This Time, I Was Just the Bridesmaid
Being at Kait and Riley's wedding without any responsibility for photographing it felt different.
I didn't take pictures. There was no shot list running through my head, no need to watch every interaction because I might miss something, and no responsibility to make sure the entire story of the day was documented. Someone else had that job, and mine was to be Kait's friend and bridesmaid.
I did end up being trusted with recording a couple of important moments. I was asked to record the first dance and the speeches, so I wasn't completely removed from documenting the day. But even that felt different. I wasn't thinking about composition, constantly moving around for another angle, or anticipating what I needed to photograph next. I was simply holding a phone and making sure a few moments Kait and Riley wanted to have afterward were recorded.
For everything else, I got to stand beside her, celebrate with her, watch her marry the love of her life, and then have an absolutely wild night celebrating afterward. I could dance, laugh, talk to people I hadn't seen in forever, and be completely immersed in everything happening around me.
After documenting so much of the journey leading up to the wedding, I think there was something fitting about that. Photography gave me a way to preserve so many of the chapters before this one. When the wedding finally came, someone else photographed it and allowed us all to simply live in the moment.
SOC 307, Together Again
One of the things that made the weekend even more meaningful had nothing to do with the wedding itself. For the first time in more than two years, all four members of our college roommate room were together again, along with our honorary fifth roommate, Tommy.
307.
Me, Kait, Marlayna, and Kayla, plus Tommy, who might not have technically lived with us but might as well have.
College friendships are strange in the best way because there was once a time when seeing each other required absolutely no planning. We lived together, and Tommy was right next door. We saw each other first thing in the morning, before bed, between classes, while getting ready, while procrastinating, and during all of the completely ordinary moments that make up college life. Then college ends, everyone moves, careers begin, schedules get complicated, and suddenly getting the same group of people into one place becomes something that can take months if not years.
One of us was getting married. One was her maid of honor. I was standing beside her as a bridesmaid. And somehow, after more than two years without all of us being together, Room 307 and its honorary member had reunited for one of the biggest days of Kait's life.
There are photographs from the wedding that I'll treasure because they're beautiful, but I think some of my favorites will simply be the ones where all of us are together again. Getting a photo of the five of us might have been completely ordinary in college. Now, it's something that took more than two years and a wedding to make happen. That's what makes those pictures mean so much more now.
A Very Wild Saturday Night
Once the ceremony and formal parts of the wedding were over, we celebrated exactly the way a wedding should be celebrated. The evening was wild, fun, loud, and filled with some moments that probably don't need to be documented in detail on my professional photography blog. Some things can stay with the people who were there.
The celebration didn't stop when the reception ended either. Once we got back to the hotel, a group of us hung out outside for a little while before eventually making our way into the lobby and breakfast area. It wasn't exactly an official after party, just a bunch of us who weren't ready for the night to end yet, sitting around, talking, laughing, and stretching the wedding day out for as long as we possibly could.
After months of planning, showers, trips, photographs, countdowns, and conversations about the wedding, it was suddenly over. So naturally, we weren't exactly in a rush to go to bed.
The Morning After
Sunday morning arrived exactly as you might expect after a wedding and hotel "after party." There was hotel breakfast. Technically. I was there. I can't say I ate much of it.
Afterward, there were still a few responsibilities waiting for us. We went back to the venue to collect everything that had been left behind and officially wrap up the weekend.
Then came one of those oddly emotional bookends to the whole experience. After not seeing Kayla for more than two years, I was the one driving her to the airport. We hadn't all been together since college life scattered us in different directions. Then suddenly we'd spent an entire wedding weekend together, and I was dropping her off to fly home. It went by incredibly fast.
From College Roommates to Wedding Days
I've been thinking a lot lately about how strange it is to watch the people you grew up with enter completely new chapters of their lives. College feels both incredibly recent and incredibly far away. There was a time when Kait and I were simply roommates figuring out classes, friendships, careers, and whatever else came with that stage of life. Years later, I was standing beside her while she got married.
I've had the privilege of documenting so much of the journey that brought us here. I photographed the moment Riley proposed. I documented pieces of the bachelorette weekend. I photographed the bridal shower. Through all of those experiences, I've written about how meaningful it is to use photography to preserve memories for people I already love. I've said before that it's been one of the greatest privileges of my photography journey to document so many chapters of someone's life that I'd be celebrating even if I never picked up my camera.
I've spent years learning when to pick up my camera. Photography has taught me to notice moments, preserve them, and recognize when something deserves to be remembered. Maybe part of growing as a photographer is also learning when to put it down. This weekend, I got to make the memories instead!